Once Bitten, No Longer Shy by Julie Steimle (chrome ebook reader txt) 📕

and it was still the same old Troy he ever saw… with vampire characteristics, of course. Not sparkly vampire, but pale as death.

But he could not be turned from his idea. This apartment was a pit in comparison to his place. It seemed only a bit bigger than Matthew’s apartment, which had housed only him. This one was crammed wall to wall with tons of stuff—most of it like the contents of a storage container, including the living room, which had two large sofas, one old TV and lots of posters on the walls which had no common theme. Laundry was hanging here and there on poles and door knobs. Oddly, it put to mind Hanz and what he had said about his apartment. How small had Hanz’s apartment been? This small? Smaller? He said it was a loft, so definitely smaller. But was it this crammed? And how much did this one cost? It was New York City after all. Clearly these women were splitting the rent. He wondered how many lived there.

“Maybe we could find a way to sell the lease,” Troy said, peering around. “You know I know people.”

Turning, hearing him, Nicole nodded, eyes wider. She said to her roommate, “He knows H. Richard Deacon. The Deacons own his apartment.”

“I think they own the block,” Troy muttered, wishing Rick would stay out of the argument. He then sighed, kissing Nicole on the cheek. “What’s your schedule like for the rest of the week?”

She shrugged, thinking a moment. “Well, I actually have closing shift for the rest of this week.”

Troy’s eyes widened on her. “What? No. You should negotiate for day shift. You know because of what happened to Brandon that—”

“He knows about you and Brandon?” one of her roommates hissed, cutting in.

Nicole rolled her eyes with the dirtiest looks on her.

“Brandon is dead,” Troy said pointedly to the roommate.

They gasped, horrified.

“He got attacked earlier this week and was killed.” Troy then looked to Nicole. “Didn’t you tell them about it?”

Their eyes set on Nicole who had closed her eyes and shook her head.

“I was trying to forget it,” she murmured with pain.

Groaning, Troy reached out for her and pulled her close. However, the heartbeats of the others in the room sped up with severe panic. The tone in the room had solidly shifted. A secret was being kept. Was it about Brandon? He knew they were judging her, of course. But also him.

“Don’t worry. Matthew will find the culprit,” he said, mostly for their benefit, though also hers.

Nicole’s heart slowed down. He could tell that gave her peace. But the others remained tense.

“Matthew?” one of the roommates said, interest piqued but not for the reason Troy had initially thought.

“He’s also friends with cops,” Nicole said, pulling away slightly with another dirty look on that roommate.

Her roommates exchanged more exited looks, however, and their hearts changed to a more enthusiastic rhythm. Apparently they liked men in uniform, with no stigma against the police. And they were hormonal.

“Well, I suppose I should go,” Troy announce, reluctantly letting go of her and stepping back. “Let you get ready for work.”

 “What do you have planned for the rest of the day?” Nicole ran fingers over his chest, playing with his buttons as if she wanted to undo them, but they were being watched.

He shrugged. “Well, the other day I realized I should at least put my research into a publishable format. One of my friends said he and his colleagues were already using some of it. So I might as well put out consumable volumes and get paid for what I have done.”

“Smart move.” Nicole smiled at him and kissed him on the nose. “Maybe one day you will be famous.”

Troy laughed, shaking his head. That was doubtful. How many people outside the kooks and the SRA would buy his books? Maybe the police dealing with vampires. FBI? “I’m not aiming for that. But my research should not be wasted.”

“What is your research?” one of her roommates asked, sizing him up again. She seemed, oddly, the kind of girl who flirted with other girls’ guys. Dangerous. He didn’t like that.

“Vampires,” Troy said off-handed. But then he laughed when he saw her expression, especially considering his appearance. “I’m a student studying Pathology and Pharmacology, but this also lends to research into Medicine within Occult folklore. So yes, I am studying historical vampires and all that is connected to them.”

Her roommates relaxed, taking his vampire remark as a joke. Good. Normal people did not need to know they were real. Belief in the supernatural usually led to contact with the supernatural. The supernatural world was not seeking to be discovered.

Nicole kissed him, whispering in his ear, “You tease.”

“Do you want me to pick you up from work?” He whispered back.

She smiled, nodding. “Please do.”

He walked out, waving. She went to her room, to change clothes.

Troy was nearly walking on air when he left her apartment building, going down the steps almost in hops. Tom would have floated down them, and through them, not caring who saw. Today he wished he were Tom. He felt that good.

He was halfway down the road when Nicole’s roommate caught up with him, breathless, calling out to him. It was the one who kept asking about rent and had eyed his crotch a lot—a gal with froofy salt-and-pepper hair and freckles. “Hey! Nicole’s guy! Troy!”

He turned, and stopped. “Yes?”

“First I…” She shook her fluffy head, her gray eyes worried, or at least appearing so. A lot of girls, he realized, were all show. She seemed one of them, especially in her revealing tank top that exposed her bra straps and ample, fluffy cleavage. “You need to know something about Nicole if you really are intending to have her move in with you.”

He leaned back, wondering what kind of sabotage her roommate had planned. Her heart was certainly pounding, but that was most likely from her running. And yet, she did seem worried, almost scared. And scared for him. He wondered again if it was true or just a show. He got the strong impression that Nicole’s roommates were like that, good at pretending things. Saboteurs. Backstabbers. Randon’s wife Silvia had explained this female type when she had wanted to size up Nicole—for his sake. She said this kind of woman was unfortunately common among city feminists, which was why women were the best witches, according to her. And being a witch, she knew it was so. Of course, there were two kinds of witches.

“Nicole is… Oh come on, if you know about her and Brandon, then you must know about her other men,” she said with a tone of scandal, measuring his reaction with her eyes.

Troy rolled his eyes, nodding. “I know all about her other men.”

Nicole’s roommate stared, mildly shocked. She seemed to think, choosing another tack.

“She needs to see a shrink,” the woman tried again, looking openly desperate. “I mean she’s a nympho—”

He nodded.

Her eyes widened.

He raised his eyebrows, saying with them ‘Duh. Of course I know. We’re having lots of sex.’

“She’s mentally erratic—not just a nymphomaniac,” she squeezed out, almost sweating.

Troy snorted, chuckling. How desperate was her roommate? What was her intent, anyway? He didn’t find tearing down his girlfriend flattering at all. It was insulting, really.

“Ok, so you think this is funny?” she said with a dirtier look on him. “I guess because you enjoy ‘banging’ her a lot, you have no reason to complain, right? But she doesn’t actually work enough to pay her share of the rent.”

Back to the rent again? Ok. At least that was a more solid roommate argument.

“I’m sorry about that.” He shrugged. “But I’m not paying rent either. My apartment is sort of a donation to my research. So she won’t have to worry about rent if she moves in with me. No problem with that.”

Nicole’s roommate stared at him. She appeared half devastated, yet almost entirely envious. “What? Really?”

Troy nodded, realizing that he genuinely had a great deal. “Yeah. And if you are worried about her share of the rent, I might be able to finagle it that her rent gets paid until her contract is out. I have to talk to a few people, but I think I can work it.”

She pulled back, amazed, and even more jealous. “Then you really do know the wealthy CEO. H. Richard Deacon the Third?”

Cringing, Troy nodded at that as well. “Old high school friends—and he’d not CEO yet.”

Nodding to herself, the roommate thought for quick second, then gave it one more try. “You know she thinks she was bitten by a vampire, right?”

This time he laughed loudly, nodding. “How do you think I met her?”

She paled. Then with a loud exhale, she nodded to herself, defeated. “Researching vampires….”

Grinning, yet not showing his teeth, he nodded.

Then he turned to go, sure their conversation was done.

Yet with one eye closed, she said to him, angling as if to go home also, “She brags about your, uh… male stamina, you know. Admittedly, I kind of wanted some. But you suck, because you actually like her.”

Heavily hanging his shoulders, Troy rolled his eyes back to her. He waved, leaving, “Nice to meet you.”

She laughed almost snidely, shaking her head as she went back, almost strutting to show him what he just missed.

As he walked to the subway, Troy was amazed that yet another woman saw him as attractive. It brought back to mind something Matthew had said… that he was simply blind to those around him. Was he? If so, how bad was that?

*

The rest of his day was mostly filled with editing and formatting of his research on his computer, as he had said. And when he picked Nicole up at closing time for the mall, she talked with him about the best strategy to negotiate better shifts so she did not have to walk alone at night and he did not need to escort her… no matter how romantic it was to be with him under the moonlight.

As they walked home, then took a subway, kissing when they could, Nicole informed him that she would not be able to see him at all Saturday due to a full shift, but she would come by to see him in the evening. She said, “I keep thinking…. Can you really make it so I can get out of my contract at my apartment?”

“I might be able to arrange it,” Troy thought over it out loud. “You know I know people. If anything, if I can’t get the money, we can find someone to sell your contract to.”

She nodded. “True.”

They walked hand in hand from the subway, but Troy noticed a familiar hybrid car on the curb. He inwardly groaned.

“What is it?” she asked, looking around.

Gazing up at the brownstone building, he said, “I think we have company tonight.”

She hugged him tighter. “It’s ok. At least they didn’t come in when we were having sex this morning.”

He laughed. He could not help it. It would have been embarrassing. And thinking on it, he recalled a story Randon once told him of when they—meaning Randon, Tom, and Matthew—had barged into the hotel room where Rick was in the middle of wolfy ‘love’ with the infamous Daisy. Troy mildly wondered if Rick was still addicted to Daisy even now.

When they got all the way up to the apartment, the door was locked. But then Rick would lock doors. It was how he rolled, always paranoid. Unlocking and entering, Troy let Nicole in where jazz was playing loudly and Bobo was singing along while cooking dinner with Rick—and others. Nicole’s eyes rested on the crowd and for a second she sniffed the air as if detecting a damp dog smell.

Troy sniffed the air also. There was sort of a doggish odor in the room. Then he saw Rick’s hair was wet.

“You came to use the shower?” Troy stepped in, watching the group turn upon seeing him. He recognized those from Green Club who almost flinched at the