The first thing I thought of when I woke this evening was: It’s Friday! Tonight I get to see Vance!

  The second thing I thought of was: Vance is mortal. I got so mad last night when I felt Rosanna was ditching me for a mortal. And here I am, so excited over this other mortal.

  It’s well known among us that we vampires are naturally disinclined to fuss over mortals. They’re inconsequential. Or at least that’s what we tell ourselves. But if we’re being truthful, it’s all different when it’s your mortal. We’re selfish like that. My mortal is special. My mortal is lovable. My mortal is worth turning. But me turn your mortal cuz you can’t? Fuck that. I guess that’s just how it goes.

  True to form, I didn’t feel anything when I burned Bruce’s body in the garage last night after our guests left. And whatever Rosanna felt, I don’t think it was anything too poignant because as she pulled Bruce’s bloodless body out of the trunk she muttered, “Three weeks of red flags.” I asked if she wanted to say goodbye and she said she already did, in his bedroom, right before she finally showed her fangs and bit into his throat. Like so many of her victims Bruce ended up a pile of black ash on the garage floor that Rosanna swept away.

  So last night was Bruce night: meh face. Tonight is Vance night: smiley face. Insensitive, right? I don’t care about Rosanna’s Bruce, I care about Rosanna and he called her a whore. I’m a hypocrite though. Because I’m hoping, when they meet tonight, Rosanna will like Vance. Like Berthold liked Mayuko. I warned you we were selfish. Probably me especially.

  Of course I wanted Vance to text me first. I would’ve loved it if there had been a text from him waiting for me when I woke up: “I know you’re asleep but I couldn’t stop thinking about you Orly so I had to text! My love, please tell me I still get to see you tonight!” But there wasn’t anything like that or anything at all. Impatience and a fear he would forget made me text him first. “Hey. You back?”

  I prepared myself for disappointment, telling myself not to react if he replies saying something else came up, that he missed his flight, or some such shit.

  As I sat around waiting and drinking, a thought crossed my mind. About Rosanna. Right now, we have something in common. Both our last feedings were upon our lovers whom we had killed. This wouldn’t last. Rosanna would need to kill again tonight. But for the time being we were like a pair of black widows living together on the same web.

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  If I ever have another lover will I kill and bleed him/her dry too? Some night would I kill Vance? Even right now, if I killed him I’d feel something painful even though he’s mortal. It makes me worry Rosanna might feel worse than she’s letting on. I’ll give her some time and figure out a nice way to bring it up if she doesn’t bring it up first.

  It only took Vance eleven minutes to text back: “Yup. Are we still on for tonight?” (It was kinda close to what I was hoping for.)

  O: Of course. I’ve been looking forward to it.

  V: What do you want to do?

  O: I thought you were gonna come over.

  V: Did we say that?

  O: You don’t have to.

  Four minutes.

  O: We can go out if that’s better.

  V: Sorry. I was doing something. No. I’d be happy to come over.

  O: I know you have the address. I’ll be waiting.

  V: I can actually leave now.

  I sent him heart eyes. Somewhere in our exchange I expected him to say “Netflix and chill?” as a joke and actually hoped that he would say that, but he didn’t.

  I bathed real quick then brushed my teeth and got dressed. I put on a Lolita dress that has vampire bats printed on the material. Obviously for him. Is that overkill?

  I sat at Yelena’s vanity table brushing my hair and for some reason I thought of Silviu kissing my hand last night when he bowed and said goodbye. I mean, I did offer it to him, so he didn’t have much choice, yet the action somehow felt of his own accord and, in that way, powerful. It has something to do with the way he carries himself. I can’t put my finger on it. He’s confident but he’s also shy.

  Since I already brushed my teeth, I poured out what was left of my drink in the kitchen sink, rinsed the tumbler, and put it and the other two glasses in the drying rack away in the cupboard. No dirty dishes to be seen here! Such a tidy household! The credit of course belongs to the housecleaners, but he doesn’t need to know that yet.

  I’m all caught up. Because now I’m sitting here at the dining room table writing this entry, waiting for the doorbell to ring and trying to think of something we can watch if our night goes in the direction of: What do you wanna do? I don’t know, what’d you wanna do? We can watch a movie. What’d you wanna watch? I need to nip that tiresome routine in the bud and get us on the sofa, close together. I wonder what kind of snacks he likes. Hopefully me. LOL. I can’t believe I wrote that. OMG. I’m so fake. I can totally believe it because it’s totally the truth. I’m wearing a black lace thong under this dress that I’m hoping won’t remain a secret all night.

  Ding dong.

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