Another beautiful, gloomy atmospheric day awaited me that very next morning. It took me a while to awaken, like any other day; sleep wasn't for the weak, sleep was for the non-idiots. I groaned while I was waking up. I reached towards one side of my bed, aiming for Maverick; he wasn't there anymore.

I jumped up, startled by his absence, only to sigh in relief when I spotted him standing by the window, looking out of it with a tiny smile. I smiled to myself, too; he stayed all night instead of vanishing.

Instead of doing something completely out of character, like tackle him when I've never done that despite wanting to deep inside, I stood up and walked over, keeping my hands to myself; he'd have to touch me first since I didn't want to look needy.

He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close to him, laying his head atop mine. He briefly took the time to inform me that Cassius had left the house already. He tried to throw me off by adding a side comment about battery cables getting detached by my father but I rolled my eyes and elbowed his side, bruising myself since I'm human and he's a vampire. Anyway, Cassius would never do something like that, especially not out of fucking nowhere. Nice try, Maverick.

I took another break to be human. More teeth brushing and hygiene for me, as I ignored that Maverick was probably gonna have morning breath himself and he didn't have access to a toothbrush. It was fine; I wouldn't care. I just cared about how he thought about my hygiene and I didn't want him thinking I was smelly. Like, a bad kind of smelly; not the "my scent makes him want to eat me" smelly. I even brushed my hair; crazy, I know.

When I returned to my bedroom, I realized that Maverick was wearing something else compared to yesterday; I mean, it was still the same general theme of casual and rich boy, but it was still different clothes. When he noticed me staring, he stated he left briefly last night to change. I nodded, accepting the explanation without complaint like a normal human being.

Getting into the moment of cuteness we were having, knowing it would eventually return to us being assholes to each other (mostly him being that way towards me), I told him I loved him, even though I actually didn't. In reality, I lusted for him but saying love instead of lust sounded so, so much better that I went with that instead. He smiled really big and said it back; I assumed it meant the same thing I did, that it was actually lust but love sounded better.

Unless he really did believe he was in love with me. In which case, he was fucking stupid; we hadn't known each other long enough to be in love. We were literally still in the honeymoon phase of our barely friendship turned barely relationship.

With his super speed of vampireness, Maverick took me downstairs for breakfast. He hesitated, like he wanted to be the one to make the food for me but I just made a small bowl of milkless cereal, because we had no milk and I didn't want to make anything, nor did I want to make him feel like he was obligated to make me anything, so plain cereal was what I was left with eating.

He stared at me as I ate. I stared back. As always, he'd win the staring contest, mainly because he didn't have to blink.

When I was almost finished, he suddenly asked me if I wanted to meet his family, which resulted in me choking on some cereal from the shock of the sudden suggestion. We literally had just sort of started dating and he already wanted me to meet them, something that usually would come a few dates or months later. But I was kind of excited; I mean, if he already wanted me to meet the family, then rather quickly, we could get engaged, then get married, and then finally have the sex.

I expressed my excitement to him, after I was finished choking, which he didn't help me with because he was an asshole. Anyway, I wasn't scared of them not liking me; I was literally made to be one of them. They were gonna love me. Que over-the-top singing from showoffs. Don't deny it; they may be talented but they do too much sometimes, you know they do.

Apparently, his entire family had been taking bets on him eating me, which I felt wasn't entirely true, as Ansel, Atticus, Clover May, and Briar-Fleur didn't seem the type to do something like that, based on my limited knowledge of them. River and Flora on the other hand, they probably were betting on my demise; Flora because she sounded like a bitch and River because he was a simp for his wife.

And, then, suddenly, he became all bipolar again, out of nowhere. We were literally having a normal conversation for once and he just got all grumpy. It made no sense if he wasn't bipolar or something. Could vampires even still have mental illnesses? Like Dru from Buffy? Why can't he stick to a damn mood?

But then, he was back to smiling. And then, he suggested I introduce him to Cassius in return, as my boyfriend. I didn't really want to, honestly; I barely cared about my side of the family. Unless it was out of plot convenience. Other than that, I barely cared. I still love them, though.

Anyway, I was like "is that the term of attachment we're going with" and he was like "well, it's close enough to what we vampires call our darling mates-to-be", and I was like "okay, cool". There; you got some dialogue. You can stop complaining now.

Anyway, we were gonna go with boyfriend and girlfriend as our title, since people would be weirded out by us calling each other mates. They talk enough shit about us behind our backs in general anyway.

Randomly, we started talking about Chrysanthemum, especially since it had been a while since we last talked to her. Well, I called her a few times after the whole vampire reveal car ride and dinner, but even so, it had been a while since either of us had a proper conversation with her. So, for a few minutes, we called and chatted with her together, letting her be the first of our real friends to know about us.

She congratulated us and asked if that meant I'd be a vampire soon but Maverick denied that, saying it may never come to that. I frowned at the idea of growing old. She found that very interesting, because in vampire romance novels, the girl always got turned into a vampire almost immediately after the dating began, because of mates. Real life wasn't like that, though, apparently; bummer.

I suppose I had to wait, but too damn bad that I waited because I'm currently dying now, which meant not becoming a vampire and being with Maverick forever.

Before we disconnected the call, I asked Chrysanthemum if she'd become a vampire someday, if she could. She immediately said no because she didn't want to harm anymore, accidentally or on purpose, and was happy with being human, and dying human.

I respected that. Maverick respected that much more. He probably hoped she'd influence me to not want to be a vampire. But I was definitely gonna be one. It probably would take a lot of convincing, though; it would be worth it, absolutely.

We said bye to her and hung up. For most of the rest of this retelling, Chrysanthemum, my fake friends, and my other actual friends that I haven't actually mentioned in a while already won't be mentioned for most of the rest of this flashback. …Actually, cross that out; they definitely won't be mentioned again for the rest of this flashback, because they are now very irrelevant to the storyline.

I know, I know; you were hoping to see Chrysanthemum becoming part of the gang, chilling with us throughout all this, especially after the dinner and car ride chapter, considering she knows the secret, too, but she's been keeping her distance for a reason (although admittedly, I was not interacting with her because I was too busy being with Maverick ever since then), so we're not gonna involve her in anything unless she willingly puts herself in the same situations as us. So, her life would be remaining boring and very human filled while I would be hanging out with the awesome vampires.

More for me. Maybe someday, she would get more involved in the universe of vampires, instead of just being in the know. Spoiler alert: she'll be around quite a bit more in the sequel compared to this book, maybe.

Huh? Sequel? What sequel? I'm literally dying right now in the middle of the flashback recap. How could there be a sequel? This is real life; not a book. Definitely not a book. Or not real. This is very real. Vampires are very real; they definitely sparkle like the Soren Phoenixes.

Anyways. Back to the flashbacking.

Very, very dramatically, I confessed that I wanted to be his forever, even though it was probably just a lust thing and I'd get over it after having sex with him, at least, once. He seemed grumpy about that confession, though, even though he felt the same towards me, for sure; he said so. His mood swings really were so baffling.

I sprinted up the stairs to get dressed in something decent; my usual outfit of epicness because why would I wear anything different, apart from the couple of times I, well, wore something different? I also kept my hair down because why the hell would I suddenly wanna wear a ponytail? That is just out of character. I was not gonna change my personality just for a boy and his family; you gotta be outta your mind to even think about doing something stupid like that; be yourself or get fucked in a bad way.

I went back downstairs and got Maverick's flabbers all gasted. It was really the first time I ever witnessed him feel any sort of way towards my appearance; the touching from the previous night and our field date didn't count because that was just regular exploring.

So, some filthy, flirty words were said. I got hot and bothered again. And then, he started kissing my face; my forehead, my cheeks, my lips. I was in heaven. And, no, I didn't randomly just faint from a kiss; no goddamn virgin in existence has fucking fainted over a kiss, or got lightheaded that quickly from one. What kind of fantasy do you people live in to think that kind of shit is real? Take your rose-tinted glasses off, bitch.

It doesn't last long because Maverick acts like a virgin far more than I do, and we're both actually virgins. Yes, I'm gonna keep telling y'all we're innocent, and I am gonna tell y'all when we aren't and keep telling y'all. Ain't shit you can do about it.

He drove my precious Thelma to his house after that. They lived deep within the forest, some ways from the town; their home was an old mansion, fit for more than just the family of seven; at least twenty more people could live in that house. It was a beautiful house. Better than mine.

We headed up the front stairs. Very briefly, I took in the view of the area from the porch; it was okay, I guess, but I didn't really care much for nature, so living out here in the forest someday was probably gonna be very annoying for me, even if it was for necessary reasons, but you know, that won't happen, because I'm dying. You know?

We went inside. Silently. The interior was fancy and there was a large lack of walls/rooms, on that particular floor, anyway. Well, I guess, technically, there were walls; they were just made of glass. There was a lot of beige going on in color everywhere. Yep, that was the sentence I decided to go with.

And near a piano, violin, and acoustic guitar, because of course they own those instruments, his adoptive parents stood like statues. They really didn't have anything better to do than wait for the possibility of Maverick showing up there with me.

I didn't care about Ansel since I'd already met him, and heard his terrible advice about my definitely-a-concussion non concussion, so I focused on Clover May. She looked as perfect as the rest of them; who gives a shit about her overall physical appearance, make up one in your head, she's not important to my general backstory of tragedy. Just know that she was pretty. And was wearing normal clothes like Ansel, and everyone else in the goddamn world (all clothes are normal; we just all have our own styles and judge others for theirs. Suck my ass).

I'm gonna skip the greetings because, well, greetings are greetings; nothing different about that other than it being a new person getting greeted. All you need to know about it was that Clover May was very, very polite; she was practically a Disney princess with how nice and purehearted she was, even though she kind of looked like a bimbo. Fine, she was kind of a red-head and had an almost unnatural skinny waist.

And that was when Briar-Fleur showed up. She also gave greetings; they were very, very ecstatic, which fit her bubbly-ditzy personality that I mentally gave her when I was assuming shit about them. She practically gave me a kiss; her lips landed very close to my mouth instead of my cheek. I was sensing some bisexualness from her; yes, bitch, be unapologetically yourself.

Maverick had a grumpy face; I guess he didn't like the almost girl-on-girl kiss.

And, outta fucking nowhere (which shouldn't have been shocking), Atticus showed up and used his abilities on me to help me relax more; I was already kind of relaxed but I was also a little stressed, so he helped me out. He also quietly greeted me. I greeted him back, like I'd been doing with everyone.

Maverick didn't like that either. He was starting to get annoyingly possessive. I loved it.

I complimented their home, even though I actually thought it was pretty bland. You didn't need to hear that dialogue. But you will totally hear some dialogue this time, for sure. Maybe. I might be lying.

River and Flora were absent. I didn't particularly care. All I cared about with those people were their hotness and that they were related to Maverick. Just because I wished I could fuck them didn't mean I liked them.

Everyone in the room, minus me, was staring intensely at Maverick; I was staring at everyone else, obviously, keep up. It was like they were communicating with their eyes, except they were probably just thinking shit since they knew Maverick would hear it. Whatever it was they were thinking at him made him grin.

For whatever reason, I decided to fixate my attention on the instruments I mentioned earlier. Somehow, it led to a short conversation of "Maverick is just so, so great at everything" even though I hardly have seen him actually do anything remotely interesting. Eh, I still lusted for him, though; that was all that really mattered to me.

Anyway, that conversation then led to purehearted Clover May suddenly becoming out of character as she pressured Maverick to play the instruments for me, like he was some kind of dancing monkey. He hesitated at first but my wishes to hear him play, which I had then vocalized, made him finally agree to play and that was what he did. It sounded pretty nice, I guess; it wasn't really my thing, though. I prefer the orchestra from the Lord of the Rings films and the Star Wars films; that was more my style. Not…whatever he played on each instrument. It was too…slow? Uninteresting?

But then, I learnt that he wrote the melodies himself, so I immediately started liking them. In fact, they were my favorites. So, completely disregard the previous paragraph's statement about it.

I glanced back towards his family, only to find that they weren't there; so much for spending time with them. It was just quick greetings, one conversation, and done; it was just Maverick and I again. I should probably rethink the name of this chapter, then. …Nah.

I complained because I didn't get to briefly speak with Flora and River, but when Maverick reminded me that they probably needed more time to get used to my being around, I calmed down. In my head, though, I called the two of them a lot of very, very bad words. Even used racist terms that didn't make sense to say about them. I felt better again when Maverick said Flora was just jealous of me, the plain Jane compared to her Barbie Girl. Actually, it was because she wasn't human anymore and I was, but whatever.

So, yeah, I lied to you; no dialogue this time around, too. Maybe not even for the entire rest of the flashback. Honestly, me just summazing everything is more entertaining.

Maverick did some ranting; "Clover May is happy that I'm not asexual and also not aromantic". I mean, he didn't say that exactly, but he might as well had, which was rude towards actual asexual and aromantic people.

Anyway, offhandedly, Maverick mentioned more vampires were coming by soon enough, just to see them because they got curious or something. So, if you were waiting for a plot to happen, there it is; the plot is three human-killing vampires were gonna visit the "vegans". Or vegetarians. Whatever.

Then, the seriousness faded and Maverick was all "disappointed by our normal house" and I was all "kind of, yeah, but whatever". If his family was offended by that, too bad.

Maverick, then, took me on a tour of his house. All I learnt from it was that Atticus and Briar-Fleur apparently don't share a room together and Maverick's room didn't have a bed, which made sense because he couldn't sleep and he never got laid.

I just happened to look at a simple cross and suddenly, I was getting more of Ansel's backstory. I really, really did not give a single shit. I listened anyway. Ansel was over three-hundred years old, getting closer to four-hundred. And, then, it was less of a backstory of him and more so one for his father; just why?

Blah, blah, blah. Witch hunts, vampire hunting. Blah, blah, blah. Ansel ended up a vampire. And, like Briar-Fleur, he was alone, by the sound of it.

Maverick, thankfully, cut off the story there. But then, he grabbed my hand and started dragging me somewhere in the house. Immediately, I realized that I was screwed; I was gonna have to hear more of that backstory. And probably from Ansel himself.

Goddamn, my life. Goddamn.