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Humans thrived in the daylight.

Everything about our very natures clashed.

I climbed out of the car, shoulders weighted, and ducked right into the blacked-out tunnel leading to a side entrance.

“Dude!”

Great.

The Bloods & Spuds vampire.

“Hello.”

“Sweet cheeks,” the blond vampire said, curling the human at his side tighter into his body. “This is Silas. From The Midnight Frequency.”

“Oh, no way! I love your show. I can’t wait to hear you talk live with Madison.”

“You’re dating a human?” I asked, suddenly willing to spare the vampire a few minutes.

“Yeah, man. Five years.”

“Five?”

“I know what you’re thinking,” the woman said.

“I doubt it.”

“Why hasn’t he turned me yet?”

“That was not what I was thinking.”

The woman continued on like I hadn’t spoken. “My sweet little fangy boy here likes older women. So we decided to wait five more years. Then lock me in at my ultimate thirty-year-old prime.”

“Older women,” I repeated. “He is three hundred.”

“That’s just a number.”

“I can assure you, it is more than a number.”

The woman’s brow arched up at that. “Maybe you just think that because you’re cold and cynical and loveless. Come on, baby. I don’t want him brushing off on you.”

The vampire threw a ‘what can you do’ shrug at me before being led inside.

I walked in behind them, watching the way they clung to each other, how they shared smiles and knowing glances.

I could see wanting five years of that.

An eternity of that.

If such a thing was possible.

“Silas,” a familiar voice called. That swelling sensation spread through my chest just hearing her. “If you’re done brooding, there’s work to do.”

My lips curved up as I found her standing behind a table while Tess and Margo stood a few feet away, taking kissy-faced selfies near the life-sized cardboard cutouts of them.

“I thought I was here purely as talent,” I said as I walked up the table.

“Yes, well, you’re not so talented that I can’t put you to work. Besides, you’re the reason I was late. So pick up those boxes.”