“I’m sorry,” Finn said. “I know that I misled you—”
“Misled?”
“Misinformed,” he amended.
“Really?” My eyes narrowed at him.
“But I hope that we can still try to make things work between us. So much of what I did was because I was trying to get more time with you. And not because of your ability but because I want you for you.”
“I know I’m new to this parenting thing, but I am certain I am not supposed to be hearing this,” Max muttered. “Danny, let’s go into the kitchen, or maybe the backyard, out of earshot.”
“We have a Sasquatch in the backyard!” Danny told him proudly as they retreated toward the back door.
“You don’t say!” Max said. “You know, I was in Canada once, and I swear I saw one in the parking lot of a Tim Horton’s.”
“No way!” Danny cried as the door closed behind him.
“I will always be grateful to you for turning me,” I told Finn. “And I appreciate the way you’ve tried to help me, easing my transition into being a vampire. But—”
“Uh-oh.”
I started again. “But—”
He shook his head again. “Don’t say the thing.”
“I think we’re going to be better off as friends,” I told him as he bounced his head against the porch railing.
“You said the thing.” He groaned.
“It’s not that I don’t find you attractive, which I do. And it’s not that I don’t think we have chemistry, which we do. It’s that I can’t trust you.”
“You know I would never hurt you or Danny!” he exclaimed.
“Physically, yes, I know you would never hurt me or Danny,” I agreed. “And you seem to feel some sort of protective loyalty to me, because of Max and your friendship with him. But I can’t trust you to tell me the truth. Not some variation of the truth. Not some version of the truth. Not a hint of the truth. The whole truth. You’ve lied to me too many times, Finn.”
“To protect you!”
“From what? From information you didn’t think I was ready to know? Why do you get to be the one who makes that decision? And let’s not forget the part where you neglected to tell me that you broke the Council’s embargo on spending time with me to help you mute your gift and save your own ass.”
“OK, yeah, that’s a bad example,” he admitted.
“I spent most of my life lying. I let my mom think that I was perfectly fine growing up with basically no parenting. I let my husband think I loved him, that I was happy with our life, because I didn’t know how to ask for what I needed. I can’t build a relationship with you when I can’t trust anything you say. I would be like an alcoholic dating a bartender. Not completely dysfunctional but not an awesome idea.”
Finn sighed, his expression sad and contemplative. “I knew that when you met Max it would probably be the end of whatever we’d started.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not saying I don’t want to see you anymore. It just won’t be in a romantic way.”
“I don’t think I can accept that.”
“Well, it’s not up to you to accept it. This is the way it is.”
“I get it.” He sighed. “I don’t like it, but I get it.”
After much more discussion with my wayward sire and my long-lost father, I worked out a delicate agreement with Max. One evening, every other week, he would come over for a visit. No more, no less, unless there was a specific invitation. He would not interfere with my life. He would not spy on me. He would not disappoint Danny or break promises. And if he did, all bets were off, and we would go back to life as if he’d never showed up on our porch. Max agreed to all of these stipulations, which spoke to either his guilt at abandoning me or his desperation to connect with the only family he had left.
Finn, on the other hand, was on strict probation and was only to contact me if I contacted him first. He was pretty graceful about accepting the end of any sort of romantic connection between us, something I suspected would change when he sensed my anger ebbing.
I thought that maybe simplifying my romantic life would help me focus. But it just narrowed my worries to a constant loop about Les’s murder. Who would want to kill him? He’d had no contact with the vampire world until I was turned. What was he doing at the Cellar? Was he meeting with a vampire? Had he been going to the Cellar for long? Was he buying some sort of antivampire defense weapons? A poison? Was that why he’d looked so smug and self-assured the night he died? Because he was going to get rid of me? Was it possible he was El Chupacabra? I thought the man in the mask was a vampire, but maybe Les had found some way to mask his heartbeat. What the hell had Les done differently in the last few weeks that had led to his death?