Vampire Boyfriend: Oleander 2 (special preview)

Thursday evening, I’m in my classroom still as I grade papers. In my mind I’d rather stay here late than take any of this shit home. Between my stage performance class and theatre history class, I really don’t have much, but it takes time to go over all this. I leave the building just as the streetlamps go on and I glance towards the STEAM building. I then see a big figure come out of the building and I know it’s Oleander.

I head over; it would be my first time talking to him in person since Sunday. Since then we’ve exchanged a few texts, but we’ve not talked.

“Good evening!” I call out to him and he turns to look my way. “I thought that was you! How’s your-” My foot does something weird, both not moving and going a different direction at the same time. I begin to fall over, quickly averting my face so it didn’t smack directly onto the concrete. Fortunately, Oleander’s strides are quite long. He grabs me, catching me in his arms then sitting me up again.

“Careful there. Are you okay?” He asks.

I pat myself down. “I think so.” I try to take a step but my ankle pops and I make a sound like a startled puppy. Oleander swoops me up again, putting his arm around me and helping me to a bench where I could sit down.

“Do I need to go get a nurse or something?” He sounds urgent.

“I should be okay,” I huff. I take off my shoe and rub my ankle. “I don’t know what that was.”

Oleander watches me carefully, concerned as heck as I try to feel out my ankle. “Let me call you a cab so you don’t have to walk home.”

“I’m fine, really. I just need a second.” I stand up again and, while my ankle feels funny, it at least doesn’t hurt. Oleander’s arms are held in a way he's ready to catch me again if need be. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” I take a few steps. “See?”

“You sure?” He gives me the once over. “It popped pretty loudly.”

“I’m okay, really.” I smile up at him. His expression is really sweet and it makes my heart pitter patter a little more. “You probably have a class to get back to anyways.”

“This is my easy day. I only have one class on Thursdays to teach so I was actually standing out here trying to decide if I wanted to go to the laundromat and do my laundry, or just go home and ignore it again. You know, grown up decisions.” He then sighs heavily, running his fingers through his pearly white hair.

“You don’t have a washer and dryer at your place?” I ask.

“No, the place I rent doesn’t have one and my landlord won’t let me install a set. Luckily there’s a twenty-four hour one near here,” he grumbles. He then frowns at my expression. “What’s that look?”

“Sorry, I just kind of thought all vampires were rich. But now I’m realizing that’s only based on what I know from old movies so-” I shut myself up. “I can help with laundry if that’s the problem.”

He smiles gently. “Maybe it’d be a good starting point for our lesson on Saturday. I can show the stitches in my clothes and tell you how I make them.”

“Sounds good to me!” I say cheerily.

The laundromat is nice, there’s mainly students there and they mostly float through to check on their laundry. Oleander shows me the stitches and seams in his clothes, telling me what each is and why he chose them for certain articles of clothing. After a while we sat and talked about things. He showed me pictures of his jewelry on his phone and I was captivated. I was marveled by his skill, his attention to detail, and how every piece of jewelry was different but certainly had his signature to them. He also showed me pictures of his cats. Gomez, Chickpea, and Mort were his black cats. Then he had a massive orange tabby he called Diablo.

“I’m excited to meet them!” I tell him. “I’m hoping to get a cat once I get settled at my place.”