Vampire University (Book One in the Vampire University Series) (7 page)

She also reminded herself that they were close enough to the dorms that someone would hear her screams and then chastised herself for even thinking such a thought. Eric consistently disproved Hannah’s apparent distrust of him and she felt that she needed to start giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Eric sat down and patted on the seat beside him in invitation to Taylor. She sat down next to him without hesitation. He pulled out a bottle of water and handed it to her.

“I had no idea what you like, so I tried to keep it basic. So basically you get bread and water. Prison food!” he said, clearly proud of it.

“Eat a lot of prison food?” asked Taylor.

“Only if you count all the pizza here."

Relax, Taylor told herself. Whatever his deal was, he was not a criminal.

Eric took an enormous bite out of his sub, leaving strands of shredded lettuce hanging out of the corner of his mouth. He slurped up the lettuce like spaghetti. Everything Eric did had a boyish quality to it, Taylor thought. From the way he ate to his always askew hair, he had an almost innocent lack of self-awareness that Taylor appreciated. She found Joseph and Hannah’s warnings even less convincing the more time she spent with him.

“So, only one more day of fun before classes start, right?” Taylor asked.

“You mean one more day of Addison until the fun starts, right?”

“I could do with less of her, yeah, but I’m not looking forward to homework.”

“Eh, homework,” Eric said, waving his hand dismissively.

“I think you’re going to need to do a little homework if you’re a science major."

“Good thing you’re taking the same classes then, huh? We could be study buddies!”

“We could," she said. "I wouldn’t have pegged you as the science-y type. Why did you pick that?”

“I want to be a doctor. I like to help people. How about you? Why biology?”

“I'm kind of a big nerd for figuring out how everything fits together. You know, plants, animals, people. Evolution especially. It's all just really fascinating to me," she said.

Eric laughed at this.

“I didn’t expect you to be the nerdy type," he said.

“Well I guess we both have a few surprises up our sleeves."

Eric nodded in agreement.

“Indeed,” he said with a grin.

—
-

Joseph returned from his visit to Taylor and Hannah's dorm to find Hannah standing in front of his room waiting for him. Her arms were folded across her chest and she was tapping her foot restlessly.

“Do you know where our roommates are?” she asked before he could acknowledge her.

“Hello,” he said, ignoring the question. “Care to come in?”

He opened the door for Hannah and she stomped past him without a word. He shut the door behind them. Neither of them made any pretense of getting comfortable.

“So?” Hannah asked.

“Eric said he was going down to the bookstore.”

“And why on earth do you think Eric would go to a bookstore?”

“Good point. Where’s yours?”

“She was dressed up to meet Eric. Unless there’s a dress code at the bookstore, I’m guessing that’s not where they went.”

Joseph’s face darkened.

“Obviously not. I thought you warned her about him,” he said.

“I did, but obviously she didn’t listen."

“But she said you told her he was a vampire. That didn't faze her?”

“She said WHAT?”

Joseph immediately realized his mistake.

“Well, I guess
I
told her that he was a vampire, actually,” Joseph admitted sheepishly.

“You WHAT?” Hannah exclaimed, even louder.

“Well, I mean, she took it totally fine.”

“She probably didn’t believe you. Would you believe you?” Hannah asked, jabbing her index finger at his chest.

“Yes...?”

“No you wouldn’t. And now you’ve gone and made it worse."

“How is that? If she doesn’t believe me, she's not any more or less equipped to deal with him than she was before, right?”

Hannah rolled her eyes but didn't argue.

“Besides," he continued, "she seems to be immune to his... charms, in any case. Which is why, of course, he's so obsessed with her. If she wasn’t already the exception to that rule, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Right. Blame the victim."

“I’m not blaming anyone,” Joseph insisted. “I’m just saying that this is uncharted territory here.”

“Well, I’m going to go ahead and blame the two of you. If you two would just follow the rules and not eat where you sleep, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation either.”

“Don’t you ‘you two’ me,” Joseph said with a hint of anger in his voice. “I know the rules and if you haven’t noticed, have spent the past two days trying to get him to follow them. I am not his sire. I’m already doing my fair share.”

“Well apparently it isn’t enough because now he’s off who-knows-where working on his seduction technique.”

“Look, why is this a problem?” Joseph asked. “I know the rules, but he’s not going to kill her. He doesn’t do that. And he won’t get caught. He doesn’t do that either.”

“Those are the famous last words of every vampire who has accidentally killed a victim.”
             

“Well, there’s always a risk.”

“Which is why you don’t EAT WHERE YOU SLEEP,” she said, exasperated. “Look, you bend all the rules you want, but you’re not doing it on my roommate. I’m just NOT HAVING IT.”

"What are we going to do, then?"

"What can we do? They could be anywhere in this stupid city. Do you know where he might have taken her?"

“No clue," he said. "Look, he won't hurt her. He's not that kind of guy."

"You'd better hope you're right about that. I will be pissed off if anything happens to her. And you do not want to see me pissed off, trust me."

"So you're not pissed off now?"

"Hon, you haven't seen the half of it."

"Got it. Well then, I'm going to go see if I can find him."

"You do that."

—
-

Taylor took a few bites from her sub and set it down. It tasted fine, but she always found herself too distracted to eat in these situations. Besides, Eric didn’t seem to be particularly interested in his food either. He took one bite out of his sandwich and set the rest down untouched.

They talked about their time on campus so far, but they avoided the topics of Joseph and Hannah. Eric seemed to find humor in everything, even Addison. When Taylor asked him if he was really going to try to get Addison in trouble, he insisted that he was just “goofing” with her. “Goofing” struck Taylor as an accurate way of describing Eric’s outlook generally.

She didn’t want to put Eric on the spot or get involved in family affairs, but he was easy to talk to and fun to be with, so Taylor was beginning to feel that maybe it was okay to be a little intrusive. Certainly his brother felt no qualms about getting in her business. Turnabout, she reasoned, was fair play.

Feeling emboldened, she asked, perhaps more bluntly than she intended, “So why doesn’t Joseph like me?”

“Who says Joseph doesn’t like you?” he replied.

“Joseph, mostly.”

“I doubt he said that. Joseph likes everybody. He’s weird that way."

“I’ll give you weird, but if he likes everyone, he’s got a funny way of showing it.”

Eric chuckled at this.

“Well, he likes everyone but me, but that’s a given, right?” he said.

“Why is that a given?”

“We’re brothers. We love each other, but we don’t like each other."

Taylor thought about her own brother and wasn’t sure she agreed with the sentiment. She liked
and
loved her brother. Still, Taylor was beginning to feel confident that Joseph’s unusual behavior really was just sibling rivalry. She was not the problem, or at least not her specifically. She could be anyone and Joseph would still be overbearing because maybe that’s just the relationship that Eric and Joseph had.

“But enough about him,” said Eric. “Every time I try to pay attention to you, somehow he becomes the center of attention.”

“Sorry...” Taylor began, but Eric cut her off.

“Don’t apologize,” he said. “I just want you to be the center of attention for a change.”

Taylor didn’t think that would make for much of a change; she already felt like all eyes were on her since the moment she arrived on campus. Still, she was flattered. She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks and she pretended to turn to look at something off in the distance to hide her blushing.

Eric reached over and softly hooked his index finger under her chin, guiding her back to face him. His touch was surprisingly gentle and Taylor immediately forgot any sense of self-consciousness. Those sky blue eyes were mesmerizing and the light dancing across the surface of the pond reflected in
them
.

“You’re very pretty, you know that?” said Eric.

“Pretty average,” Taylor replied, inviting him to argue with her.

“No,” he said firmly, “pretty pretty.”

“Okay, pretty pretty then."

They were both silent for a moment and then Eric began to lightly trace the back of his fingernail from the tip of her chin to the underside. Taylor shivered as his finger reached the top of her neck.

“It’s a beautiful evening,” he said softly.

“Mmm hmm,” was all Taylor could muster.

Eric continued to trace his finger down her neck and Taylor could feel warm tingles bursting from every pore of her body. He reached her collar bone and stopped to look into her eyes. Self conscious, she turned her head to slightly to the side, but did not look away from him.

After lingering a moment, he began to trace his finger down further. Taylor reached up and placed her hand on his to stop him. She told herself it was just because they were out in the open, but regardless she was not ready for his tender touch to turn more intimate.
             

Eric looked disappointed, but only for a brief second. He took her hand in his and moved it to her knee where his hand lingered as well, gently placed on top of hers.

“Would you like to go somewhere more private?” he asked her.

Taylor considered agreeing for a moment, but her doubts over the past couple of days crept up in her mind. Besides her assurance to Hannah that she would stay out in the open with Eric, she wasn’t sure she was ready for where he seemed to want to take this.

“But it’s so nice out, isn’t it?” she said, dodging the question.

Eric held her hand with both of his han
ds and looked earnestly into her
eyes.

“C’mon, I just want to talk,” he said softly.

Taylor regarded this statement with suspicion. Clearly he wanted more and she wasn’t sure that she was ready for that, having only met him yesterday.

“We were talking,” she said, feeling herself become a little defensive.

Eric kept staring directly into her eyes. Taylor noticed the same dark shadows pass across his eyes that she had seen when she first met him. She did not turn to look to see what was casting the reflection this time, however.

“I just mean that it would be nice to get more comfortable,” he said.

“Like naked?” she asked.

“If you like,” he replied with a devious smile.

“I don’t like. Not on the first date."

His forehead furrowed and he tightened his grip on her hands.

“I mean it.” he said, his face growing dark. “We should go somewhere else.”

As he said this his voice had an edge to it, one of frustration, nearly anger.

“And I mean it,” Taylor replied, matching his tone. “Not on the first date.”

She pulled her hands from out of his grip. The shadows in his eyes were racing. She wondered what could be causing this reflection, but was afraid to turn away from him.

He raised his voice again, this time, nearly a yell.

“You WILL come with me!” he demanded.

“I WILL not!” she replied with the same force while quickly standing.

Eric just sat there looking furious, his hands shaking. Suddenly any affection Taylor had for him vanished. Joseph and Hannah were right, she decided. This boy was trouble and she wanted very much to get away from him.

She turned and walked a few paces towards the dorms and then stopped to look back at him. She was about to say something
—
good bye, good riddance, she wasn’t sure what
—
but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead he had his head down and was muttering to himself angrily. Taylor decided against interrupting and kept walking.

Eric made no effort to follow.

-7-

Taylor pushed open the door and immediately Hannah stood up and came to meet her. Taylor realized that she looked visibly upset but she didn’t have the strength to hide it. She felt sheepish admitting that Hannah was right.