TEN
Text messages between Mr. Frederick J. Fitzwilliam and Mr. Reginald R. Cleaves
Can I ask your honest opinion?
Always
What do you think of my clothes?
The way I dress, I mean.
Do I dress stylishly?
Stylishly?
Yes.
I think you dress great buddy
Good.
I do too. Thank you.
I think my clothes look very refined.
I mean I kept all your clothes carefully preserved for you while you slept right?
So I might be biased
Perhaps, but I also happen to think that in this isolated instance, you did well.
Awwww thank you
But hey why do you suddenly care about your clothes
I always care about my clothes.
Ummmmm in the three centuries Ive known you youve never once asked my opinion on your clothes or appearance
Why are you asking now?
I was just . . .
Curious.
Lolllllll u sure it doesnt have anything to do with that GIRL moving back in with u
I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.
The next evening—after the sun had set, and Frederick had welcomed me back to the apartment in person with a small smile playing on his lips—we found ourselves huddled together at the kitchen table in front of my laptop.
Frederick was scowling, arms folded tightly across his chest as he glared at my screen.
“What am I looking at, Cassie?”
“Instagram.”
“Instagram?”
“Yes.”
Frederick pointed at the filtered picture of a breakfast Sam had, according to the caption, eaten a few months ago on his honeymoon in Hawaii. “Instagram is . . . pictures of food?”
“Sometimes, yeah.”
Frederick scoffed, clearly unimpressed.
“Reginald really didn’t show you anything on the internet before now?” I asked, a little incredulous. But it was a rhetorical question. It couldn’t have been clearer that before I got Frederick’s internet up and running that afternoon, he’d never been exposed to anything online.
Frederick shook his head. “He didn’t.”
“How did you know to ask about TikTok, then?”
A pause. “I thought it was a new kind of music,” he admitted, a bit sheepishly.
I couldn’t help but smile at that. He really was adorably clueless. “Really?”
“It’s called TikTok,” he said. “That’s the sound a clock makes, is it not? I think it was a reasonable guess.”
He had a point there. If I’d just woken up from a century-long nap, I might have reached the same conclusion. As it was, I was born just a few decades ago and I barely knew what TikTok was, either.
“Well, either way, being connected to the internet is essential in the twenty-first century,” I said. “It’s the only way people get their information now.”
“That’s probably why Reginald didn’t connect me,” Frederick said, darkly. “He fed me for a century and made sure my bills got paid so I wouldn’t waste away or be homeless when I woke up. But if, upon waking, I had reliable access to information at my fingertips it would have impeded his ability to play practical jokes on me.”
I snorted. “I think I’m going to be a nicer life assistant than he was.”
“There’s no question in my mind about that.”
He turned his attention back to my laptop. Earlier, I’d explained to him that while I wasn’t familiar with all corners of the internet or all social media platforms—for example, I’d only joined TikTok for funny cat videos and barely understood it—I was regularly on Instagram and could show him around.
He’d agreed readily enough, though in hindsight I realized that that was because he hadn’t known what Instagram was. Ever since I’d pulled up Sam’s page Frederick had made it abundantly clear he regretted that decision—and possibly regretted asking we engage in internet lessons together at all.
“What is the point of technology dedicated solely to sharing pictures of breakfast foods?” He sounded so baffled—almost offended, really—that I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. He was the broad-chested, gorgeous, not-quite-living embodiment of the OK boomer meme. The fact that he looked like a man in his mid-thirties only made it funnier.
And more adorable.
“Instagram isn’t just pictures of food,” I countered, trying to keep a straight face.
He pointed an accusing finger at the screen. “Your friend’s account seems to be entirely pictures of food.”
“Sam likes taking pictures food,” I admitted. “But Instagram lets you share pictures of anything you want with people all over the world. Not just pictures of food.”
He seemed to consider that. “Oh?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “You can share pictures of important news events, or of beautiful places. And, yes, okay—sometimes people share pictures of meals they’ve enjoyed. Especially if they were somewhere special or exciting when they ate it.”
“Why would people all over the world care what your friend Sam ate while on holiday?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but then realized I didn’t have a good answer for that.
“I . . . don’t really know,” I admitted. “But we could take a picture of that bowl of oranges you keep on the counter for me and post that if you want. They’re pretty.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the oranges in question, then shook his head disapprovingly. “I simply do not understand this modern urge to share every errant thought one has with the entire world the instant it happens.”
“I can’t say I completely understand it, either,” I admitted. “I use Instagram to promote my art. Other than that, I don’t use social media much.”
“Then why are you insisting I learn how to use it?” He sounded petulant, like a small child on the verge of throwing a tantrum over having to do his math homework. “If this is social media, social media seems like nothing but a noisy, invasive waste of time.”
As he continued to scowl at my laptop, I became nearly overwhelmed with sympathy for him. When Frederick fell into his century-long sleep, he’d left behind a world of handwritten letters and horseback riding. Waking up to social media and the Kardashians had to be an incredible shock. He was like an octogenarian learning how to use a computer—only worse.
Octogenarians were more than two hundred years younger than he was.
I was determined to stick with this lesson, though. Frederick may not have intended to ask me to teach him about social media when he asked about TikTok, but honestly? It was a good idea. Now that we were doing this, I wasn’t going to let him get in his own way.
“You don’t have to use social media,” I said, keeping my voice gentle. “But if you want to blend in, you need to at least know what social media is.”
“I am not certain that is true.”
“It is.”
His full, plush lips turned down into a pout. My centuries-old vampire roommate was pouting. It was as ridiculous a sight as it was riveting. He bit his lip, and my eyes fell helplessly to his mouth. His front teeth looked no different from anyone else’s. Did Frederick have fangs somewhere, the way Reginald did?
If he pressed those beautiful lips to my throat, would he be able to feel my heart beating beneath the skin?
I still had so many questions. Some of which I didn’t dare admit even to myself.
“The clarity of the photographs you can see on the internet is astounding.” Frederick’s grudging compliment of Sam’s pictures cut into my daydreams, saving me from myself. Thinking about his mouth on my neck—on any part of my body—would lead to nothing good.
I sat up a bit straighter in my chair, feeling a bit flushed. “I’m pretty sure Sam used a filter on that.”
“A what?”
I shook my head. A lesson on Instagram filters could wait for another day. “Never mind.”
Fortunately, Frederick let it drop. “My understanding from Reginald is that there is a way to interact with images you see on social media. How do I do that?”
“Oh. Well, on Instagram you can like a post by clicking that little heart, or you can leave a comment.”
Frederick frowned. “A comment?”
“Yeah.”
“What sort of comments does one leave on Instagram?”
I thought for a moment. “I mean, people say whatever they want. Usually people try to be funny. Sometimes they might try to be mean, I guess. But that would be a dick thing to do.”
“A . . . dick thing to do,” he repeated slowly, sounding confused.
“Exactly.”
Frederick shook his head and muttered something under his breath that sounded a bit like incomprehensible modern slang, though I couldn’t be certain. Then he asked, “May I leave a comment on this picture your friend has posted of his breakfast?”
His question surprised me, after how openly hostile he’d been to the very idea of social media. It was good that he wanted to learn, though. “Sure.” I pointed to the comment box. “Just type whatever you want to say right here.”
He stared at the keyboard, then began to peck at the keys very slowly with two large index fingers.
“I am still unfamiliar with modern keyboards,” he admitted as he painstakingly crafted his message. “They differ so much from the typewriters I am used to.”
I thought of the old typewriters the Art Institute of Chicago had in its collection, and tried to picture Frederick in his old-fashioned clothes, using one of them.
“You’re pretty good at texting,” I said. “I’d think a phone would be even harder to use.”
Frederick shrugged. “I discovered a feature called talk to text,” he said, as he continued typing. For someone who usually moved so fluidly, who seemed so at ease in his own body, he was a clumsy and graceless typist. It was oddly endearing. “Without it I would never use my phone at all.”
Talk to text would explain the length of some of the texts he’d sent me. Smiling a little, I glanced up at my laptop’s screen. My smile vanished when I read what Frederick was writing.
While this photograph is nice enough, I fail to see the point of using advanced technology for such pedestrian purposes. Why did you share it? Yours in good health, Frederick
I stared at him. “You can’t post that,” I said, at the exact same time he hit send and the message posted.
“Why not?” Frederick sounded genuinely confused. “You just said people could leave whatever messages they wanted on Instagram.”
“Not when you’re signed in with my account.” I batted Frederick’s hands away from the keyboard, ignoring his protests. “Delete it. That was a mean thing to say.”
“It was not. I was simply asking for clarification.”
“It was mean. Sam will think you’re a dickhead.” Of course, Sam already didn’t like Frederick. I still hadn’t explained why I’d fled this apartment and showed up on his doorstep with no notice, or why I went back to Frederick just as quickly. Knowing my history with terrible living situations and terrible men, Sam was almost certainly drawing the worst conclusions.
The pensive look on Frederick’s face suggested he’d somehow guessed what I was thinking. “Your friend already has plenty of reasons to mistrust me,” he said. “If I were him, I probably wouldn’t trust me very much, either. I suppose you’re right. I do not want to make matters worse by insulting his choice in breakfast photography.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You don’t.”
“Very well,” he said. “You can take the comment down.” He closed his eyes, his long, thick eyelashes fanning out along the tops of his cheeks. I found myself transfixed by them, and by the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.
“I . . . was once known for my straightforward demeanor,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “It was an admirable trait among men at the time. I gather that now, one must mince words often in order not to offend.” He paused again. “None of this is intuitive to me. I feel I shall forever be a bumbling idiot in public.”
His shoulders slumped, making him look so sad my heart ached. The enormity of what he faced, what he was trying to do—and everything he had lost over the long centuries of his life—hung unspoken and heavy in the air between us.
“I’ll do what I can to help.” My words, the offer I was making, felt inadequate. Too small.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, a quiet smolder in them that hadn’t been there before.
“I know you will.” A beat. “Will you show me your Instagram account?”
I blinked at him. “What did you say?”
He frowned. “Did you not hear me?”
“I heard you. I’m just surprised.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t think you wanted to look at Instagram.”
“I don’t want to look at Sam’s breakfasts on Instagram,” he corrected. “But if it’s so important I learn about social media and the internet I would at least like to see something interesting.”
I hesitated.
“My account’s boring.”
“I am certain it’s not.”
“Instagram has zillions of hilarious cat reels,” I hedged, my cheeks going hot. “Let’s look at one of those.”
I leaned forward to click on one of my favorite cat accounts. The inside of my arm brushed up against his forearm in the process, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine. I closed my eyes against the unexpected rush of sensation that coursed through me, just from that.
“Cassie.”
Tentatively, he placed one of his hands on top of mine, stopping my scrolling—and my breathing—instantly. His hand was cool, his palm smooth against my knuckles. I glanced down at our hands, marveling at the contrast between them as I fought to steady my breathing. Warm, and cool. Small, and large. Tanned, and pale.
It was the first time he had ever intentionally touched me. This seemed to occur to him in the same moment it occurred to me, and it surprised him just as much. His eyes widened, pupils dilating as he regarded me.
It took an embarrassing amount of willpower not to twine our fingers together, just to see what that would look like, too.
“Please stop distracting me.”
Frederick’s voice was at my ear, tickling the little hairs at my nape, causing my forearms to erupt in a riot of gooseflesh.
I swallowed, trying to focus on the cat on my laptop screen. The kitty was cute, and really good at snowboarding. He deserved my full attention.
“Distracting you?” I breathed. I could barely hear my voice over the rush of blood in my ears.
“Yes.” Frederick removed his hand from mine. I tried to tamp down an irrational wave of disappointment at the loss of contact. “I want to see your Instagram account. You are trying to distract me with cats.”
I took a deep, steadying breath, and chanced a glance at his face. His eyes sparkled with amusement.
“It’s not working?” I managed.
“No. I like cats well enough. But I have seen cats before. I have never seen your page.” And then, almost as an afterthought, he added: “Please show it to me.”
Did vampires have magical powers that made humans want to do their bidding or something? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was one moment I was about to tell him that while he may have seen cats before, there was no way he’d seen one snowboard—and the next I was loading up my Instagram, just like he’d asked me to.
Maybe it wasn’t magical power at all. Perhaps it was the lingering effects of how it had felt, having his hand on mine.
I blinked up at the monitor, and at the goofy selfie from five years ago that served as my profile picture.
I cleared my throat. “Here it is.”
He hummed in appreciation. “How do I look through the pictures?”
“Like this,” I said, showing him how to scroll through. “I mostly post things I’ve made, but it isn’t a true art account because there are also selfies and pictures of friends mixed in.”
“Selfies?”
“Oh.” Of course he wouldn’t know that word. “Selfies are pictures you take of yourself.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Self-ies.”
He figured out how to maneuver through the photos on my Instagram quickly enough. He looked at the pictures I’d taken in Saugatuck of me, Sam, and Scott, our arms around each other as we smiled up at the camera. He took in pictures of the beach trash I’d collected to make the canvases in my bedroom—and the pictures of me, grinning like a proud fool in pigtails and flip-flops, standing in front of it.
Frederick went through the pictures, looking at each one with mild interest.
Until, that is, he came to a picture Sam had taken the last day of our vacation: me, on the one day that entire week that could have been accurately described as hot, wearing the only bikini I owned. It was bright pink, the bottoms covered in white daisies.
It wasn’t anything special.
As far as bikinis went it wasn’t even all that revealing.
Frederick paused his scrolling. His eyes widened, his free hand clenching into a tight fist at his side.
He looked like he was about to have an embolism. Or whatever the vampire equivalent of an embolism was.
He pointed a shaking finger at the picture.
“What are you wearing?” His jaw was clenched, the tendons of his neck standing out in sharp relief.
“A bathing suit.”
He shook his head. Closed his eyes. The whirring of the refrigerator clicked on, filling the room with white noise.
“That,” he said, his voice a gravelly rasp, “is not a bathing suit.”
I was about to ask what he was talking about—because yes, clearly it was a bathing suit. And then I realized he was likely used to women’s bathing suits that covered you from head to toe.
But why would he care what I wore on a beach vacation years ago?
“It is a bathing suit, Frederick.” I glanced at the image of myself, smiling at the camera. “I know it’s different from the bathing suits you’re used to, but . . .”
The rest of my words died in my throat as I took in his expression. The glint in his eyes, the tight set of his jaw . . .
I’d been wrong. He didn’t look angry.
He looked murderous.
I licked my lips, casting about for something to say, trying to make sense of his bizarre reaction. “You don’t like the picture?”
His scowl deepened. Clearly this was the understatement of the century. “No.”
A hard little knot formed in the pit of my stomach. I knew I hardly had a supermodel’s body. My curvy hips and long torso made wearing a bikini a bold choice. But did he have to be so mean about it?
“You . . . don’t think I look good in it?” As soon as I asked the question, I felt silly for caring. What did it matter if he thought I looked good or not? It didn’t matter.
Except for some reason . . . it did.
“That is not what I said,” Frederick muttered.
I frowned at him, puzzled by how he was acting. “I don’t understand.”
Silence stretched between us, punctuated only by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room.
When Frederick opened his eyes again they were full of a fiery possessiveness that stunned me. He pushed back from his chair with so much force he nearly knocked it to the floor.
“What I said, Cassie, was that I did not like the picture.” He was facing the window that looked out over Lake Michigan now, his back to me. Which was just as well. If the look on his face was even half as heated as the tone of his voice, I wasn’t sure what I would do. Probably something Sam would lecture me for later. Possibly I’d burst into flames.
His hands were still clenched at his sides, his whole body taut as a bowstring.
“Perhaps young, beautiful women do routinely dress in next to nothing at all when they go to the beach. Perhaps my reaction to seeing you dressed this way is incredibly old-fashioned.” He paused and turned to face me. His eyes were full of torment—and something else I didn’t have words for, but which my body somehow recognized all the same. My heart sped up at the way he was looking at me now, my breathing coming short and too quick.
“I’m allowed to dress how I like, you know.”
“You are,” he conceded. “I have no right to dictate how you dress or live your life. My opinion does not—and should not—matter. But the idea of other people being able to see so much of your body . . .” He looked away again, then sighed. “Perhaps I have lived too long.”
By the time I managed to gather my wits about me enough to respond, he’d turned and stalked out of the room, leaving palpable, unbearable tension in his wake.