Vampire Wanted

Chapter Two | Joshing Me

The small depiction of a blinking red battery seemed to taunt her as she slapped the keyboard, groaning in frustration, fumbling for the white cord and attaching it to the side of the laptop, pushing it closed before grabbing her bag and hurrying down the stairs and out the door, seeing the black SUV idling on the curb, the passenger door hung open precariously, Sacha staring ahead at the deteriorated residential road.

Sliding into the car and pulling the door closed behind her, she dropped the bag at her feet. "Sorry I'm late, my laptop was dead and I-"

Sacha rested his fingers on the wheel with a perpetual stiffness, but didn't shift into drive, as he normally did. He just sat there, vacant.

"... Sacha?"

He seemed to shake himself out of a trance, and quickly continued the motions, slowly navigating the hairpin turns of her neighborhood, offering a subtle sigh as he did so. "My dad called me yesterday."

She blinked, shifting in her seat. "Oh."

Sacha's father was not a subject they breached often. He'd been absent and detached, communicating exclusively from week late birthday cards once a year. He was a lawyer... or an accountant, but someone with enough money to want to keep his bastard son under wraps.

"He wants to meet for lunch, before graduation, probably some time in the next few weeks." He flicked on the turn signal, and the quiet clicking filled the car as he scanned the street. "I'm thinking about blowing it off, just on principle, but..." the car lurched as he braked in time to let a blue minivan fly in front of him. "I'm not sure if I'll ever get a chance like this again."

"To talk to him?"

"No," he pulled out into traffic, his focus flawlessly divided, "to tell him just how well we've been doing without him. I don't know, what if I don't want him in my life? Do I tell him that?"

Ophelia frowned, her eyes focused on a brown stain on the ceiling of the vehicle, indecision weighing over her. "I think you should meet with him, genuinely, not just to throw it in his face. He's making an effort to-"

"Making an effort to suck up right when I'm leaving home and Mom stops running interference."

She folded her arms. "Why did you ask if you already made up your mind?" At his lack of response, she continued. "Talk to him, at least at first, and if he seems sketchy, then just leave."

There was a weighted tension for a few seconds, and as the vehicle paused at a red light, he reached across the divider and took her hand in his. "Will you go with me?"

"You want me to-" she paused and adjusted her tone to a lower volume. "If you want me to go, then I'll be there."

He squeezed her hand, and the discussion came to a close.