The Bloodsucker Blues

Chapter 1Damn it. Why does this keep happening to me? Brandon Griffin ran down the center of the dark, quiet street, with the thud of his running shoes keeping staccato time with the furious diatribe in his head. I’m twenty-eight f*****g years old. Why the hell can’t I still ever see it coming? Why do I keep choosing assholes? Chad (in retrospect, that name should have been a warning right there) turned out to be a lying, two-faced bastard. “He’s just a friend, Griff,” Brandon panted in a parody of Chad’s smug asshole voice. “It didn’t mean anything. C’mon, Griff. Seriously, you need to chill.” Brandon did not need to “chill.” Brandon needed to be exactly as f*****g betrayed and angry as he was, thanks. Unless Chad meant Brandon needed to “chill” as opposed to pounding Chad’s teeth in. Then yeah, sure. Hadn’t Stacey told him Chad’s face looked like it was carved by God to cradle a punch? At the time Brandon had scolded her for being mean. It wasn’t Chad’s fault he was born with one of those comic-book lantern jaws and cleft chins. Stacey, unimpressed, had countered, if Chad was a better person his face wouldn’t look like that. Maybe she was right. Mel had said she thought Chad looked like Fred from Scooby Doo. Brandon had only seen how handsome he was. He’d been taken in by his laughing hazel eyes and sparkling smile with those even, white teeth. All the better to eat you with. Or, really, someone else. “Hilarious, Griff,” Brandon snarled to himself between breaths. He hated being called Griff. Why the hell had he let Chad do that? Because you thought he loved you. A footfall for each syllable as he pounded around a corner and through the bright pool made by another streetlight. He didn’t usually run this hard, but he usually wasn’t this angry either. He was already two-thirds done with his route and he wasn’t even tired yet, despite his heart slamming against his ribs. The last thing he wanted was to end up lying in bed glaring at the ceiling. Chad had already cheated on him; Brandon would be damned if he let that d**k keep him from sleeping too. To make his run harder, he detoured into the subdivision’s local playground and spent a few minutes leaping on and off the picnic tables and then the benches. It was the closest equivalent he had to the workouts from his high school football team. Back then, their coach would make them run up and down the steps of Merrill Green Stadium. He’d loathed it at the time but appreciated it now, considering his cardio was still good over a decade later. And if he pretended the benches and tables were all Chad’s fist-cradling face, well, it wasn’t like Brandon was actually going to do anything. He jumped off the last bench one final time then raced back to his path in the middle of the street. His legs were going to kill him tomorrow, but if it meant he’d be worn out enough to sleep instead of lying awake seething, he’d live with it. Brandon liked to think of himself as a decent, even-tempered guy, but everyone had their limits. Tonight he’d definitely reached his. Fucking Chad. Literally f*****g Chad. As in, Chad f*****g his “just a friend” in his goddamn pickup just as Brandon was pulling into the very same parking lot to get to work. Chad was a lot of things (two-faced betraying motherfucker dickhead asshole), but he wasn’t stupid. He knew when Brandon usually arrived at the bar where he worked. He definitely knew Brandon would recognize his stupidly large truck. Chad had wanted Brandon to see. Brandon wasn’t Chad, so he’d waited until after work to confront him, instead of hauling Chad’s cheating ass out of his truck then and there. Right now, Brandon kind of regretted taking the high road. C’mon, Griff. You need to chill. Fuck you, Chad. Brandon normally turned back when he reached the house with the streetlight worshipfully illuminating the four-door, burgundy crew cab pickup with the Texas A&M vanity plate. This time he blew past it into the unknown territory of the extremely wealthy end of his subdivision. He rented a room in his friend Stacey’s house on the opposite end, which was why they almost never turned on their house alarm. No one was going to break into their place for the ancient laptops and medium-sized television with a smorgasbord of opulence just down the street. The houses on this side were huge: two or three stories in a part of Texas where the thick clay made building upwards difficult and basements all but impossible. Plantation-style homes with wraparound porches and gleaming white pillars; sprawling mansions with coddled, imported palm trees and sculpted yards; ridiculous, pocket-sized castles complete with cylinder towers and balcony windows fit for a pining Capulet. They didn’t look all that enviable at 3:17 A.M., just dark and unwelcoming. Brandon’s anger dwindled as he ran from shadow to streetlight to shadow, until he just felt tired and very much alone. It was probably time to go back. He crossed the street and ducked into a cul-de-sac on a whim, following the teardrop shape to turn around instead of just changing direction. The house here was so lavish it took up the entire curve all by itself. It was ridiculously wide and tall, made of large white bricks. He was sure the accent color would be gold in daylight, because gold would emphasize the tackiness of the fake Ancient Greek design. The front steps led to a huge square porch, framed by thick, round pillars on either side, garnished with bas-reliefs of people in togas. Brandon shook his head in amazement as he neared it, tempted to stop and just gawk at the thing. He didn’t because a very big black guy staring at a mansion late at night would likely end badly. The door beyond the ridiculous pillars was thick wood, holding a huge square of glass protected by curving, sculpted iron. It was hard to tell in the dark, but the shapes looked like leaves— They were indeed leaves, he discovered. Because someone inside had just turned on the front hall and porch lights. Against every better instinct, Brandon froze like a deer in the middle of the street. He realized the sweat he’d barely noticed had plastered his tee-shirt to his back and chest, dragging damp and unpleasant every time he breathed. The short, tight curls of his hair dripped, rolling more sweat down his face. The salt stung his eyes. There was a man on the other side of the door, staring at him. He’s really pale, Brandon thought incongruously. Words like snow or milk came instantly to mind; marble a close second. He was shorter than Brandon—though to be fair that wasn’t difficult—and wearing a faded red tee-shirt that hung on him like a tent. Even from the street it was easy to see his pale, pale sternum and prominent collarbones. He had limp, messy brown hair, framing sharp cheekbones. The result was a fragile, delicate beauty. Like he should have been singing the songs of angry men behind a Parisian barricade. Brandon couldn’t make out his eye color, but they were very wide, staring at him. He seemed terribly young. A long, long time ago, Brandon’s mother had told him, “It’s just as scared as you are,” when an anole lizard got into the house and freaked him the hell out. He couldn’t help but think of that now, with the two of them gaping at each other. Brandon had been a Tight End on his football team, and he’d grown after he graduated. At six-foot four, he knew he could look more intimidating than he wanted to. He finally managed to pry his tongue up from his lower jaw. “Um, sorry! I was just jogging!” He mimed running a couple steps, because the other guy looked confused and only marginally less shocked. “Jogging, you know?” The brunet blinked, then clearly moved to unlock his door. Brandon fled.