Why had he mentioned it, this memory that brought her pain?
“He died the day before our original wedding date. He was so upset we had to change it, but I told him it was okay. We’d get married after he got better.” She grew quiet, lost in the past.
“But you knew he wasn’t going to get better.”
She nodded. “He couldn’t see what I did, that the disease was ravaging his body. But it was important to let him believe he’d get better. He was always such a positive person, and I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing that die, too.”
“I’m sorry, Livvi.”
She looked up at him with a confused expression. “What did you call me?”
He had to think about it for a minute. “Livvi.”
“No one has ever called me that. Liv, yes, but not Livvi.”
“I won’t if you don’t like it. I didn’t even think about it, but it fits you.”
“No, I like it.” She smiled a little, and it made his unbeating heart swell. He could sit here and just look at her all night. Each time she smiled, it transformed her from beautiful to breathtaking. He wanted to tell her that but kept his mouth closed. No matter how open-minded she was becoming, he doubted she wanted to hear such a thing from a vampire.
“You and Jeremy, you were together a long time?” He didn’t really want to know the answer, but he remembered Sophia’s words. He and Olivia could never be more, but they might be able to be friends. He hadn’t realized until that moment what having a friend who was still human would mean to him. He felt an unusual ease with her, as if he could say things he could never share with his team. Things he’d never realized he wanted to share.
“Only a year. It was one of those things where you just know it’s right almost from the moment you meet.”
Campbell forced down the thought that he knew exactly what she was talking about. He and Olivia, that wasn’t right at all, no matter how much he might like to see if it could be otherwise.
“For a long time, I couldn’t believe he was gone,” she said. “I kept thinking I’d wake up and it would have all been a long horrible dream.” She clasped her hands together in her lap, making him wish he could reach through the doorway and hold them in his own. But that invisible barrier of nonconsent was stronger than steel and concrete as far as he was concerned.
“The day after he died, I sat on my couch with my wedding dress in my arms and stared out the window for hours. Part of me wonders if I wouldn’t still be sitting there if Mindy hadn’t forced me back into the land of the living. So I hung my wedding dress in my closet, unable to give it up. I know this sounds silly, but I still take it out sometimes and stand in front of the mirror with it. Imagine what my life would have been like if the pandemic had never happened.”
His heart broke for her. “I don’t think it’s silly at all. After my parents died, I thought everyone was lying to me, that Mom and Dad were going to walk in and tell me it’d all been a misunderstanding. But they never did.”
“But one day you realized that they were really gone and not coming back,” she said, verbalizing like no one ever had how it had felt.
“I can’t even remember when their deaths went from being impossible to reality.” He picked at the chipped paint on the balcony railing. “Sometimes I’m glad they’re not here. They didn’t have to see what I became, what the world turned into.”
She didn’t give him false assurances that they would have been okay with his turning, and he was thankful for that.
“Listen to us,” she said with a little half laugh. “We’re beginning to sound like a therapy session.”
“Nobody’d believe it even if they saw it with their own eyes.”
She glanced at him before lowering her gaze to where she was now picking at a cuticle on her thumb. “It’s nice, isn’t it? Talking like this.”
He hesitated for a moment. “Yeah.” It was more than nice, but he kept the extra feelings, ones he didn’t quite understand or trust, to himself. He didn’t think it was the vampire within him trying to cultivate a food source, but even after the years he’d lived as a creature of the night he wasn’t sure he fully understood that side of himself.
Whatever the reason, being near Olivia calmed the edge that was his constant companion while also exciting the man who still existed within the vampire. He imagined lying next to her, doing nothing but feeling her warmth soak into him. He longed to be human more than he had in a long time. Wished he could go back, undo so many things.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, no doubt the team wondering where in the hell he was and if he planned to work tonight. He looked at the display and noticed it was Colin calling. “Excuse me. Duty calls.”
“No problem,” Olivia said. She stood and headed toward the little apartment kitchen.
He barely kept himself from calling her back. Instead he put the phone up to his ear and stared out across the surrounding neighborhood. “Yeah?” he said in answer.
“Are you babysitting diner babe?”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Oh, touchy.”
“Did you have an actual reason for calling?”
“We just ran into your buddy Rico. He said he might be onto something and that he’d let you know soon.”
“He say what?” Campbell asked.
“We weren’t exactly in a spot where he could talk freely and not seal his fate for being a snitch.”
“Where are you?”
“Blood bank. Kaja was getting snappy, and Len threatened to toss her out of the back of the truck if she bit his head off one more time.”
“Where are you headed next?”
“As soon as she’s done feeding, Kaja is going to get all dolled up and work the crowd at the new club in Tribeca, some swanky place. Travis is going with her. Word is it might be Nefari owned. Puppy’s going to the skate park, see what the other puppies are saying. Rest of us are patrolling.”
Campbell glanced at Olivia’s back where she stood at her sink, drinking a glass of water. He imagined stepping up behind her, nuzzling her neck, nibbling her ear, leading her to bed.
“Hello, you still there?” Colin said.
“Yeah. I’ve got a couple of places I want to check out. I’ll meet you guys back at the cave in the morning.”
“You okay, man?”
“Yeah. Good.”
Colin was silent for several beats, enough to drag Campbell’s attention away from Olivia.
“Whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re thinking, just remember there’s more at stake than your undead life if you make a mistake,” Colin said.
“I know.”
Which was exactly why he needed to get off this balcony and stay away. But despite what his common sense was telling him to do, he didn’t move. After hanging up the phone, he sat and waited for Olivia to return to her seat, to where he could talk to her, watch her graceful movements and imagine he wasn’t her worst nightmare.
* * *
Olivia knew she needed to go to sleep or she’d be dead on her feet the next day, but she couldn’t find the strength to end the conversation with Campbell. Sitting and talking to him made the night not seem so long or lonely. She realized that she’d been fooling herself for a long time, telling herself that she was fine living alone, that she had plenty of enjoyable things to fill her time. So many good books to read, movies to watch, sweaters to knit for the same people to whom she delivered meals.
But it’d all been a lie. She did enjoy those things, but they also were a way to trick herself into believing she wasn’t desperately lonely. Not lonely for friends but for romance, for someone to hold her, for love.
