Seven Days in June(29)

“I know what I was like.”

“You don’t.” Shane went dead serious. “You burst into my solitude, demanding to be seen. You were overwhelming. Just wild and weird and brilliant, and I never had a choice. I liked everything about you. Even the scary parts. I wanted to drown in your fucking bathwater.”

Eva opened her mouth to speak. He shook his head, silencing her.

“I idealize you in fiction because I idealized you in real life,” he continued. “It is male-gazing, you’re right. And I’m sorry. But I can only write my shit my way.”

“It’s my shit!” Eva pounded a fist on the table. At the next table over, a family looked up from their menus.

“You get to decide who owns what?” asked Shane, voice rising. “I’ve written four novels. You’ve written fourteen! A whole series, in which you put a Creole hex on me.”

She burst out in a mirthless laugh. “If I could hex you, you think I’d stop at roasting you in books?”

“If I’m a vampire, at least let me do cool shit! I spend the whole series cowering in castles, while my cross-between-Serena-Williams-and-Wonder-Woman witch soul mate gets to fight for truth and justice. The only thing Sebastian’s good at is—”

“Stop!” she interrupted. “Those scenes pay my mortgage.”

Shane said nothing and quietly took a swig of water. His devilish grin showed behind the glass.

“I will throw this milkshake at you right now—think I won’t?”

“I’m not doing anything!”

“Look,” said Eva, cheeks aflame. “No one was supposed to read Cursed. I wrote it for myself, to get over you. I cast myself as a superhero to give me strength I didn’t feel. And made you a useless fuckboy, because I’m petty. But it turned into a career, and I’m stuck with us.”

“Are you, though? Vampires die all the time. What about stakes and sunlight and shit?”

“My vamps,” she started haughtily, “can only die from silver scalpels marinated in garlic paste from a very particular vine during the summer solstice on a leap year.”

“Exactly.” A smirk played at the corners of Shane’s mouth. “Ever wonder why you made it so hard to kill me?”

“Because I have private school to pay for! Why do you keep writing about me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Apparently not.”

“I’m not just writing about you,” said Shane. “I’m writing to you.”

His words hung in the air a moment—bold and impossible to misconstrue. He hesitated, wondering how she’d react. Telling the truth was something he always did, with no regard for how he was received. But Eva’s thoughts mattered.

“I wrote my books like you were the only one who’d ever read them,” he continued carefully. “My books did what I couldn’t.”

Eva’s breath slowed. “Which was what?”

“Talk to you,” he said. “And when I read yours, I knew you were reading mine. You put in so many clues. I mean, Gia has to strike her enemies eight times with her broom to kill them.” A shadow of a smile passed over his face. “Even when you were ripping me to shreds, it felt good. Like we still had our secrets.”

Eva’s mouth parted slightly, her brows knitting together. And Shane started lightly scratching his biceps, the stubble of his jawline. Neither of them was emotionally prepared for this confession.

When he felt Eva watching him, Shane stilled. Boldly, he met her gaze and got caught there, a breath too long. A charge passed between them, flickered, and faded.

There’s an alternate universe where I never left, he thought.

“Can I be honest?” asked Eva.

“Please.”

“I cried for two weeks when I found out I was having a daughter.” Her voice was barely audible. “I was terrified she’d be like me. My only goal is making sure Audre’s world is unicorns and rainbows. And it is. When she’s sad, she reads Shonda Rhimes’s Year of Yes, listens to the Hamilton soundtrack, and moves on. She doesn’t hurt like I do. Did.” Eva corrected herself. “My mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother? They’re all crazy, and it runs in my family. But it stopped with me.”

Eva paused. “No one knows about my life before New York. You showing up like this…It’s a trigger.”

“I understand,” conceded Shane. “And I’ll go. But can you tell me one thing?”

Eva shrugged vaguely.

“You happy?”

She looked dismayed. It was like no one had ever asked her that, or it was something she’d never thought about. Or both.

“I’m fine.”

“How’s your head?”

“I said I’m fine,” she spat, her eyes welling up. She dug her knuckles into a temple again, the pain obvious.

“That bad? Still?”

Eva’s silence was answer enough. And her tears, threatening to spill.

“Fuck.” Shane’s face was a mask of worry. “Do you have good doctors? Do you have a…a…man or someone who helps? Does anyone take care of you?”

“Does anyone take care of you?” she exploded.

“I mean, no.”