Children Of The Damned

Damon

Ana and I were at the grill. We played some pool, and I let her win, because otherwise it would just be too weird, since Ana was one of the best pool players I have ever seen, human or vampire. She would have killed Stefan in a game.

When it came to the darts, Ana adopted the swagger of someone certain they were going to win. I remembered her telling me she didn’t like to play it much because she always won and it just got too boring. Well, I was about to blow her mind.

When I beat her three times in a row, she stared, mouth gaping, at me and then slugged me in a very comrade-type-way on the shoulder.

“You’ve been holding out on me all this time?” she cried in disbelief. “I have got to give you props for that. I haven’t lost at darts in years.”

The smiled wiped off her face immediately when Matt walked in the door wearing his work polo. She looked away, and he caught notice of her standing next to me. His face went dark, and he walked with more purpose to the kitchen, shoving the swinging door open in front of him.

“Is something wrong?” I asked. She studiously ignored the fact that he had just walked through the front door until he went back to the kitchen.

“We had a fight,” she said, staring at the green felt of the pool table. Her eyes remained cast down, the overhead lights making her eyelashes cast small shadows on her cheeks. I fought the urge to brush the back of my hand along one of those creamy cheeks.

“What about?” I asked, even though I had a feeling I already knew the answer.

“You.” she looked up, her facial expression apologetic. “He thinks there’s something going on between us. I have told him time and time again that it’s nothing. That you’re just my friend. He doesn’t want to hear it though. He has his own preconceived notions and he’s sticking to them.”

“I’m sorry I’ve caused so much trouble between you two,” I said. Although I didn’t want her to be with Matt, I found that I meant what I said. Because my friendship with Ana had sewn the seeds of discord in their relationship, and now Matt had Ana feeling guilty about being around me, like she was committing some kind of crime. I didn’t like the way he was trying to force her to choose. As much as I wanted her to be mine, I didn’t want her to lose something if it made her happy. And if she chose him, I don’t know what I would do. I would rather have her as a friend than not at all.

“I want you to know that I’m not going to let him get in the way of us being friends. It’s happened to me once. It won’t happen again. I won’t put up with that from anyone, not anymore.” Her eyes seemed to brighten with a new ferocity, and I believed every word she said.

Matt emerged from the kitchen to clean up after the stream of customers coming and going. He wiped down the tables as they left and gathered up their plates and glasses, all the while glancing up at us every few seconds as we played more pool.

Ana laughed when I told my jokes or made any particularly funny sarcastic comments to her or the other players around us, and Matt looked on with jealousy. Eventually, I stopped checking to see if he was watching. I didn’t care. Ana and I were having a good time, and that was all that mattered.

As the evening wore on, we sat down at one of the tables and ordered burgers and fries. Conversation flowed effortlessly. But Matt seemed to pass by our table more and more often as the meal went on, and Ana watched him as she drank her Coke through a straw, eyes lingering on him while she pretended to pay attention to our conversation.

“…And then I killed a few people and adopted a rogue rhinoceros, you know, the usual,” I said, testing how closely she was paying attention.

She nodded absentmindedly. “Uh huh,” she murmured.

“Ana!” I said. She seemed to shake herself and looked back at me.

“I’m sorry. I’m just really distracted. He is acting so weird about this. I think I should go home. All this tension is exhausting.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, but I had a feeling we weren’t referring to the same kind of
tension.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” I asked as we both rose up from our seats.

“I don’t know. I need to…figure out some things.”

“Well, just in case I don’t see you…” I began, and pulled her into a hug, which ended quickly when Ana saw Matt coming around the row of tables.

I gave her a light peck on the forehead, and was pondering whether or not that was something a friend would do when she patted my arm and walked away, brushing past Matt as she went, who shot me a dirty look.

He had seen everything, and he wasn’t happy.