Most nights after a run, Lyle had no trouble finding sleep. It had, in fact, become a habit to run until dawn threatened to break, slip back into the house, and fall into the sleep of the dead until his father forced him out of bed. That night, after Lyle had crawled back through the window, rinsed off the plastic sheet in the tub, and crawled between the sheets, he was shivering, wound up tighter than a dollar store watch. He replayed the scene with Arius in his mind and spent an hour telling himself that it was foolish to look back on it with this much excitement. Vampires, he kept insisting to his elevated heartbeat and racing mind, were dangerous. They couldn’t be trusted for a second. They were supposed to come across as intriguing and seductive. That was their thing. But falling for
