My Roommate Is a Vampire(41)

His shoulders slumped, making him look so sad my heart ached. The enormity of what he faced, what he was trying to do—and everything he had lost over the long centuries of his life—hung unspoken and heavy in the air between us.

“I’ll do what I can to help.” My words, the offer I was making, felt inadequate. Too small.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, a quiet smolder in them that hadn’t been there before.

“I know you will.” A beat. “Will you show me your Instagram account?”

I blinked at him. “What did you say?”

He frowned. “Did you not hear me?”

“I heard you. I’m just surprised.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t think you wanted to look at Instagram.”

“I don’t want to look at Sam’s breakfasts on Instagram,” he corrected. “But if it’s so important I learn about social media and the internet I would at least like to see something interesting.”

I hesitated.

“My account’s boring.”

“I am certain it’s not.”

“Instagram has zillions of hilarious cat reels,” I hedged, my cheeks going hot. “Let’s look at one of those.”

I leaned forward to click on one of my favorite cat accounts. The inside of my arm brushed up against his forearm in the process, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine. I closed my eyes against the unexpected rush of sensation that coursed through me, just from that.

“Cassie.”

Tentatively, he placed one of his hands on top of mine, stopping my scrolling—and my breathing—instantly. His hand was cool, his palm smooth against my knuckles. I glanced down at our hands, marveling at the contrast between them as I fought to steady my breathing. Warm, and cool. Small, and large. Tanned, and pale.

It was the first time he had ever intentionally touched me. This seemed to occur to him in the same moment it occurred to me, and it surprised him just as much. His eyes widened, pupils dilating as he regarded me.

It took an embarrassing amount of willpower not to twine our fingers together, just to see what that would look like, too.

“Please stop distracting me.”

Frederick’s voice was at my ear, tickling the little hairs at my nape, causing my forearms to erupt in a riot of gooseflesh.

I swallowed, trying to focus on the cat on my laptop screen. The kitty was cute, and really good at snowboarding. He deserved my full attention.

“Distracting you?” I breathed. I could barely hear my voice over the rush of blood in my ears.

“Yes.” Frederick removed his hand from mine. I tried to tamp down an irrational wave of disappointment at the loss of contact. “I want to see your Instagram account. You are trying to distract me with cats.”

I took a deep, steadying breath, and chanced a glance at his face. His eyes sparkled with amusement.

“It’s not working?” I managed.

“No. I like cats well enough. But I have seen cats before. I have never seen your page.” And then, almost as an afterthought, he added: “Please show it to me.”

Did vampires have magical powers that made humans want to do their bidding or something? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was one moment I was about to tell him that while he may have seen cats before, there was no way he’d seen one snowboard—and the next I was loading up my Instagram, just like he’d asked me to.

Maybe it wasn’t magical power at all. Perhaps it was the lingering effects of how it had felt, having his hand on mine.

I blinked up at the monitor, and at the goofy selfie from five years ago that served as my profile picture.

I cleared my throat. “Here it is.”

He hummed in appreciation. “How do I look through the pictures?”

“Like this,” I said, showing him how to scroll through. “I mostly post things I’ve made, but it isn’t a true art account because there are also selfies and pictures of friends mixed in.”

“Selfies?”

“Oh.” Of course he wouldn’t know that word. “Selfies are pictures you take of yourself.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Self-ies.”

He figured out how to maneuver through the photos on my Instagram quickly enough. He looked at the pictures I’d taken in Saugatuck of me, Sam, and Scott, our arms around each other as we smiled up at the camera. He took in pictures of the beach trash I’d collected to make the canvases in my bedroom—and the pictures of me, grinning like a proud fool in pigtails and flip-flops, standing in front of it.

Frederick went through the pictures, looking at each one with mild interest.

Until, that is, he came to a picture Sam had taken the last day of our vacation: me, on the one day that entire week that could have been accurately described as hot, wearing the only bikini I owned. It was bright pink, the bottoms covered in white daisies.

It wasn’t anything special.

As far as bikinis went it wasn’t even all that revealing.

Frederick paused his scrolling. His eyes widened, his free hand clenching into a tight fist at his side.

He looked like he was about to have an embolism. Or whatever the vampire equivalent of an embolism was.

He pointed a shaking finger at the picture.

“What are you wearing?” His jaw was clenched, the tendons of his neck standing out in sharp relief.