If I keep my eyes forward, I can pretend he’s not here. If I don’t look at him—
“Alexei!” Claude shouts, loud enough that everyone in the department turns to look at me.
I have two options right now: 1) pretend that he is speaking to someone else and pray he goes away or 2) murder.
While I know it might be hard to get away with murder in the middle of the Vampire Related Crimes unit, I feel like I could do it. I could at least try. I’ve analyzed enough crime scenes that I know a thing or two.
Claude, dressed in a silver jacket that shimmers every time the light hits him, stops right next to me and reveals a vase filled with huge red and black flowers. “I got you flowers. I got red ones to symbolize my feelings for you and black ones because you seem to… really like the color black,” he says as he eyes my clothes like they’re the problem between us.
“I hate flowers.”
“That’s alright,” he says, sounding cheery as ever as he immediately drops the huge vase in the trashcan. “What do you like?”
And now I feel bad because I thought he’d just be stubborn and go on about how he loves flowers and I should love them too and plop them on my desk where I’ll have to pretend I hate them.
He’s an attractive man—it must run in the family because Marcus Church, his twin brother, is just as handsome. Although they’re similar in height, Claude isn’t as muscular as Marcus. And where Marcus looks badass, Claude looks extremely well put together, all the time. I rarely see him wear something other than a suit or at least a button-up. He’s watching me with his strange silver-gray eyes that always seem to draw me in. From far away, they look blue and almost ordinary, but up close, it’s clear how unique they are.
He seems to have grown attached to me after Finn pulled him in to help on a previous case. While he is overly nice most of the time, he seems to lack a filter. He also has issues understanding that I just can’t date anyone now. I don’t want or need a relationship in my life. Nevertheless, he’s persistent and I can’t help but wonder if that’s why I still let him get away with giving me flowers and other nonsense. It also doesn’t help when I threaten him and he just flashes his ridiculously charming smile at me.
I must stare at him too long because he says, “Ah! Excuse me for one tiny moment, I need to speak with Finn!” then hurries off, and I’m left staring at the flowers in the trash. I glance up just in time to see Marcus divert Claude to the front door.
Why do I feel a tinge of disappointment? It must be because I’m bored and Claude was at least minorly entertaining, or maybe I’d hoped Marcus would have thrown him instead or something. Yes, I feel like it was that one. Something a bit more physically abusive, perhaps.
I pull the flowers out of the trash and stare at them, unsure of what to do with them now. A couple are a little bent from being dropped in the trash, so I try to straighten them and push the petals back up.
“What do you have?” Finn asks, voice instantly annoying me.
I feel like I’ve been caught with something I shouldn’t have. Like I’m over here fussing with a baggie of drugs instead of flowers. “Trash.”
“I feel like you pulled them out of the trash.”
I narrow my eyes at the annoyingly observant human. “They filled up my entire trash can, and I need room for other trash.”
The human grins at me as he sits down in his chair at the desk across from mine before sliding on over to my side. I really feel like there should be a huge partition up between us so he can’t annoy me. He’s almost as annoying as Claude.
“Where’d you get the flowers? From Claude?” he asks, tone teasing.
I have zero idea of what to do with the flowers. Do I toss them back in the trash? I can’t set them on my table… I can’t do anything with them but hold them, unsure of what to do. “Take them,” I say as I try to push them at Finn.
Finn reaches for them, making me relieved that I at least found someone willing to take them, until I see he’s