Death Becomes Him - 25

A week later, Trent was beginning to wonder if ‘making it work’ was going to happen. It had nothing to do with their feelings for each other. If anything they were more in love than they ever had been.

The problem came, for him at least, with adjusting both to Rory’s schedule and to his eating habits. It was fine in theory that Rory lived on blood. In reality it was more than strange to watch him empty a bag or two of the red stuff as if he was drinking, well wine, which seemed to be his other choice when it came to liquid refreshment. Rory had suggested he go do something else while he fed if it bothered him so much.

“Not happening,” Trent retorted. “It’s a part of you I’m going to have to live with so I have to start now.”

Rory had smirked, stepping close to Trent. “Bet you won’t want to kiss me right after I finish this,” he said, holding up a second bag.

“No bet. Brush your teeth and then—yeah I’ll kiss you, and maybe do other wicked things with you before I go to sleep.”

“That’ll be soon enough,” Rory replied. He knew because his internal clock, a necessity for a vampire so they’d know when sunrise was near, told him it was getting close to midnight.

Trent had tried going to bed later than he was used to so that he could spend as much time as possible with his lover. It was working to some small degree but he still found he was exhausted when two or two-thirty in the morning rolled around. He also realized that when they returned to New Orleans even staying up that late was going to be a problem unless he could come up with a legitimate way to change his working hours to accommodate it.

As Trent’s second week at the chateau came to a close, a third problem cropped up. It involved getting Rory from there back to New Orleans.

“How did you get here?” Trent asked after a long and fruitless search for a flight from Nantes or Paris or even Madrid that wasn’t so long it involved daylight hours.

Rory grimaced. “By Air Emily.”

“Oh boy. Do you suppose she’d be willing to bring you back to New Orleans? She could leave you at my house and I’d meet you there.”

“All we can do is ask.”

Emily not only agreed to take Rory, she suggested she transport Trent as well. “Not at the same time of course. That’s beyond even my abilities.”

Both men sighed with relief and then spent the next day packing everything Rory would be taking back with him. They also packed most of what clothes Trent had brought with him to the chateau.  Then they took a night trip, using Emily’s large van, to transport the bags and boxes to Trent’s hotel in Tournon. While Rory slept, Trent took everything including his suitcase to a shipping firm, telling them when he’d be back in New Orleans so they could be delivered. Then he joined Rory in bed, and when they both were awake they enjoyed a rousing bout of hot sex before piling into the van for the return trip to the chateau.

Two days later, with only a small backpack for his few remaining clothes, Trent experienced the strange thrill of being ‘flown’ from the chateau to his home.

When they arrived there, Emily insisted on meeting Beau. It was—interesting. Beau seemed very uncertain what she was. He treated her warily, the way he did the neighbors cats when they came into the backyard. It took him a good fifteen minutes before he allowed her to come close, and another ten until she was allowed to pet him.

“At least he’ll be sort of broken in for when Rory arrives,” Emily chuckled as she got ready to leave. Placing her hands on Trent’s shoulders, she said, “Take care of Rory. He’s very special to me.”

“I will, I promise,” Trent said in reply.

Then, standing on tiptoe, she kissed his cheeks and vanished.

Two hours later, because as she’d explained earlier she needed some recuperation time, she reappeared with Rory. He dropped his backpack on the sofa and took the cooler bag he was carrying into the kitchen, depositing it on a shelf in the refrigerator before returning to the living room.

After cautioning him to ‘behave’, Emily hugged him tightly, told both the men she’d be back to visit from time to time, and then did her disappearing act.