The Poison in Your Blood

We get to the beach and pull into the parking lot behind Doug’s big Jeep. We stopped at the grocery store and bough enough food to feed a small army. I got chicken, hot links, and because I was feeling good and spontaneous I got a bunch of corn on the cobs for the grill and a couple different kinds of salads, including fruit salad, pasta salad, broccoli salad, macaroni salad and some macaroni and cheese for Madison because she’s picky as fuck sometimes. I bought a huge watermelon and a cantaloupe, a couple bags of chips, some potato and some tortilla, along with guacamole, salsa, and onion dip. I mean I went all out. I also bought beer and plastic red cups and a couple cases of soda.

I probably shouldn’t say I bought anything. Austin paid for it all. But I picked everything out. We park and find a fire ring and spread out blankets and towels. Madison is looking gorgeous in her bathing suit and shorts and her Raybans that I bought her. Doug is also looking gorgeous, but we don’t need to go there. He’s got on his swim shorts and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off to reveal his full tattoo sleeves.

He comes up to me and envelopes me in a hug. He’s kind of like a bear and his hug surrounds me. “Hey lady,” he says.

“Sup,” I say and hug him back. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“I know, you’ll have to tell your boyfriend to bring you into the shop sometime,” he says.

I laugh and give a little nod. “I’m thinking of having some work done anyhow,” I say. “I’ve got to help get all the food out of the car,” I say and frown.

“I’ve got it, babe,” Doug says. “You just go ahead and relax.”

I think about it for a second and glance back at the car. Josh and Austin are pulling a barbeque grill out of Doug’s jeep. We had him bring it because we were planning to get the fire ring and didn’t think cooking chicken breasts on wire forks would be a lot of fun.

The sun feels good on my skin, but at the same time it feels hot as fuck. I decide I’ll let the men haul all the heavy shit over here and I’ll just let the sound of the ocean relax me. I fully plan to get in the water soon but I’ll wait until everything is here.

Anna comes over with a couple cases of soda. She sets them on the corners of the blankets and she unsnaps the button on her shorts. I’m surprised she isn’t going to lather some more sun block on to keep her skin as white as possible. She adjusts her sunglasses on her face. Doug comes back carrying one of the big ice chests we bough and filled up with ice. We bought two, one for beverages and one for all the food.

He drops it on the sand and opens it up before pulling out a can of Coca-Cola and pops the top. I only bought one case of beer, but I figure the four of us that are above drinking age won’t need more than that. Especially since Austin makes a rule of only having a drink or two at any time. He takes a long drink of the soda before setting the can on the edge of the fire ring and heading back to help finish unloading the car. I sigh and guilt washes over me and I follow him.

I get to the cars and see that Josh appears to be in charge of getting everything out while Doug and Austin carry it over to our spot. If you ask me Josh got the easy job. I stretch a little and adjust my shorts and top. “What can I take guys?”

“Don’t worry about it, baby,” Austin says.

“I want to help.”

He gives me a look and sighs before handing me some bags full of chips and a case of coke. I bought tons of coke. The shit was on sale and I couldn’t help myself. I figure what we don’t use here we can take home.

“There, now we’ve got the rest.”

“You know I can help you,” I say.

“Nobody said you can’t,” he says. “But you don’t need to.”

I roll my eyes and walk away from them with the stuff they gave me and head back to the fire ring. About twenty minutes later everything is out of the car and on the beach. The fire wood is already set up in the ring though we aren’t going to light it until it starts getting dark.

The beach is surprisingly not crowded considering how hot it is today. I can’t say it isn’t nice because I hate it when the beach is full of people who are rude and in your personal space. I get a bottle of water out of the cooler and sit on the towel I brought for a few minutes and enjoy the air and the sound of the waves crashing. I feel Austin sit behind me and he puts his arms around my waist and kisses me on my shoulder. It makes the bite mark sting a little but overall is very pleasant.

“Who wants to hit the water?” Doug asks and pulls his shirt off over his head.

I think my heart skips a beat as I stare at him, mouth open. Everything about his body is right. He’s got tight six pack abs and a beautifully sculpted chest. But what’s better is the tattoos, all the glorious tattoos. We’ve already established his full sleeves. On his chest he’s got a panther coming down from his left shoulder in a crouch across the left side of his chest. The panther is surrounded by jungle plants and shit, and on the other side of his chest he’s got what looks like a very real set of claw marks. He’s got a spider web on his right side rib cage with a spider crawling towards his back.

He notices me staring and I quickly advert my attention though I can hear him laughing. “It’s alright I you look, Lana.”

“I was…just admiring your tattoos,” I say.

“You know, I get a lot of ladies who say that. Maybe I work out too much for nobody to notice my Greek God body,” he says in a cocky tone.

“I noticed!” Anna shouts.

I turn my head to look at her. Josh is staring at her open mouthed but the look on her face says she couldn’t care less. Doug laughs out loud.

“Well that’s good to know,” he says.

“Shit, I noticed and I thought of some fun things to do with it,” she adds.

He laughs again. “Sorry honey can’t do the jail bait thing.”

“Eh, I’ve got a partner anyways,” she says. “Doesn’t mean I can’t look.”

“Lana noticed too,” Austin says. “So don’t let her lie to you.”

“How the hell do you know if I noticed or not?” I ask and give him a dirty look over my shoulder.

“You want the human reasons or the vampire reasons?”

“Fuck you,” I say.

Doug laughs at us and then he looks at the water over his shoulder. “Well you all can be fucking kill joys up here and cook. I’m getting in the water,” he says then. He kicks off his flip flops and turns towards the water. On his back he’s got a beautiful rosary style cross that covers most of his skin and looks like it took a great deal of time. It’s beautiful.

A few seconds later the kids run by, Josh’s shirt flying back and landing on the ground not far from my feet. I finish my bottle of water while Madison gets out of her shorts. She drops them on her towel and adjusts her bathing suit.

“I’m going down,” she says.

“We’ll be there in a couple minutes,” I say.

She gives me a nod and heads down the little hill of sand to the water. I lean back against Austin for a few seconds and close my hands around his. I can feel the sun beating down on my body and I’m going to enjoy it when I finally take my ass down to the beach. But for a few minutes it’s kind of nice to just sit with him.

“You’re hot,” he says. “You are sweating on me.”

“You like it,” I say.

He laughs.

“Okay, I’m going to head down. Then I’ll smell like fish water instead of sweat.” I pull myself out of his embrace and stand up. I unbutton my shorts and wiggle my ass out of them, making a show of it. I turn around and he’s standing up now, looking down at me. “I’ll race you to the water.” I give him a little wink and he laughs.

“I would just be letting you win at this rate,” he says.

I roll my eyes before taking my engagement ring off and sticking it in the pocket of my shorts so it doesn’t get lost in the water. I carefully fold the shorts and stuff them in my bag. “Hopefully nobody steals my bag.”

“I’ll be keeping an eye on it,” he says.

“So, about that race,” I say.

He opens his mouth to say something and I take off, full speed down the beach, my feet kicking sand up around me. The truth of it is if he really wanted to he could beat me so fast nobody on the beach would even notice he moved. But it’s kind of fun to pretend just the same.

He catches up with me pretty easily but he seems to be running at a human pace. He gives me a wink as he runs by and I take in a huge gulp of air and super charge my run and manage to pass him again and I run straight into the water. It hits me like an icy blast and I squeal at the feeling. He comes up behind me and wraps both arms around my waist before lifting me up and he carries me further into the water. I’m laughing and kicking and half way shouting but his grip on my waist is pretty tight. I’m not getting away.

“Put me down, I won!” I cry with laughter in my voice. I kick out with both legs and he drops me. I land on my ass with freezing water up to my chest and I cry out at the shock of cold and I hurry to my feet.

Austin is laughing and I splash a bunch of water at him, laughter coming from my own mouth. I’m about knee deep in ocean water, which means the water is only half way up his calves. My skin has finally gotten used to the cold feeling of the water and I’m happy to splash and play with him for a minute. I have my back turned to the waves, so I don’t notice when the wave from hell crashes behind me until it knocks me forward and he catches me, his eyes full of laughter.

“You alright?” he asks once he gets me back on my feet.

“I just wasn’t expecting that one,” I say and smile. I spread my arms out then and fall back into the water, letting it splash up around me. I close my eyes right before the water covers my face. I feel something grab onto me and pull me through the water and for a second I panic. I’m unable to breathe. Then in an instant I brought up to the surface, but my feet no longer touch the ground.

Austin smiles at me. His hair is wet and he’s chest deep in water. I look back at the shore and see that we are suddenly pretty far out. I look to my right and see Anna and Josh swimming with some waves not far from us. Madison and Doug are sitting at the edge of the water.

“You almost drowned me!” I cry.

“I brought you up so you could breathe,” he says and rolls his eyes.

“You swim as fast as you run?” I ask after a few seconds of considering my surroundings.

“I could probably swim faster,” he says and thinks about it. “But I don’t put a lot of effort into it.”

“Did you not worry that somebody would see you drag me under the water and disappear?”

“I went with the current,” he says and grins.

The wound on my neck suddenly stings like hell and I realize its full of salt water. “Oh shit, is this going to attract sharks?”

“I’ll fight them off,” he says and winks.

I feel the current pull us out a little and look up to see a huge wave forming. My eyes get wide and I turn to swim away. He grabs hold of my shoulders.

“What the fuck!?” I cry.

“You won’t get away fast enough. Hold on and shut up,” he says. He kisses me then, hard on my lips, and the water crashes over both of us.

I feel it push us way under and sweep us towards the shore, but just when I start to panic I feel him breathe air into my mouth. It’s one of the strangest feelings I’ve ever had. When he stops I hold the breath in my lungs and he pulls me up to the surface. I come up and immediately I take deep gasping breaths.

“What the hell was that about!?”

“I brought you too far out into the water,” he says. “The waves were too big out there. I actually found your attempt to get away in the current kind of amusing.”

“Why?” I ask with my eyes narrowed.

“Because you wouldn’t have gotten away from that wave, and it would have pushed you down far enough to drown you,” he says.

“Still don’t see how that’s amusing,” I say.

“Human will to survive shit,” he says as if it makes perfect sense. He must see my confusion because he laughs a little bit. “If I wouldn’t have held onto you I wouldn’t have been able to give you that air and you would have been completely disoriented from the force of the wave. You wouldn’t have been able to find the surface before your body forced you to take in a breath of salt water.”

“How did you give me air anyways? Don’t you breathe?” I ask with irritation lacing my voice.

“Lana,” he says. “I breathe…” the pause is heavy and strange. “I just don’t need to.”

“What the hell do you mean you don’t need to?”

“I’m a vampire,” he says.

“Vampires don’t need to breathe?” This seems like a perfectly logical question and yet the look on his face doesn’t say I’m being logical.

“Lana, my heart doesn’t beat,” he says. “How do I put it? Medically speaking, I’m dead. Why would I need to breathe?”

Well that’s fucking creepy. Yet it makes perfect sense.

“Right,” I say.

“I gave you the breath I took before I kissed you. So I could get you to the surface without you inhaling a portion of the water.”

“That’s like some crazy scuba shit,” I say.

He laughs out loud. “We’ll go with that. Sorry, I should have paid more attention to how far out I was taking you.”

“It’s alright,” I say.

We spend some time in the water, swimming with the waves, playing around, letting the waves bring us to the shore. When we get there Anna, Josh, Madison, and Doug are building a sand castle complete with a moat lined with stones. Everybody, including me and Austin, are wet and covered in sand. I let go of Austin’s hand and go to our friends and kneel down.

“Can I help?” I ask.

“Of course,” Anna says.

Austin takes a seat in the sand but seems content not to participate in the building of the castle. The five of us work on it for a while until we seem satisfied with it and we all sit back on the sand, letting the sun hit us and warm us up and dry us off a little bit.

“I’m going to go up and grab my phone so I can take a picture,” Anna says. She stands up and dusts herself off and heads back towards the fire ring.

I lie back on the sand for a second and bathe in the sunlight and enjoy the ocean smell and the warmth of the air and the cool blast of the wind. I’ve lived in California my entire life and the beach is just a huge part of me. I can’t imagine a life without the beaches of Southern California.

Anna comes back a few minutes later. She takes a couple pictures of the castle and of us all posed around it. She even forces Austin into a couple of the pictures. Once she’s finished with the pictures she goes and joins Josh, Madison, and Doug and they do a little suspicious huddle.

After a couple seconds she and Madison get up and start collecting stones and shells in a frenzy and they create a huge heart out of their findings. All of the sudden I feel hands on both arms and I’m lifted up out of the dirt by Doug and Josh.

“What’s going on?” I ask. I look over my shoulder and see Anna and Madison attempting to pull Austin up onto his feet. Must be nice to be the man being pulled by women. He doesn’t even have to move if he doesn’t want to. Whereas I’ve literally been lifted off my feet and I’m being carried to the giant rock heart. Josh and Doug deposit me on one side of the heart and then finally the girls get Austin standing and pull him down to where I’ve been dropped.

“This shit isn’t cool,” Austin says, but he’s laughing. “Next time I’m not inviting any of you assholes.” He takes a seat next to me and puts one arm around my shoulders.

Anna appears in front of us and takes a picture. She makes an ugly face at the screen. “I can’t get the heart in. I’m too short.”

“Not a problem doll,” Doug says. He lifts her up onto his shoulder then, muscle magazine style, and she takes the picture of us in the big rock heart again.

“Perfect!” she cries and Doug drops her back onto her feet.

Austin stands up then and takes her phone from her. He goes to Doug and whispers in his ear. Doug gets a big shit eating grin on his face and nods. He gives a little wave to Madison and she trots over to him. He positions her on her knees before coming and pulling me up out of the dirt and dragging me and Anna to where Madison is.

This can’t be good. He lifts Anna up onto his shoulder like he did a minute before and then all of the sudden he lifts me up onto his other shoulder. It feels a little strange to be sitting on this guy’s shoulder, my legs dangling, and his hand on my back to support me. I look at Anna and she makes a motion with her hand and I nod. We each use one arm to hold onto Doug, and throw our outside arms out Las Vegas show girl style. I give Madison a little nudge with my foot and she looks up and gives me a quick nod before spreading both of her arms out the same way.

“Perfect,” Austin says and takes a couple pictures with Anna’s phone. He hands the phone to Josh when he’s finished and comes over and helps Madison stand up and then he pulls Anna down and sets her on her feet before coming and helping me down off Doug’s shoulder.

“Sorry my ass was pressed against your head,” I say to Doug with a grin.

The smile on his face spreads far enough to show his beautiful dimples and two rows of beautiful white teeth. “Baby, you can sit on my head any time you want.”

“Back up asshole,” Austin teases.

“I’m telling you, I’m way better than this freak,” Doug says.

“Hey, you know I’m standing right here!” Madison says and playfully shoves him.

“You can sit on my head too,” he says and gives a little dirty eyebrow wiggle.

Anna asks me to take a couple pictures of her and Josh in the rock heart. This requires that I be lifted up again, but this time Austin does it for me and I’ve got my legs on each shoulder instead of trying to balance my whole ass on one shoulder.

She takes pictures of me with him standing in front of the water and we all write some shit in the sand and takes pictures of it. After doing that for a good couple of hours the five of us who eat human food decide we are starving and head back up to the fire ring. Doug passes beers in plastic cups to all the adults and cokes to the kids and we start opening up bags of chips and we get out the fruit. Austin and Doug work on getting the barbeque going and the bon fire so we can enjoy it while the sun starts to set.

I can feel the slight sting of sunburn but it doesn’t seem like it’s too bad so I don’t worry about it. Madison is looking gorgeously tanned. But I’m sure she’s started her base tan a couple weeks ago. Anna also looks a little burned, as does Josh. Doug looks tanned and gorgeous. The only one out of us whose skin doesn’t seem affected one way or the other is the vampire.

I pull on a sweater and take my ass to the other side of the fire ring for a moment of clarity so I can think. The beach has always given me inspiration and peace and I like to always take a moment to enjoy it privately. I close my eyes and smell the fire and the ocean and feel the breeze and my mind is totally cleared.

A little bit later I feel somebody plop down next to me. I open my eyes and I’m surprised to see Doug. He takes a sip from his red plastic cup and looks out over the water.

“Nothing like the sunset on the beach is there?” he asks.

“You’re from California?” I ask.

“Born and raised,” he says.

I nod. “I don’t think any of the rest of them are originally California natives.”

“Well I see we have something in common,” he says and laughs.

I look back out over the water for a minute. I can smell the chicken cooking, and the portable radio we brought it turned on. My friends are laughing and eating and enjoying the cool air. And yet I’m completely content to sit here next to a tattoo artist I’ve only met a few times and enjoy the feeling of being a born and raised Californian.

“So, how long have you known Austin?” I ask after a minute.

“A little over a year I’d say,” he says and takes another sip of his beer.

“He kind of told me how the two of you met,” I say.

Doug looks over the water and he gets a little half smile. “Yea?”

“I have a question for you.”

“Shoot,” he says.

“What made you want to be his friend after…you know, that?” I ask.

He’s quiet for a few seconds as he scans his mind for the memory. “It seemed like the right thing to do. I was taking out some cash from the ATM. I’d tried to buy a burrito at a little place up the street but they didn’t accept credit cards,” he laughs then. “It was probably three in the morning. I had been out with some friends. I was the DD that night so I’d dropped them all off but I was starving. So I ran to the ATM to get some cash. Left my car at the restaurant.”

“What kind of place doesn’t take credit?” I say.

He laughs a little. “That’s what I was thinking at the moment. Then all of the sudden this guy fucking jumped me from behind. All thoughts went out of my head. I you know, try hard to keep in shape and I’ve taken a couple boxing lessons and other self defense shit. But let me tell you, when you feel a gun against your neck it’s kind of tough to remember all of that.” He laughs again, but this time it’s a pained dark laugh.

“Shit that’s fucking scary,” I say and cringe.

“He was telling me to give him everything. I couldn’t even process it. I dropped the money, my wallet, my debit card. Everything I had on me I dropped. I think I had tears in my eyes. That’s embarrassing,” he says and grins at me. “I heard some shit in the bushes and I remember praying it would scare the fucker off. He could have had my money or anything he wanted if he’d take it running in the opposite direction. But I was pretty sure I was gonna die. I opened my eyes just in time to see Austin come out of the bushes and the force of him tearing that mugger off me literally knocked me on my face. The mugger had already got me on my knees. I heard the gun fire off into nothing and I thought ‘shit I better get running’ I was sure he’d shot him. I got to my feet and turned around, thinking maybe I should try and help this guy that just came out of the bushes and saved me.”

This time I laugh.

“I know, crazy to look back on and think I thought I’d have to help Austin,” he says and joins in my laughter. “He had the mugger crushed up against the ATM machine. Like literally the thing was smashed in on the side. I to this day and surprised they didn’t come looking for me to ask if I’d tried to rob the ATM. Everything was moving at fucking lighting speed, and I could hear growling. Like a fucking dog or lion or something growling. I was thinking where is the dog, I can hear a damn dog where is it?”

I nod. “I can understand that.”

“I’ll spare you the gory details. I’ll just say, when it happened…and you know I found out it wasn’t a dog, I think I might have passed out if not for the fact that adrenaline was rushing through me at full capacity. I watched the guy who jumped me struggle against the ATM for a few seconds and then he just went limp. Now, I’m going to tell you something, and please don’t laugh. When Austin dropped him and turned to face me I’m pretty sure I wet my pants. I never in my life felt as much terror as I did in that second, because I was about a million percent sure I was next.”

“I live with him, I know what you mean,” I say.

“I remember putting my hands up in surrender. Kind of like cop show style. I told him, I was like ‘Take anything you want just please don’t make me into that guy.’ And that asshole laughed at me. I knew right then we would be friends,” Doug says and laughs. “He was laughing while he was covered in blood and his teeth were still showing and his eyes were still that fucking terrifying red color. Next thing I knew I was laughing too. I don’t know if it was the trauma or the relief but I was laughing with him. After a couple minutes he all of the sudden looked perfectly human again and he was like ‘I’ll let it go if you promise to keep it to yourself because…’”

“Things get complicated when other people find out,” I finish. “I’ve heard that a few times in the last few months,” I say and laugh.

“Exactly!” Doug laughs. “I swore on my mother’s life I wouldn’t tell a soul and I thanked him profusely for saving my life and I told him about my shop and any time he wanted to come in I’d be glad to do anything for him. I offered to buy him a drink at the taco shop. My mind was running a million things at once, but what stood out most was how thankful I was.”

“So you just knew you needed to be his friend?”

“About a week later he showed up in my shop. It was late, the shop was closing and I was the only one left. I’d bought a gun the next day and I had it in the shop under the counter. When I heard the bell on the door ring I could have shot him except I wasn’t close to the gun. He asked me if I remembered him. I was like, kind of hard to forget a vampire. He wanted to make it clear that I didn’t owe him anything for what happened that night. Then he asked me if I’d like to see if I could tattoo a guy who doesn’t bleed normal blood. I’m always up for a challenge. I was in the shop until 4 in the morning, we were talking about different shit, and I was working on the tattoo. I think in a way it was relieving for him to have somebody who knew and wasn’t totally uncomfortable with it. It was just after his wife left him that I met him. He was going through a lot of shit. That’s why I think it’s great he found you. Because you accept this…thing…”

“He calls it a curse,” I say.

“I know. I don’t think it’s a curse. I think it’s a gift, really. If not for that I’d be dead right now and some psycho would be out mugging somebody else. But anyways, you are a good match for him. Just be careful,” he says.

I can feel his eyes burning on the mark on my shoulder. “This doesn’t happen a lot,” I say. I adjust my sweater so it covers the mark all the way.

“I didn’t figure,” he says. “He loves you. He needs you…you understand him and you accept him. I’m really happy he found you,” he adds. He gives me a one armed hug and I smile.

The sun has set now. I hear foot steps behind us and I turn to look at Austin. He brings me a plate with a chicken breast on it and a hot link and a corn cob. He hands me the plate and I give him a smile.

“What are you doing to my woman?” he asks Doug.

Doug laughs. “Telling her how lucky you are to have her.”

“Well that’s the damn truth,” Austin says. “You two think you might like to rejoin the party? You’ve been over here telling secrets for a while.”

“You act like you didn’t hear everything we said,” I say.

He gives me a vampire grin. “I figured you’d finished bonding.”

Doug stands up and dusts off his ass before offering his hand to help me up. I take it and he pulls me up out of the dirt and the three of us go back to the side of the fire ring where everybody is eating and laughing and having a good time. Once we finish eating we all dance around a little bit with the music on and after a while we sit and roast marshmallows and make s’mores. I can’t say how much I love the beach.