There it was again. Just a trace of the insecurity I knew Trinity harbored deep down. She kept it hidden, well-concealed from the masses, but it was still in there, lurking just beneath whatever god-like power she felt coursing through her body. Though it was tiny, it was still enough for me to work with.
“That’s what I thought,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “Just remember that, Trinity, when you think about doing something stupid. We’ll be watching.”
I chose that moment to make my exit. Well, more like my escape. Although I thought the confrontation had ended in my favor, I wasn’t willing to risk pushing my luck any further.
Besides, now I knew that not only does Trinity know about Lars and Bo, she’d apparently become one of them.
After that, I was antsy to get to lunch, to tell Bo about my discovery. Unfortunately, by the time I got outside, Savannah had already lured him to the picnic table and they were embroiled in a discussion with Devon about the superior acoustic stylings of Slash’s Gibson over Eric Clapton’s Fender.
Strangely, it was a conversation that penetrated my otherwise-consumed brain fairly rapidly. For one thing, I actually knew who they were talking about because I loved classic rock. Secondly, I was pleasantly surprised that three people—at this school, in my now very small circle of friends, that weren’t burn-outs—liked that kind of music, too. In a bizarre but good way, it was as if our four lives were fated to become intertwined.
Bo waited for me after Chemistry and walked me to my car. We were both silent during the walk. It wasn’t really an uncomfortable silence. It was one that seemed to be filled with all sorts of things that needed to be said, things that loomed on the horizon. I didn’t really want to talk about most of it now, however, preferring to wait until after our visit to Lucius. With that in mind, I introduced a fairly innocuous subject that I actually did find interesting.
“So you like classic rock, huh?”
The way Bo’s face relaxed made me realize that he was feeling the same tension that I was.
“I love all kinds of music, but that’s what I listen to most.”
“You know, it’s weird, but I realized today that I don’t know very much about you.”
“I was attempting to remedy that the night I took you to my basement,” he said with a wry grin.
Bo skipped ahead and then turned to walk backwards, facing me.
“Oh.” I bit my lip in frustration. I felt like the end of that conversation had come way too soon.
Bo stopped, forcing me to stop as well. His expression turned serious.
“Do you still want to know me?”
Looking into his eyes, I knew what he was asking. It was much more than Bo asking if I wanted the answer to trivial questions about him. He was asking if I still wanted him in my life.
There was only one answer I could give, at least if I was being honest.
“Yes.”
For all the questions and doubts that I had, none of them had affected the way I felt about Bo. Beneath all the muddy waters that contained the particulars, my heart still cried out for him.
The tension he’d been carrying around his mouth melted away and he smiled. It was a genuine curve of his lips that engaged those dimples at the corners of his mouth. I hadn’t realized until that moment what a rare treat they were and how much I missed them.
“Then come with me to my lair,” he said in his best Transylvanian accent.
A shiver coursed through me when I silently finished that comment with I want to suck your blood.
Bo took the keys from me and drove us to his house in my car. He parked at the back of the house and we got out. We walked to the top of the basement steps, and as I looked around, I couldn’t help but hope that, this time, no vicious rival vampires showed up.
Always in tune with me, Bo turned as he unlocked the door. “I bet you’re having flashbacks of vampires chucking trees at your head, aren’t you?”
My mouth dropped open, not because he’d picked up on my train of thought so perfectly, but because he’d left out that little tidbit of information somewhere along the way.
“He threw that tree at me?”
Bo cringed, nodding. “I told you, these are not nice people.”
“How are you so different?”
As soon as the question was out, I regretted it, and Bo’s expression just made me feel that much worse about asking.
“I didn’t meant it like—”
“I know you didn’t,” he interrupted. “And I don’t have an answer for you.” As I watched, the happy, relaxed lines of his face vanished into thin air. My heart sank; it was my fault that they were gone. “In fact, I’m not convinced that I’m that much better than they are.”
He pushed the old red door open and flipped on the light switch. Holding the door wide, Bo stepped to the side so I could precede him.
The first thing I noticed was the intensity of that tangy smell that I associated with Bo. It seemed concentrated in this spot, like the further I walked into the room, the stronger it got.
I stopped and looked around. The floor of the room was concrete, painted a dark gray like the walls. A daybed was pushed up against one wall. It was covered with a black spread and a mountain of pillows in varying shades of gray. Beside it, in the corner, was a small table, and on its surface a half-burned incense stick and a lighter.
Across from the daybed was a shelf that held a stereo and various pictures and mementos, along with rows and rows of CDs. I trailed my fingers along them, reading the names as I went. Bo was right; he listened to a little bit of everything.
There was truly classic rock like Led Zeppelin, The Who and The Rolling Stones. He had 80’s rock like Tesla, Motley Cru, and Def Leppard. There was some 90’s music sprinkled in, bands like Nirvana, Dave Matthews Band, and Santana. He even had a Backstreet Boys CD. When I saw that one, I had to smile.
On top of that, he had a few country bands, some blues titles I vaguely recognized and a few more current groups like Train, Nickelback, The Fray and even some Pink. He had a very eclectic palate.
Bo closed the door and walked to the stereo to turn it on. When he hit play, I was curious to hear what he’d been listening to most recently. I recognized the beginning guitar riff instantly. It was Guns ‘n Roses, Sweet Child O’ Mine.