My Vampire Assistant - Chapter 197
Maybe Rita was just saying this because she couldn’t take rein on her hormones, but I was tempted to agree with her. Either way, I knew I would need moral support for this. That, and I wanted JJ to meet my grandparents, anyway. It wasn’t something I thought about until recently, but all the recent events convinced me we were serious enough for this.
But coming out as supernaturals at the same time was like opening a bonus can of worms on top of the nervousness I felt about this idea. After all… the last and only other boyfriend I brought to my family—to my dad—was Andrey, and that was years ago. Now Dad wasn’t around anymore, and there was an additional layer of grief on the entire thing.
I was nervous to even ask JJ about him. There was an enormous temptation to put it off as far as I could, but I knew that I had limited time to clear my business before Prom Queen would set up the show. I had to move if I were to finish it before… Plus, this was just cowardly.
It was late afternoon, and I found JJ in one of his favourite spots—at my office computer, scrolling through the vampire forum. When I entered, he acknowledged me with a greeting and a smile, one that dimmed a little when he got a better look at my face.
“Is there something wrong, ma chèrie? You look…” he turned towards me fully and put a finger to his lips in thought. “Like you have something to say to me but afraid to do it.”
“If you can see through me that well, why won’t you try to guess what I have to say, too? Would’ve made my life even easier,” I muttered without bite, approaching him. I stopped a step away, feeling awkward now, too awkward to sit. Then I shook my head. “But you are right. It’s just, well. I don’t think you are one for that sort of thing.”
“That sort of thing?” JJ leaned forward and took my hand in his, breaching the distance between us. “Now you intrigue me. I didn’t mean to pry, truly. You surprised me. This expression on your face is a rare one, and I was afraid something bad prompted it.”
“It’s not exactly bad. It’s just…” I blushed. Well, if I was going to be brave about this, then I might as well ditch the excuse of coming out before the TV episode and tell it like I truly wanted to. “Will you go with me to meet my grandparents?”
It gave him a pause. A long, silent one, where JJ just blinked. “Well, that—”
Before I could give the courage the rest of the go, my cowardice jumped out as well and interrupted whatever JJ planned to say. “We are going to appear on TV, after all, and I just realised that I have to tell them who we are before they learn it from news, or they will both have heart attacks! And, and, and, and I told them already that we were dating, so, well, I just thought it would be a terrible taste to say “hey, my boyfriend is a vampire!” without showing off said vampire in a friendly and calming matter.”
While JJ digested that tirade, I took in a deep breath to regain my bravery, and added, “And also I want you to meet them.”
Now I plumped on an empty chair like a marionette with cut strings and let myself wait for his answer while waiting in all the nervousness I felt.
“Well, that would be a first,” JJ finished. Then, to my surprise, his lips stretched into a wide smile that he then directed at me. “I would be delighted to.”
“Really?” I beamed back. “Just like that?”
“Who do you take me for? I am, as much as my existence allows, a man of honour.” He put a hand on his chest. “I stand by my word. And it would be a truly atrocious to leave you to deal with this circumstance on your own. I can only imagine what a nightmare it would be in such a case.”
“Word?” I frowned in confusion. “You didn’t give me a word to meet my relatives…” Then, as it clicked in my head, I added in a surge of panic, “And I hope you don’t take it as some old-fashioned marriage proposal.”
JJ chuckled. “No, no. Thought admittedly, it was the first thing I thought about. But I did my research on modern dating culture.” He nodded towards the computer. “A wealth of knowledge. It was fascinatingly complex, yet so simple. But I learnt enough to understand that to refuse your offer would mean showing you I put much less worth in you than I do.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling butterflies in my chest from that hidden compliment. How did they get there from my stomach?
“And,” JJ added more soberly, “it would be cowardly. Besides, as I said, I never got invited to meet anyone’s parents in the past. After all, I always was a secret lover… Dalliances like ours weren’t as accepted at these times.”
“That’s kind of sad.” I stood up again to walk up and put my hands on JJ’s shoulders. He raised his face up towards me, and for a moment I just took in the pure beauty of him from this angle, the way his golden hair framed that piece-of-art face. “So it’s a good thing times change, yeah? Now you’d be able to do things you never could.”
I lifted his hand and, grinning, kissing his fingertips in the old-fashioned manner he did sometimes. Even his hands were beautiful: pale, smooth, with long fingers and even nails. “Even make a manicure with nails that will be long enough to use as a weapon.”
“Maybe I will put away that particular idea,” JJ replied, pulling me towards him until I fell on my lap, “and instead try to bring to life another one, where I seduce an enchanting witch into sin.”
“Yeah,” my breath caught when he began the seduction by sucking on his favourite spot on my neck, “everything you can dream about.”