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Trevor stared up at the sign swinging gently in the breeze. Ţepeş Tattoos & Piercings, it said, in the same punk font nearly every tattoo parlor in the damn city used. It had just opened a month ago and he hadn't paid much attention to it at the time; tattoo parlors were a dime a dozen around here and he couldn't imagine this one being any different. But apparently it was, because his father had called him last week and asked him point-blank if he'd seen the owner.
"No," Trevor had said around a mouthful of a badly burned TV dinner.
"Well, you need to investigate," his father had said. "Ţepeş, Trevor. Doesn't that name ring a bell?"
Trevor's instinct was to say no, why the fuck would it, but from his father's tone, that response would've gone over like a lead balloon. He took a minute to think about it, and then groaned. "Dracula?"
"One and the same." His father still sounded testy. "Now go find out what the fuck he's doing with a tattoo parlor right across from your shop."
He'd hung up the phone without waiting for Trevor's response.
Trevor had been able to put off looking into it for about five days. But he was a Belmont, and Belmonts had been monster hunters for centuries. Never mind that Trevor had given up hunting six years ago to become a florist, much to the chagrin or downright horror of literally every familial relation he had. The moment a suspected vampire was within walking distance, he was getting dragged back in.
Dracula was one of the oldest vampires in the world, so Trevor could understand the concern. But then why the fuck wasn't his father here looking into it, instead of badgering him into stepping across the street on his lunch break?
The shop looked like every other shop on Morning Street: sign hanging overhead, the bright pink "OPEN" blinking in the right window, and the hours carefully noted on the front door. Trevor had seen a few people come in and out over the month, but none of the activity had pinged him as being strange.
With a reluctant sigh, he grabbed the door handle and pulled it open.
It wasn't what he'd expected. Then again, Trevor had never been inside a tattoo parlor before, so he hadn't known what to expect from one potentially run by a vampire. Blood-red walls, probably, with black ceilings and maybe manacles hanging somewhere.
But no, the place was clean and well-lit, with the same exposed brick inside as half the shops on the block. Art decorated the walls, both regular art and shots of gorgeous tattoos. A couple of plush chairs were at the front, along with a tall mahogany desk with a phone and an appointment book on it. Probably where the receptionist was supposed to be.
Supposed to be, because Trevor was the only one in the front of the shop.
"Hello?" he called out, but nobody responded. Thank God he wasn't an actual customer.
Trevor wandered over to the wall to take a closer look at the tattoo pictures. It had never been something that had interested him, but these tattoos were...beautiful. He didn't have any other words for it. Some were colorful and vibrant, others clean and stark, others so insanely detailed that Trevor couldn't imagine how long they must have taken to do.
"Can I help you?"
Trevor nearly jumped out of his skin; he hadn't heard anybody approach.
He spun and found himself face-to-face with the most beautiful man he'd ever seen in his life. Long blond hair hung loose around his shoulders, practically inviting Trevor to touch it, and he regarded Trevor with sharp golden eyes. They were about the same height, although the man had a slimmer build, and he had on the tightest black pants Trevor had ever seen in his life. He also wore a black tank top, showing off the thick bands of tattoos wrapping around his pale arms and peeking out from under his shirt.
The man arched an eyebrow. "Are you here for a consultation?"
Trevor was understandably distracted. That's why it took him longer than two seconds to notice that the man had fangs.
He groaned. "Oh, fuck, why did you have to be a vampire?"
The man's—no, the vampire's—expression immediately shuttered. "Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my shop?"
"Your door was unlocked," Trevor said.
"For customers," the vampire said testily. "Which you, clearly, are not."
"I might be."
The vampire crossed his arms over his chest and swept his gold gaze slowly over Trevor's body. "Somehow I sincerely doubt that. Most customers ask about my tattoos, not my fangs." His eyes narrowed. "I won't ask you again. Who the hell are you?"
"Trevor," Trevor said, very wisely leaving off his last name. "I own the shop across the street. Or maybe you didn't notice my shirt."
He tugged at the shirt in question, a light blue polo with Morning Street Flowers stitched in gold on the left side of the chest. Sypha was the one who'd designed it, because Trevor's artistic endeavors only extended to floral arrangements.
"How could I fail to," the vampire said dryly. "But I'd wager my shop you're not just a florist."
He moved, faster than any human was capable of, and the only reason Trevor could see it at all was because years of training didn't just vanish.
The vampire had him pressed against the wall between one breath and the next, his forearm shoved against Trevor's chest. He bared his fangs, long and lethal, just inches from Trevor's face.
Trevor grunted at the impact. He probably should've been scared, pinned like this, but if the vampire really wanted to kill him, he'd already be dead. Besides, Trevor could at least take the bastard down with him if that changed. "If you want to scare me, you'll need to try harder. Or, you know, maybe come a little closer."
The vampire hissed and glanced down, where Trevor had a knife positioned right over his heart. "So you are a hunter."
"Used to be," Trevor corrected. "But I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve."
The vampire narrowed his eyes, assessing. "You wouldn't by any chance be Trevor Belmont, would you?"
Trevor cursed mentally, and then out loud. "Oh, for shit's sake."
The vampire let him go and moved a few paces back. "Well, I'll be damned. Of all the places to rent, I end up across the street from the infamous Trevor Belmont. I've never seen my father more shocked than when he'd heard you'd left the family business."
"Your father?" Trevor repeated. "Why the hell would your father—"
It hit him like a ton of bricks, and Trevor wanted to kick himself. He was normally a lot faster on the uptake.
"I rather thought the name of the shop gave it away," the vampire said dryly.
"Ţepeş." God, Trevor needed a drink. "Your father's fucking Dracula."
The vampire smirked. "Adrian Ţepeş. I'd say 'at your service,' but I don't intend to be serving you at any point in the future."
Trevor finally sheathed his knife. "Well, that makes two of us."
The vampire—Adrian, apparently—gestured to the door. "Now, I'm sure you'll understand when I tell you to get the hell out of my shop."
Trevor held up his hands in surrender; now that he'd found what he'd come for, he didn't want to stick around much longer. He walked back to the door, never turning his back to Adrian as he did. "Just one thing before I go."
Adrian sighed. "What?"
Trevor paused with his hand on the door. "I may not be a hunter anymore, but if I find out you're hurting people over here, I won't hesitate to fillet you like a fish."
Adrian rolled his eyes. "Then let me set your mind at ease. I'm a half-vampire. My mother was human. I neither need nor want to drink blood, and I have no intention of engaging in the violence against humans that so many of my kind do."
"Then what do you want?" Trevor asked.
Adrian held out his arms. "To be left in peace to run my business, for fuck's sake. A desire that I imagine you can understand."
It wasn't a physical blow, but Trevor could've dealt with that better. Yes, he knew exactly what it was like to just want to be left alone, and he didn't like the insinuation that he and Adrian had anything in common. "Whatever," Trevor muttered. "If that's all you want, then we shouldn't have any problems. But I will be watching you."
Adrian gave him a thin-lipped smile. "Likewise, Belmont. And if I catch you trespassing again, I won't hesitate to drain you dry."
Trevor half-saluted and backed out the door. "Only if I don't skin you first."
Adrian's lip curled, and Trevor let the door swing shut, the tinted glass muting any further reaction.
Trevor stalked back across the street to his own shop, not sure which aspect of the situation was pissing him off the most: that Adrian was quite literally the most attractive man he'd ever seen, that Adrian was a vampire, or that his fucking father had been right and now Trevor had to deal with it.
He glanced at the time on his phone and swore. No, the thing that was pissing him off the most right now was that he'd wasted his entire fucking lunch break on this, and now he had to get back to the arrangements for the Argent-McCall wedding.
Of fucking course.
***
Trevor kept his promise. But after a week, it was abundantly clear that Adrian hadn't been lying. He did just want to run a tattoo parlor. The only thing suspicious was that the flat above it had lights on at every damn hour of the day, and really, given Trevor's own penchant for being up at times that were either fuckoff early or fuckoff late, he couldn't judge.
He'd texted his father to say he was looking into it and hoped that would be enough to put off having to deal with his family for at least another week. Besides, he was too busy right now to worry about a tattooed half-vampire who hadn't seriously tried to kill him.
Although now that he was looking, Trevor wondered how the hell he'd managed to go an entire month without seeing Adrian at all before. He seemed to be everywhere now. Taking daily walks on the sidewalks outside the shops, flirting with the asshole who owned the axe-throwing place on the corner, attending the twice-monthly Morning Street Shop Owners Association meetings, standing in line right in front of him at Trevor's favorite sandwich place.
"Y'know that's ketchup they put on the sandwiches, not blood, right?" Trevor said under his breath.
Adrian shot him a sharp look over his shoulder and wrinkled his nose. "You smell like a distillery. What have you been putting your vases, vodka?"
"Shut up." Trevor tried to discreetly sniff his shirt. "It's been a shitty week."
"I was unaware spirits were a necessary part of making floral arrangements."
"Sure as shit helps after three all-nighters in a row," Trevor shot back.
Adrian arched an eyebrow at him. "Why the hell are you pulling all-nighters?"
"Because it's springtime," Trevor snapped. "Which is both prom season and wedding season. Which means I don't sleep for two months."
Adrian drew back, clearly surprised. "Don't you have anybody to help?"
"Of course I've got fucking help." Trevor scrubbed his hands over his face. "But two full-time employees and two part-time employees are not enough to handle four weddings and all the fucking orders for corsages and boutonnieres for the three high schools that have prom this weekend, on top of all our normal shit."
It would be nice to have all hands on deck for the next three weeks, but his two part-timers were college students fast approaching finals, and he couldn't schedule Hector and Isaac for the same shifts or risk bloodshed.
But Adrian didn't need to know that, and Trevor didn't feel like dumping his employee problems on anybody when all he wanted was a goddamn sandwich and fifteen minutes of quiet before he had to go back to making fifty-six white rose centerpieces for the Martin-Hale wedding this weekend.
"Hm," was all Adrian said, and he turned back to face the front of the line.
Trevor sighed and went back to dicking off on his phone while he waited for his turn. Really, he shouldn't have said anything in the first place. He'd blame his exhaustion for his mouth running off.
He finally reached the front of the line and put his phone away to order, and then dug out his wallet to pay.
The girl running the register shook her head. "Oh, that's okay. The other guy took care of it."
Trevor blinked, dumbfounded. "What other guy?"
She gestured behind him. "The blond guy who was in front of you."
Trevor turned to see Adrian already on his way out the door, drink and sandwich bag in one hand.
"Huh," Trevor said.
***
It didn't mean anything, Trevor told himself. So what if Adrian had paid for his sandwich? It was just a decent gesture; that was all.
But he couldn't shake the feeling all day that he...owed Adrian something. It was stupid to feel in debt over a ten-dollar sandwich, and yet it was gnawing at the back of Trevor's mind.
He finally finished with the last of the Martin-Hale arrangements around 9:30 that night and put them in the cooler for delivery the next morning. Now that that was taken care of, he could get a drink and a late dinner and maybe get to bed before one in the morning for once.
Trevor glanced around the shop and groaned inwardly. Maybe all that would happen after he finished cleaning up down here.
He swept the floors and put away the leftover tape and foam, but paused when he came to a handful of roses that hadn't fit in the arrangements. Nothing was wrong with them; they'd just been extras, and he'd intended to stick them in a few ready-made bouquets in the morning.
Or...
Trevor grabbed a small, cheap vase and didn't think too hard about what he was doing.
He took three of the roses and trimmed them, and stuck them into the vase with some greenery and, after some consideration, a couple of daffodils. Not his best work by a long shot, but fuck it, he was tired and this was just a thank-you bouquet. Something bright and cheerful to liven up a place. Flowers were always good for that.
Trevor finished cleaning up his worktable and then grabbed the most garish thank-you card they had. He scribbled "Thanks for the sandwich" on the back, stuck it into the bouquet, and then headed out across the street to Ţepeş Tattoos.
The lights were still on inside, despite the hour, and Trevor wondered how the hell late Adrian kept his place open for several seconds before he thought to check the posted hours by the door. Until 11pm, apparently.
He tested the door, and it opened. Once again, no one was around that Trevor could see, but there was a dull buzzing noise that sounded a little like an electric razor.
"I'll be right with you," Adrian called from somewhere in the back.
Ah. Probably tattooing someone, then.
Trevor set the bouquet on the desk at the front and debated adding his name to the card before deciding against it. Fuck it, Adrian could probably guess where a bunch of flowers and a "thanks for the sandwich" came from.
He hurried back out the door and across the street to his own shop and apartment, where there was a beer and a TV dinner with his name on it.
***
Trevor was tired and only a little hungover the next morning when he had to drag his ass out of bed at the crack of dawn to deliver the wedding arrangements. The brides were very particular about their flowers, which was the diplomatic way of saying they were nitpicky as shit, so he was extremely relieved when nobody had any changes to the centerpieces or the bouquets.
He pulled back into his shop just after 9am and went inside to the back room to start on the next round of arrangements.
He'd only made it through three when someone knocked on the door.
"What?" Trevor barked.
"Are you always this rude to customers?"
He jerked his head up; Adrian was standing in the doorway, his long hair loosely tied back and spilling over one shoulder.
"The fuck are you doing back here?" Trevor asked.
Adrian nodded behind him. "The young gentleman up front told me I'd find you back here."
Trevor groaned inwardly. "Yeah, and his fucking job's supposed to be to keep me from getting interrupted. What do you want?"
Adrian dropped a paper bag on his worktable. Whatever was inside smelled delicious, and Trevor's mouth started watering.
"It doesn't feel like much of a stretch to surmise that you missed breakfast," Adrian said. "This should help."
Trevor dug into the bag and found a foil-wrapped burrito inside. "Holy shit, where did you get this?"
"I made it," Adrian said dryly.
Trevor stopped with the burrito halfway to his mouth. "You...made it. You."
Adrian arched a perfect eyebrow. "Not all of us get our entire diet via takeout and delivery."
"And some of us don't have enough time to cook." Trevor eyed the burrito. It smelled delicious, and he was starving. "You didn't poison it, did you?"
Adrian rolled his eyes. "Really, Belmont, if I were going to kill you, there are much faster and easier ways to do it. Eat it or not, it's your choice." He strode to the door and then paused. "Thank you for the flowers, by the way."
Trevor's cheeks heated. "No idea what you're talking about."
Adrian gave him a look that said very plainly how stupid he found that statement. "Yes, I'm certain it was some other florist thanking me for a sandwich. Your handwriting is appalling, by the way."
Trevor flipped him off. "Go away. I've got another forty fucking arrangements to do before Monday night."
Adrian made a face. "Good luck with that."
With that, he left, and Trevor lasted only ten more seconds before devouring the burrito, which turned out to be stuffed with eggs, bacon, cheese, and peppers.
It might have been the best thing he'd ever eaten in his life. Even if it was poisoned, Trevor didn't give a shit at this point. He'd die happy and full.
He'd only just finished what was probably the best meal he'd had in years when he realized this meant he owed Adrian again.
Son of a bitch.
***
Trevor made up another small arrangement on his lunch break, fussing with a handful of tulips for longer than he should've, especially with everything else he had to do today. But if Adrian had actually made a burrito, that meant Trevor had to up his game as well, and that meant not using wedding castoffs for the arrangement. He stuck with the white and yellow color scheme because that seemed to have gone over well, and he didn't want to set foot toward purple, pink, or red, all of which could be easily misinterpreted. It was just a thank-you gift, nothing else.
He tied a black ribbon around the vase and stuck another outlandish thank-you card in the flowers, this one with "Breakfast burritos are great, but burgers are my favorite" scrawled on the back of it.
He shoved the vase at Hector. "Drop this off at the tattoo parlor across the street."
Hector eyed the arrangement as though Trevor had just handed him a live explosive, and then eyed Trevor as if he'd just asked him to start pole-dancing for tips in the middle of the shop. "...Why?"
Trevor gestured at the door. "What, do I need to say please? Go on."
That did nothing to diminish the look Hector was giving him, but at least he took the vase over without any other complaint.
Trevor watched idly out the window just to make sure Hector took it to the right place, even though there was only one tattoo parlor on the block and it wasn't like he could see anything through the tinted windows one Hector walked inside anyway. But he went in with the vase and came out without the vase, so Trevor would count that as a win.
Hector came back in the front door, bell jangling as he opened it, and stared at Trevor as though he'd grown a second head. "Why are you smiling?"
Trevor busied himself with the paperwork at the register. "What are you talking about? I'm not smiling."
"You were definitely smiling," Hector said. "It's kind of creepy."
Trevor scowled and shoved the paperwork in a drawer to deal with later. "Shut up and get back to work. I've got arrangements to finish."
***
It went on like that. Adrian would drop off food, Trevor would give him a flower arrangement in return. The first few times, he put them in vases, but after that, he sent bouquets with floral tape wrapped around them, since he reasoned Adrian had enough vases for the time being.
Usually neither of them stayed. Trevor typically just left the flowers at the front desk or had one of his employees take them over, and Adrian only stayed long enough to deliver a few snarky quips that Trevor returned. Unless he wasn't feeling up for it, in which case he employed his middle finger to great effect.
Sure, logically, he knew he shouldn't be getting friendly with a vampire—even a half-vampire—but it wasn't like his father would ever deign to visit him to find out. Besides, Adrian wasn't so bad and, Trevor reasoned, this way he could keep an eye on him.
"Why a flower shop?" Adrian asked him one night after he'd brought over a bag of burgers and a six-pack. Instead of leaving it behind as he normally did, he'd taken a seat at the worktable opposite Trevor, cleaning off a little space among the flowers and ribbons for him to set out the food.
Trevor shoved a handful of fries into his mouth in between tying bows out of red and white ribbons. "What do you mean?"
Adrian wrinkled his delicate nose. "Is it possible for you to be less crude? Just once in your life?"
Trevor rolled his eyes and swallowed the mouthful, and took a single fry from the pile and deliberately chomped on it. "Happy now?"
"Exceedingly. And I meant what made you decide to open a flower shop?" Adrian nodded around the back room, packed with flowers and vases and shelves of assorted decorating paraphernalia. "There are dozens of things you could've done."
Trevor shrugged and focused very hard on the bows he was tying. "I don't know. This one was hiring and I was looking for something else to do. A year later, the owner wanted to sell, so I bought. Seemed like a good idea at the time."
"So it was just the right time?" Adrian asked.
"I liked the idea of learning to make something nice out of living things rather than spending all my time learning how to kill them," Trevor admitted.
Sypha was the only one he'd ever told about that, and he couldn't quite make himself look up to see Adrian's reaction. The reason he'd become a florist was so tied up in the reasons he'd left hunting that even now, six years on, he couldn't find a way to untangle the two.
"Hm," Adrian said. "But the flowers do die."
Trevor shrugged. "They do. But you can do things to help them live longer, and when you put them together just right, they bring people a lot of joy before they go. Thought it was a better way to spend my time."
Adrian took a dainty bite out of his burger. "Can't say I disagree."
"What about you?" Trevor asked, ready to turn the conversation around. "Why did you open a tattoo parlor?"
Adrian shrugged. "I'm afraid it's not that interesting. I've always liked art, and I got my first tattoo when I was sixteen. I loved the whole process, so I did an apprenticeship with another artist while I was in college and that's when I realized it was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life." He gave Trevor a half-smile. "I'm sure you can imagine how thrilled my father was when I gave up going to medical school in order to become a tattoo artist full-time."
Trevor tipped his beer in Adrian's direction. "About has thrilled as mine was when I said I was getting out of the family business and becoming a florist."
Adrian held out his beer. "To subverting familial expectations."
Trevor tapped their bottles together. "Hell, I'll drink to that."
When Adrian finally left some hours later, after two more bottles of beer and another burger, Trevor felt a strange sense of loss, somewhere deep in his chest.
Must've been the fact that he was out of beer.
***
Sypha came barreling into the shop nearly two months after Trevor had been guilted into checking up on Adrian. He was in the middle of moving an entire stack of heavy clay pots when he heard someone shout his name, and had just enough time to set the pots down and turn before Sypha jumped on him.
"Sypha!" Trevor blinked in surprise, still not quite able to process that she was here. "What the...when did you get into town?"
She grinned and dropped back to the floor. "Just last night. I wanted to surprise you."
Trevor laughed and pulled her back in for a real hug. "Yeah, that was a surprise. You would've had to pay for those pots, by the way."
She flicked her hand. "I'd have fixed them for you. Come on, take me to lunch. We've got a lot to catch up on!"
Trevor hesitated. "Uh, well..."
Sypha peered at him through the light brown strands of hair she never bothered to push out of her face. "Do you have plans already?" Her eyes went huge. "Wait, Trevor, are you seeing someone?"
"What? No, not like—"
The door opened with a jangle, and Adrian walked in with a takeout bag from the Chinese place two blocks over. He stopped, glancing from Sypha to Trevor, his expression unreadable. "Oh. I appear to be interrupting something."
Trevor frowned. "Huh? No, you're not."
Sypha gaped. "Trevor, did you actually make a friend while I was gone?"
He scowled at her. "I'm not a fucking recluse."
"Could've fooled me." She crossed over and held her hand out to Adrian. "Sypha Belnades. I'm a friend of Trevor's. And you are?"
Adrian shook her hand. "Adrian Ţepeş. I own the tattoo parlor across the street. I suppose you could say we're business associates."
Sypha nodded at the bag. "Do you eat lunch together often?"
"Hardly," Adrian said. "Mostly I try to make sure his employees won't open the door one morning to find his starved corpse at the worktable, buried under a pile of baby's breath."
Trevor turned his scowl on him. "And I try to make sure something survives in your tattoo parlor for more than forty-eight hours."
Sypha glanced up at him, confused. "You...what?"
"Flowers," Adrian supplied. "He means flowers."
Trevor tensed. For some reason, he didn't want Sypha knowing about that.
Sure enough, her eyebrow went up in that arch. "You give him...flowers. For food."
Nope, Trevor definitely didn't want Sypha knowing about that. "Speaking of food, weren't you just harassing me to take you to lunch?"
"But—" Sypha started.
"Of course," Adrian said smoothly. "I imagine you two have some catching up to do."
He was out the door before Trevor could say another word.
***
Trevor took Sypha to a sushi place down the street. It wasn't his favorite, but Sypha loved it and they had good fried rice.
They ordered drinks, and then Sypha set her arms on the table and linked her fingers together. "So. What's going on with you and Adrian?"
He should've known he wasn't getting out of this conversation. Trevor pretended to be fascinated by the soy sauce container. "The hell are you talking about? Nothing."
Sypha gave him a look that said she had serious doubts about his mental capacity. "He showed up with lunch for you, like that's something he does every day."
"Not every day," Trevor muttered. Just...most of them. "We got off on the wrong foot."
Sypha nodded. "Because he's a vampire?"
Trevor scrubbed his hand over his face. "Because he's a half-vampire," that distinction seemed very important, "and Dad spent a week badgering me about looking into him. It didn't go well."
Sypha propped her chin on her hand. "And you sent him flowers to apologize?"
"No."
The server arrived then with their drinks and took their lunch orders, and Trevor prayed the distraction would be enough to get Sypha to leave him alone about it.
She turned right back to him as soon as the server was out of earshot. "So he brought you lunch first, then?"
"Just paid for it," Trevor muttered. "We ran into each other at the sandwich place. I was having a bad day."
"And you sent him flowers to...?"
"To say thank you." Trevor glared at her. "I couldn't just let him have the last word about it."
"Uh-huh." Sypha tapped her chin. "Let me guess. He brought you food again, and you returned it with more flowers, and he brought you food again, and you returned it with more flowers, and this has been going on for how many weeks now?"
"A...few," Trevor allowed. More than four was the actual answer and he really didn't want to think about it.
She closed her eyes and rubbed her temple. "Trevor, you are aware and Adrian have been flirting for that entire time, right?"
"What?! No, it's not like that."
Sypha opened her eyes and gave him a flat look. "Are you sure? "
"I..."
Trevor was going to deny it again. He was, because he hadn't been thinking of flirting at all; he'd just been thinking of keeping them on some kind of even keel. He'd have stopped with the flowers if Adrian had stopped fucking buying him food. He could see how an outsider to everything would get the wrong impression.
"It's not like I ever gave him roses," Trevor muttered, and then amended, "Red roses, anyway. Just white and yellow flowers. Those are friendly. Not flirting."
Sypha did not look like she believed him. "You mean yellow like his hair and eyes?"
...Oh.
Oh fuck.
Trevor groaned and buried his face in his hands. "Fuuuuuuuuuck."
Sypha reached across the table and patted him on the arm. "There, there. Need another beer?"
"I need several." He dragged his fingers back through his hair. "I didn't know I was flirting!"
"You didn't know, or you didn't want to know?" Sypha jabbed a chopstick in his direction. "You can be dense, Trevor, but even you're not that dense. And I can't blame you. He's gorgeous."
He scowled and stabbed his straw through the ice in his drink. "We threatened to kill each other when we first met."
"And then it's moved into flowers and shared meals," Sypha said. "The opposite of most of your relationships, so maybe this is a step in the right direction, hm?"
Trevor raised his scowl back to her. "It's not a relationship. It's barely a friendship. You heard him. We're...business associates, at best." The word stuck in his throat like the taste of shitty beer. "Besides, I'm surprised you're encouraging this at all."
Sypha shrugged. "You're my best friend and I've spent most of that friendship watching you jump from crappy relationship to crappy relationship. I saw this guy for fifteen seconds and, vampire or not, he already treats you better than your last three partners. I don't think a single one of them would've bothered to bring you lunch."
Trevor started shredding the corner of his napkin. It was true enough. He'd been through a string of short, terrible relationships before he'd realized his biggest dissatisfaction was not with his relationship status, but with being a hunter. He'd left his last relationship and the family business in the same week, and had started at the flower shop less than a month later. Maybe he couldn't say he'd always been happy since then, but he'd been a shitload less depressed.
And he...all right, yes, he liked Adrian. Aside from that disastrous first meeting, they seemed to get along okay. They insulted each other, yes, but Adrian's barbs never really felt insulting. There was a lightness to their back-and-forth that Trevor had found himself enjoying the few times Adrian had stayed and they'd eaten together.
But trading insults, food, and flowers was one thing. Dating was something else entirely.
Sypha's voice dragged him from his thoughts. "You don't have to do anything about it, you know."
Trevor looked up from his semi-destroyed napkin. "What?"
"Adrian. It's all right to like him and not do anything about it."
Trevor scoffed. "I know that. I just fucking figured out I was flirting three minutes ago. Give me some time to think about it. Come on, what's new with you? You dating anybody I need to know about?"
Sypha wrinkled her nose. "Ugh, hardly. I've been way too busy." Her eyes lit up. "Let me tell you about the job we had out east last month. Werewolves and wendigos."
Trevor grimaced. "Any chance of you editing out the nastiest bits while we eat?"
"Doubtful," Sypha said cheerily, "but I'll try to be considerate of your delicate constitution."
He let her ramble about the werewolves and the wendigos and the half-dozen other monsters she'd crossed paths with in the two months since they'd last seen each other. She described each encounter in almost excruciating detail, which Trevor was grateful he'd mostly learned to ignore. He might have been born a hunter, but it had never been something he'd loved to do. The only way he'd lasted as long as he had was by telling himself that he was protecting people, but even true as that was, it still hadn't been enough. Not when he could feel the grind of it weighing him down to the point that he'd realized he either had to leave or lose himself.
But Sypha? Sypha loved it. Not just the protecting people, but the tracking and researching and fighting and adventuring and sleeping in shitty motels or the back of her car. Trevor had been worried, initially, about leaving her behind, but Sypha had never really needed his help.
He missed her, but he couldn't imagine ever going back, and he knew damn well she'd never leave.
So he listened to her, and ate his sushi, and wondered what Adrian would have to say about werewolves.
***
Despite what many of his previous partners had claimed, Trevor wasn't completely hopeless at romantic relationships. He just had never been very good at sorting out what he wanted, and it usually took him awhile to figure that out. It was one of the reasons he and Sypha had stayed friends for so long. She was good at putting a boot in his ass without being cruel about it. Trevor valued that in his close relationships.
He sat on the couch in his apartment, eating leftovers, and stared across the street at the lights in the tattoo parlor. Adrian didn't close until midnight tonight, so it would be close to one in the morning before any lights went on in his own apartment. Not that Trevor had been paying attention to that sort of thing.
He picked at the leftovers in his lap, fajitas that Adrian had brought over earlier that week, which he'd said he'd gotten from a Mexican place in town but Trevor suspected he had made himself.
Which brought him back to the problem he'd been puzzling over all night: what did he want to do about Adrian?
What they had right now was...well, it was just about perfect, if Trevor was being honest with himself. They'd eased into this equilibrium between the food and the flowers and the company that Trevor enjoyed. It was probably the closest he'd come to having a friend since Sypha. And, like Sypha, he...missed Adrian when he wasn't around. But also not like Sypha, because Sypha didn't leave him with this same sense of wanting when she walked out the door. Wanting...
Wanting Adrian to stay. For another meal, for another drink, for the night, for—
Trevor cut off that line of thought and took another bite of his fajita. At least he knew what he wanted now. That was something, at least.
The only question was whether Adrian reciprocated. Although...
Trevor considered the fajitas. There was a pretty good chance that he did.
But one of them would need to take the next step.
Trevor finished his dinner and headed back downstairs to the shop. He had another arrangement to make.
***
About half an hour after midnight, a knock sounded on Trevor's door. Even though he'd been waiting for it, he shot to his feet, half in a panic, and checked his apartment one more time to make sure it was fit for company. The bed was made, all his dishes were in the dishwasher, and dirty laundry had been shoved in every closet where it would fit. Good enough.
He opened the door to find Adrian standing there, holding a vase filled with white and yellow tulips, with three red ones right in the center.
Adrian held up the card Trevor had shoved in it and read aloud, "'I'm probably still awake, and I have beer.'" He arched an eyebrow. "This has to be the least romantic proposition I've ever seen in my life."
Trevor scowled. "Did it work?"
"This? No." Adrian tucked the card into his impossibly tight pants and held up the vase. "But this? Yes."
Trevor grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him into the apartment. "Thank fuck."
***
Trevor's phone rang at way too goddamn early in the morning. The first time, he ignored it. The second time, he slapped his hand on the nightstand until it stopped making noise. The third time, he finally dragged himself out from under the covers and answered it. "What."
"Why the hell are you ignoring my calls, Trevor?"
He groaned inwardly at his father's voice. "Because it's not even eight in the fu—morning. What do you want?"
"I want to know what the hell's going on with that tattoo parlor. Have you learned anything about who owns it?"
Beside him, Adrian turned over, blinking sleepily. His long blond hair was an absolute mess and Trevor was pretty sure he'd been drooling on the pillow. Trevor wasn't sure what it said about him that he found it adorable.
"Uh, yeah." His mind was only half on the conversation now. "Learned a lot. It's not something you need to worry about."
"Really?" His dad sounded skeptical. "You're seriously telling me Ţepeş Tattoos & Piercings has nothing to do with Dracula?"
Adrian swiped his hair out of his face and snorted. "Hardly."
Trevor bit back a laugh. "Nope. Nothing at all."
Adrian sat up and swung his leg over Trevor's body, straddling him. He was still stark naked, his tattoos the only thing he wore. Trevor had kissed most of them last night, but drank in the sight now of the lines that went up Adrian's arms, over his shoulders, and down his chest. He was never getting tired of this view.
"Trevor!" his dad snapped, jerking him back to the present. "Are you even listening to me?"
"Uh, sorry, phone cut out." Trevor closed his eyes so he wouldn't be distracted. Well, more distracted; he could still feel Adrian's warm weight on his stomach. "What did you say?"
"I said, can you continue to keep an eye on things, or do I need to have someone come down there and take a look?"
Trevor opened his eyes again. "I can keep an eye on things. A very close eye."
Adrian leaned over him, hair spilling over his shoulders and brushing Trevor's face. "Very close?" he mouthed.
"Extremely close," Trevor said, half to Adrian, half to the phone. "Don't send anyone. I can handle this."
Adrian bent in closer and kissed him, tugging gently on Trevor's lower lip, and dragged his nails slowly down Trevor's chest.
Trevor clenched his jaw against a moan. "I have to go, Dad, I've got to get ready to open the store."
"Trevor, I swear—"
"Call you back later." Trevor hung up the phone and tossed it aside, and immediately got both his hands in Adrian's hair. "I'm supposed to keep an eye on you."
"So I heard." Adrian's golden eyes glinted in amusement. "I thought you weren't a hunter anymore."
"For this job?" Trevor rolled them so Adrian was under him, pressed into the bed, and leaned in for another kiss. "I think I can make an exception."