“Yes, yes. Your cobbler was marvelous, Margo. Truly.”

It was the eighth time that Margo had asked how her peach cobbler, which had been her mother’s recipe and her mother’s before that, and it was the eighth time that Vlad had replied in the same calm and polite fashion. His thin lips barely moved, and his cold eyes didn’t blink. His hands remained neatly folded in his lap, similar to Agatha’s pose, sitting almost serenely next to him. But their eyes met quickly, only for the briefest of moments, and after three hundred and sixty-seven years together, they could read each other’s thoughts.

No, not in the cliché manner shown by Hollywood nor spoken about in those young adult novels. It was a type of telepathy that anyone could learn, regardless of their mortal status. It was telepathy known by lovers gifted with more time than any could hope to have.

And that thought shared between the two: “Please let them call it a night and show us to the door.”

“Where were you from again, Vad? I mean, I can always place an accent, but I am having trouble with yours. Maine, I think?” Teddy, Margo’s husband, interrupted that shared thought. Vlad didn’t correct him on his name; at this point, it would only spur more conversation. And that was something neither Agatha nor Vlad wanted.

Three hours now. Three ungodly hours that the two had waited, suffered through. All because of those damnable yellow floral drapes that had sat open the whole time and the birthday party for that insufferable brat across the street. Had to be at least twenty children running back and forth across the street, some visibly looking right at the windows, at the four of them now sitting in faded couches around a short, squat coffee table, four small plates sitting there with half-touched cobbler remains.

Was keeping a low profile, despite being hunted across their homeland and now to this new country, worth this, this, this punishment?

And now, neither Vlad nor Agatha were interested in the slightest bit at the thought of making a meal of these two. The only reason they had even targeted Margo and Teddy, the couple that ran a small auto shop for years until Teddy had to retire, because he couldn’t stop slipping this or pulling that or giving himself a hernia over the least thing was because the elderly couple was secluded in the community. People politely avoided them. No one would miss them.

The eternal couple understood why that was now. In the past three hours, Margo and Teddy had only stopped talking to shovel a bite of cobbler into their mouths. Even when they were eating, they were annoying. Vlad’s ears picked up everything, including the pulpy chewing sound from their gaping maws as they refused to close their mouths while eating.

Agatha’s eyes occasionally flicked to the front door and back faster than the mortals could have comprehended. Vlad was thinking the same, cursing the same thing. That blasted need to be shown back out the door. Immortality, strength, and heightened senses meant nothing if they couldn’t just stand up, bid the old man and woman a good night, and leave. It was the worst kind of prison.

“New Hampshire? I mean, it’s practically the same, right?”

If he could sigh, Vlad would have. “Romania. In Europe. We immigrated last….” Teddy cut him off mid-sentence and stood up from the couch.

“Hey, sweetie,” Teddy said, looking at Margo, “the slides from when we went to Greece are still in the projector, right.” He turned to Vlad and Agatha. “It’ll be like looking at home, won’t it? Wait until you see the pictures from the cruise. You got to see the outfit Margo picked up in Athens.” Teddy went around the couch and walked through the open archway into what Margo had described as their ‘nice sitting room.’ Vlad and Agatha weren’t good enough for the nice sitting room, apparently.

Agatha seemed to see her opportunity. Her low, gentle voice perked up. “I can help close the curtains for you.”

Margo raised a hand and shook it. “Oh no, dear. Don’t tell Teddy I said anything to you about it, but he still hasn’t fixed that rod yet, and if you try to move it, the whole thing will come down right on you.” She laughed like she had some private joke to herself. “And it’s dark enough; you don’t need to worry about the curtains.”

Vlad and Agatha glanced at each other again, then at the window. Three children stood right outside, the oldest no more than five, staring in at them. All the faces were smeared with cake frosting.

Teddy came back out with a cardboard box in his arms. “You know, Margo. We never sorted out the other slides from that convention in Arizona we went to.” The rustling of what sounded like thousands of slides came from the box with each bounce in Teddy's arms.

Margo laughed. “Well, these two would love to see those as well. There was a Liberace impersonator there that I swore was the real guy.” She turned back to the other two. “Oh, you’ve got to see it all.”

They couldn’t leave until they were allowed, the glance between Vlad and Agatha said. Unless the masters of the home weren’t in any position to give that allowance.

Agatha looked to Vlad, and he nodded the very slightest nod. They could always go low profile somewhere else, try again somewhere more… not here.

Harry stood nervously in front of his bathroom mirror. He had been running his hand through his hair in a futile attempt to tame its splayed and tangled mess, but this had proved to be much more difficult than usual. Every time he guided a lock of hair to either side of the part down the center of his head, it seemed to maintain its new position for no more than a few seconds before creeping back to the old.

It figures, he had been thinking to himself, of course everything was going to go wrong now. He should not have taken the nap after returning from work, but failing to set an alarm was an even worse decision. By the time he woke up he only had ten minutes before his date was going to arrive.

After a few more panicked swipes at his head, he decided that he was not going to do any better. He had succeeded in transforming it from a completely untamed lion’s mane to more of a loosely packed bird’s nest. It was progress of a kind, anyways. He gave an awkward smile to the mirror in an attempt to bolster his confidence in his work before he heard a knock on the door below. It must have been Fiona.

Running down the stairs to his condo, he practically threw the door open to greet her.

“Fiona!” he exclaimed, before lowering his voice a few decibels, “Great to see you.”

“I’m happy to see you too!” she responded joyfully.

Harry knew he must have been blushing because he could feel a hot pang of heat that stretched to both his ears. Contrary to his own sloth, it was obvious that she had indeed taken the time to dress up for their date. Clinging tightly to her thin frame was a beautiful, albeit unseasonably bare dress for the middle of winter. The white fabric matched her pale skin and ended just short of her knees before opening up like the flowers that adorned it, a beautiful pattern of petals from blood red roses.

“You look…” Harry started to speak.

“Great?” she interrupted before striking a side-pose. Harry was amazed that even in the yellowing, anemic light of the apartment her skin managed to look radiant.

“Actually I was going to say cold,” Harry mumbled.

“Well maybe just a little bit. You had better invite me in before I get a cold.”

“Right! Yes, please, come in.”

Harry beckoned her inside before ushering her to the kitchen where a family meal from Popeyes had been sitting since he picked it up from after work.

“You always talk about keto at work and – well, I don’t really know what that means, but I know it has something to do with meat. So I went and bought this for us to eat together.”

Fiona paused for a moment, briefly moving from a vacant smile to a vacant stare and then back again.

“Oh wow, this looks great,” she finally stuttered.

“Trust me, you’ll love Popeyes. Have you ever had it before?”

“The thing is, I think I might have left myself something in the car – do I have your permission to just run and get that real quick?”

“You don’t want to try the chicken first? It’s freshly cooked from earlier, don’t want it getting too cold,” Harry insisted, honoring the dating tip his father had told him: always be closing. There was no chance he was letting this fish off the hook, not when he was already so close.

“No, it – it looks great, seriously. It’s just something in my car that I need.”

“What could you need? A coat? You’re already here so no need. Let’s have delicious Louisiana-style chicken together!”

As Harry spoke he watched a fly buzz out from the dining room behind him. The two of them watched it dance around his head and then Fiona’s before flying out the still open door behind her.

“Right. Look Harry, you’re freaking me out a little bit here. It will only take me a minute to get this from my car.”

Too much Harry, he thought to himself. He needed to be a little less strong or he might scare her off. It was then he remembered his father’s other pillar of dating: if you seem eager, then you seem meager. Yes, it was a fine dance he needed to maintain, an impossible thin line to toe, and it was of course complicated by the fact that he was really jonesing for the chicken. Seriously, though: priorities.

“Sure, fine, no problem at all. It would be weird if I did not let you go to your car, so yeah, please – go to your car real quick and come back up so we can eat together.”

“So I can leave?”

“No don’t leave – No!” Harry spouted, nearly lunging at her before restraining himself. He scratched his head for a moment, kicking a tuft of hair back up into the air.

“No, see, what I meant is go to your car but don’t leave.”

Harry paused for another second.

“That works, right?”

“Well – no, not really. You need to let me leave here first for me to do that.”

This was uncharted territory now. I mean his dad did not say anything about this and, frankly, he had never gotten this far with anybody else.

Always be meager – no – eager to be always closing – no! – damn it, he wanted to hit himself as he fumbled around with the ideas in his head.

“Yes,” he finally sputtered after a few more seconds.

“Yes? Yes, what?” Fiona chirped, her expression returning to a smile.

“You can leave to go to your car,” he announced again, happy to see that he made her smile again.

And she was happy! Yes, very much so. So happy in fact she lunged on top of him almost as quickly as the words left his lips and buried her lips against the nape of his neck. It was a surprise to him, but a welcome one. He could feel the cold touch of her lips against his neck quickly turning to a pleasant warmth.

“I thought you needed to leave for your car,” he mumbled weakly.

“Just a little something I want to take care of first,” she replied while her lips smacked.

“Always be closing,” he whispered into her ear as the room slowly turned dark, his mind still enraptured in intense ecstasy.

“It’s always the key,” she smiled from on top of him.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

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