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We eat at a Cuban place the next night, and in between bites of palomilla, Buffy tells me that her husband has come to see her and she’s sent him packing for good.

I keep silent. Don’t rightly care if she knows about our run-in or not. Just feature that her need to talk outweighs my urge to tattle on the silly boy.

“But I have good news.”

“Yeah?”

“I found a place.”

“Tell me where I should send the fruit basket, then.”

She describes it, and I suppress an amused smile.

Life’s a funny thing. The girl’s after my great-great-great-great-great niece Amelia’s place – the last of the living Pratts, at least from my line.

“I’m sure it will work out just as intended, pet.”

***

We’re in bed, in my too-small bed, facing the foot instead of the headboard. I’m trying to catch my breath, but he’s just sprawled out, looking satisfied.

And human.

Tonight, he’d folded my legs back – thank you, Breathe Yoga – and deliberately hit this spot. You know. The one I didn’t believe existed until, oh, ‘bout forty minutes ago?

Maybe some of his stamina is because he’s forever young. And while I’m not about to ask how many notches he’s put in his coffin over his many years on Earth, this is more than just experience.

Spike’s the kind of lover you don’t let go.

“So this place I’m buying, it’s pretty big.”

“That right?”

I nod, and push myself up on my elbow so I’m looking at his face. It’s dark, and I think he can see me better than I can see him.

“I want you to, you know. Live with me.”

“Not gonna happen, pet.” He says it casually, but with a finality that I know I shouldn’t question.

I do anyway. “Why not?”

“Buffy, you know what I am.”

I roll my eyes.

“It isn’t a joke, lover. I’m a vampire.”

“I’m not stupid, Spike.”

He stands in a whoosh, so quick he’s just a blur. “Not so sure about that, pet.”

“I know what you are. Nobody’s perfect. And I’m an artist. Kind of hard to live with sometimes, if I’ve got, you know. A deadline.”

“A deadline?”

He emphasizes the dead, and for the first time ever, I feel a shiver of raw fear. I pull the blanket up to cover my breasts, as he fixes me with a burning stare.

“I am a vampire. You are a photographer. You put down your little camerata and you can go be whatever your heart desires. Go be a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. No, wait, I’m the butcher. You can choose from the other two.”

He’s pulling on his jeans. I spill what I’ve been thinking about for days now. “Spike, you don’t have to kill to live.”

“What, you think there’s a telethon to cure this dread disease? Some crack team of researchers tinkering with m’ DNA? There’s no tonic, no potion. This is what I am. Thought you knew that.”

“You kill people.”

“People die, Buffy. What are you? Medecins Sans Frontieres? People die every day.”

He speaks French, I realize. In the middle of our argument, it is a ridiculous thing to notice.

“Some at your hands, Spike.”

“Fangs, technically. And more than some. More than a few.”

He’s standing there, jeans on, shirt in hand, and he’s on fire with a kind of rage and passion that I haven’t ever seen on him.

I ought to let him go. Really, really, really ought to let him go.

Instead, I throw myself into his arms and kiss him desperately, until he falls back into my bed.

***

“I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Buffy, it’s four in the morning.”

“You’re a creature of the night.”

“Yeah. And I ought to be out creaturing,” he says with a snarl. “Or failing that, getting’ some sleep so I can go play shopkeeper bright and early.”

“Well, I can’t sleep.”

“Fine, then. Want to tell me what’s haunting your dreams?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” I sit up and flick on the bedside light.

He groans, but his eyes open – the left eyelid first, and when he sees my determined face, the right one, too.

“Yessss?”

“What happens if they come for you?”

“Who? The villagers with burning torches?”

“Yeah.” It sounds absurd when he says it, but I’m worried by the image of terrified, pitchfork-wielding peasants.

“Already happened, love. And I lived to tell.”

I scowl at him. “That’s not a reassuring answer.”

He sits up, too, stretching like a cat. “Let’s get this straight. You can accept that I’m a monster, but you can’t stand the thought that I’ll be brought to justice?”

“I’m just worried. About you.”

“Buffy, the fact is that you don’t get to worry about me. Or you can, I ‘spose, but that’s not the way the story works. I don’t end. Forever young, and all that rot.”

“Forever?”

He nods and I wonder how to ask my next question.

“Still my curious girl, aren’t you?”

“You look the same. As in LA. Well, different hair. Maybe a few lines.”

“Look, I don’t know a lot of my kind. But most of us stay pretty for hundreds of years.”

“Most?”

“Let’s say those villagers do come after me – ‘course where you’ll find a pack of medieval peasants in 21st century Europe, can’t say,” he teases. “If they come for me, I go underground.”

“Underground?”

“Living corpse here. I burrow into the dirt and wait it out. Never had to, and don’t fancy bedding down with the worms. If it happens, for too long, when you do wake up, you’re not … pretty.”

I find myself thinking of Hugo’s wizened little face, so different from the healthy newborns in my parenting magazines. Usually I crumple up and cry with the memory.

But this time, he pulls me into his lap, like I’m his weepy little girl. “Hush, Buffy. Hush. I’m here. And if you’ll have me as I am, I’m not going anywhere.” He rocks a little, and I melt into him.

The little part of my brain still switched to on insists that this is weak and lacey of me. Where’s the armadillo skin that got me through the consults with the doctors, the endless paperwork, the funeral arrangements?

“Just be here with me, kitten. Just be here.” He’s rocking more now, murmuring soft little unwords, and I feel hypnotized, lulled into sleep at last.

As I drift off, I hear one last thing.

“I’ll be fine, love. It’s you who’ll grow old and die.”