Transylvania

T W O

When the number thirteen illuminated, the elevator doors opened, and Alexander stepped out into his floor's lobby. Then he stopped. A young man who he didn't recognize was leaning on the opposite wall. He had one hand resting on the small table that held a dusty fern, and his head lolled to the side, just touching the framed print of Renoir's Two Sisters on the Terrace.

"Are you okay?" Alexander asked, stepping forward. As he got closer, he noticed two puncture wounds on the man's tanned neck, just above the collar of his tight black t-shirt, and he caught a strong whiff of tequila. This must be one of Marco's pickups.

The man blinked and gave Alexander a groggy smile. "Oh yeah, dude, I'm good."

"Were you waiting for the elevator?" Alexander asked, reaching back to keep the doors open.

"Yeah, yeah, thanks, dude." The man pushed himself off the wall and stumbled forward.

"Want me to ride down with you? Call you a cab?" Alexander offered.

"Already called an Uber, but thanks." The man smiled again and ran his manicured fingers through frost-tipped hair.

"Ok, get home safe." After the man made it through the doors, Alexander stepped half-way across the threshold to press the G-button. He wanted to make sure that the elevator brought the intoxicated man to the ground floor. When the doors closed, Alexander turned and walked down the bright hallway to his apartment.

"You're home early," Marco greeted before Alexander had even removed the key from the lock.

"You know, if you're going to drain cute boys half to death, it would be at least semi-decent of you to put them directly into a cab home." Alexander hung his key onto the waiting hook and made his way into the dark kitchen, not bothering to flip on the light switch.

Over the marble countertop, Alexander saw Marco was lounging shirtless on the couch, his perfect abs flickering blue in the dim light of the television. "Oh, did you run into Sebastian? And no one takes cabs anymore. They call Ubers."

"What kind of name is Sebastian?" Alexander asked, ignoring the dig about his out-of-touch vocabulary.

"The sexy kind." Marco paused the Netflix show he was watching and clicked back to the main menu and started scrolling.

"Probably made up." Alexander opened the freezer and took out a bag of blood he kept stocked for these types of nights. "Sebastian sounds too sexy to be anything but a pseudonym."

"Hey, don't be grumpy just because I'm well-fed and you're home alone scouring the freezer for a TV dinner. Again. Are you going to tell me what happened?" Marco sat up and turned to Alexander, placing the remote on the coffee table.

"This is organic. Nothing wrong with buying instead of hunting. And, I don't want to talk about it," Alexander said as he finished squeezing the bag into a mug and placing it into the microwave. Tonight was humiliating enough without having to relive it. He just wanted to forget the whole thing. Even Shirley.

Marco stood and walked over to lean on the counter that separated the two rooms. "I'm not sure why you insist on going to that same stale club every night. And now you're getting into bar brawls with werewolves?"

"Izzy called you?" Alex glanced up, one eyebrow cocked, feeling a twinge of annoyance.

"Yes, your girlfriend called to check if you made it home."

"She's not my–"

"Well, why else do you go there, but to hang out with Izzy?"

Marco was infuriating sometimes. A little brother who knew just how to get under his skin. Alexander shook his head. "To meet women. Obviously. I know you like to order your rent boys the way humans order pizza, but it's not that easy for all of us." The microwave dinged, and Alexander took out the mug and dipped his fingertip into the thick red liquid to make sure the temperature was right. It was.