“If you want to do this... if this is something you’re considering...” Dan swallowed, and it seemed to be a great effort for him to get the words out. “Just, let me help you, okay? I promise I won’t keep secrets from you, and I’ll try not to let my bias affect your decision. I just want to make sure you’re safe, that’s all. I know my word isn’t worth much to you now, but I’m giving it anyway, for what little meaning it has.
“And just please, whatever you do, don’t do this for me. If you’re doing it for Eva, because you want to be there for her—that I could be persuaded to accept. But don’t even think about making this kind of sacrifice for me. I couldn’t live with myself.”
Jacqui nodded mutely. She wanted to say something, but her throat was so tight, it didn’t feel like any words would be able to make it through. She just... needed some time to think, to process.
She’d been doing a lot of “processing” lately, and it was starting to feel redundant, but she didn’t know what else to do. How else did one set about absorbing this much information and making a decision of this magnitude?
They stared at each other from across the studio, an ocean between them.
“How is... everything?” Dan asked, rubbing the back of his neck.
“It’s good.”Lonely. I miss you like crazy.
“You’ve been spending time with Mephistopheles, I see.”
“He prefers to be called Meph.”
“Meph, then.”
“He’s very talented at sculpture. I’ve been encouraging him to explore it.”
“I can tell by that piece. I’m impressed.” Dan smiled. “You’ve always been a great mentor.”
She smiled back. “He doesn’t need mentoring. Just someone to provide the space and materials.”
“I miss you.” Dan’s smile dropped, and he looked away. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t mean to pressure you, but it just slipped out, and—”
“I miss you too.”
He glanced back, and they smiled tentatively at each other again.
“I’ll go and leave you to... this,” Dan said, “but can I just say one more thing?”
She nodded.
“Even if you don’t want to go through with the whole vampire thing, I would stay with you until the end anyway. It’s you I love, Jacqui. Not some concept of youth portrayed by your skin. Just you, in any form. And I’ll take whatever time I can get with you, however short. As short as a single human life. I wouldn’t give that up for anything.”
Jacqui’s throat constricted painfully, and she blinked hard. Unable to speak, she just nodded. She wanted to say something—there was so much she suddenly wanted to say to him—but the words were once again stuck inside of her.
Dan smiled, a little sadly, as if to show her he understood. “Eva has a show tomorrow night. She asked me to come to her gigs more, so I was going to go. As long as you don’t mind? I don’t know if you’ve been using the hellgate to visit her, but if you want to go and you don’t want me there, I—”
“I was planning to go,” Jacqui managed. “But of course you can go to your own daughter’s show, Dan. You don’t even need to ask me that.”
“Yeah, I do. But thanks.” His hands were stuffed back into his pockets. He may have been a millennia-old fallen angel, but sometimes Dan reminded her of a scruffy youth, standing on the corner waiting for the bus, maybe with a hidden baggie of marijuana in his backpack.
“Well, I’ll see you then, I guess.”
“Wait,” she said before he could go.
His brows lifted in question.
“You stopped calling every day.”
He winced. “I thought you would appreciate some space. I’m sorry it took this long.”
Meph was right, she thought with an inward shake of her head.I’ll be damned.“I liked knowing you were okay,” she admitted. “When you stopped calling... I worried.”
“Oh.” He shifted on his feet. “You never answered. I thought I was annoying you.”
