Alyssa. The time of her call isn't all that unusual; she often calls me through the night if she can't sleep, or her schedule is out of the ordinary for that week, for whatever reason. Work.
Partying.
Just sheer for-the-hell of it communications.
Uncontrollably, my gaze flicks up at Adam before I answer.
"You require privacy?" he teases, but the darkening in his eyes tells me this is a real concern for him. I shake my head no.
Neither of us spoke of other lovers, commitments we may have had elsewhere. He doesn't know for sure I'm perpetually single, and for all I know, he could have let me fuck him just as a bit of fun. For old time's sake. He could have a boyfriend somewhere that I don't know about.
God, I hope that's true.
God, I hope it isn't.
I hit the green answer button. "Hey."
"Hey, you; how's it going? Just thought I'd give you a call and see how things are going."
"You certainly sound much better. And have you been drinking?"
" O f course I've been drinking. It's two o'clock in the morning on a weekend night."
"Should you be? I mean, if you're on antibiotics?"
"Antibiotics?"
Adam stage-whispers.
"You're consorting with diseased people now?"
"Oh, fuck you," I blurt out. "No! Not you, Alys. I was talking to someone else."
"You have company?"
"Uh, kind of. Yes and no." I honestly don't know whether or not to describe Adam as company. But thank God for Alyssa and her exquisite timing. Now I don't have to deal with his confusing flirting and overtly sexual talk. At least for the duration of this phone call. So I decide to drag it out for as long as possible.
"Nathan Stephenson, is there something you want to tell me?"
"No, it's---Will you leave that alone?"
Adam's picked a book off the shelf and flicks through it while I'm on the phone, but I don't want him touching anything while I talk to Alyssa.
Selfish of me, perhaps, to expect him to do absolutely nothing while I chat to a friend and gather my thoughts, but I've earned the right to be.
"Who are you talking to?" Alyssa asks, and my head nearly explodes with the stress of trying to carry on two conversations at once, with two people who don't know each other. At least, I'm half-having a conversation with Alyssa. Adam?
I'm just trying to keep him in line, a task which usually takes one hundred percent of any man's concentration.
"Um, no one."
"You can't get away with lying to me. I know you have someone there, and you can't be pumping him, or you wouldn't have answered the phone."
"Pumping? Good God, Alyssa; how much have you had to drink? And what makes you think it's a him?"
"Because I'm psychic."
"You are not."
"Okay; I just know you too well. Is it a boyfriend? Do you have a boyfriend? I can't believe it; Nathan Stephenson's only gone and got himself a---"
"I do not have a bloody boyfriend!" I look across the room at Adam, who stops his relentless touching, rearranging, inspecting, to raise his eyebrows at me, lips twitching in amusement.
Well, that's pretty much advertised my single state, and if he, too, has no other romantic entanglements, that means we're both free, and he can go right back to smothering me. I'm not even entirely sure that he'd see a lover on my part as any sort of obstacle, regardless. We have slept together, after all. Several times. Better proof of a long-lasting mutual attraction, I could not invent.
"If you're busy, I won't bother coming round, then." Even over the phone, Alyssa's pout is still detectable.
"No, it's not that I don't..." I glance at Adam, who's still giving me the majority of his attention, and lower my voice. "...I mean, I'm occupied."
He'll hear, anyway. He's got hearing like a bat.
Being dead does rather sharpen one's senses. Or maybe it's just a case of, over the years, we become better at reading people. As ex-members of the human race, we can be predators of it, but also observers. We have all the time in the world.
"Just a whistle-stop, I promise. I was going to come round and sober up with a mug of tea, if you had any in your kitchen, but if you have company, I'm curious. I admit it. Well, be round soon. I'm in the taxi."
"Wait, Alyssa---"
She hangs up.
"Bloody humans," I mutter and throw the phone onto my coffee table. Calling her back won't do any fucking good; she'd ignore me and override my wishes anyway. Especially when she's got a drink on her.
"A human calling you at this time of night?"
"She knows I'll be awake."
"Friend of yours, is she?" Adam runs a fingertip along the mantel shelf, and I almost ask him if he'd like to don a pair of white gloves to give my home a proper inspection.
"Yes; I've known her for a couple of years."
"Human, you say? Mortal, then?"
"Yes." I wonder where this is going.
"Hmm." He turns on his heels, shrugging, as if the conversation doesn't mean a thing. "Most of my associates are undead."
"You have many?"
"A few. Not a lot. Mortals? I use them."
Uncontrollably, I shudder. And he notices.
"No, not like that. Good God, man; what do you take me for? Don't answer that. I know you're judging me by my seventy-years-ago standards. When I talk about using mortals, I mean for sex. Consensually so, I hasten to add. Sometimes, I drink from them, of course I do. Don't tell me you don't."
"We have to. It'd be like me telling Alyssa not to breathe oxygen."
"Exactly. And Alyssa? A girl's name? You associate with females now?"
"I'm gay, Adam. Not a misogynist."
"Quite. Is that so you don't get overcome with lust and have to give her a good seeing-to?"
I grimace. "For goodness' sake---she's my friend."
"Oh, I know that. I appreciate it. But you'll admit to me you're gay." Adam reaches round, runs a hand over
