Chapter Sixteen

“SO… how did you know where the hell I was? Spend lots of time in this apartment with your girlfriend?” Avery felt like sneering. He was pissed for so many reasons.

Tyson blushed as he handed Avery the cup of tea. He looked down at his hands like he didn’t know where to start explaining. Avery kind of had to understand. He didn’t know where to start asking questions. He didn’t especially want to drink tea from one of Clara’s cups, but she hadn’t given him much to drink, and he’d had nothing to eat. That would need to be remedied soon.

“This is my apartment. That’s why she brought you here. She wanted to make it easy for me to find you.”

Wait. What? “Say that again?”

“I knew where you were going to be because this is my apartment. She sent me a picture of you. I recognized the wallpaper in that room. I’ve been meaning to change it for years.”

Avery figured he shouldn’t be surprised anymore. But somehow he was. “Explain, please.”

“Clara knew where this apartment was. She’s kept track of me over the years. She knows more about me than I want. Far more.”

“How long ago exactly were you together? No vague answers this time.”

“Three hundred years ago. No, almost four. As I said. A million lifetimes ago.”

“Were you the one who has kept her alive all this time?”

Tyson shook his head. “No. I’ve told you there are others, not many but she had options. I’m not the only one who’s ever found the mineral. I’m not the only one who figured out what it did. I don’t want to say we know each other. But we’re all aware. Clara, she’s older than me. Quite a lot actually, so she had a source years before I was born. I gave her this last stash to keep her out of my hair. I thought my reprieve would be longer. She managed to find me.”

“And if they catch her, no more minerals for her?”

“Yes. If they catch her.”

“We just signed her death warrant…,” Avery said. He felt awful, which was a confusing emotion when it was tied to that woman who’d locked him up.

“No, she’d just be human,” Tyson said. “Her body is only about twenty-five years old. She has plenty of time ahead of her. Still, I wouldn’t have called anyone. I would’ve left her alone. I—”

Avery knew Tyson felt awful as well. It had to seem like an impossibly harsh sentence to someone like him, to live a normal lifespan, grow old, and die.

“You were going to do that for me. You were going to give her the map to your stash and just… stop.”

“I was.” Tyson reached over and took Avery’s hands. “I’m so sorry I pushed you away. I’d do anything to keep you safe. Anything to keep you with me.”

“I….” Avery didn’t know where to take it from there. Tyson had been literally going to give up everything he was to save Avery. It was hard to wrap his head around. “I don’t know what to say to that.”

Tyson shook his head. “I don’t know what to say either. It wasn’t a hard choice. I made plans to leave the second I found out she had you.”

“Where are you from?” Avery asked. “Where are you really from?” He wasn’t ready to talk about his feelings, but he wanted answers. Complete ones. Maybe it was a distraction, maybe it was simply time for him to get the whole story, but Avery wasn’t going to let Tyson get away with half-truths anymore. Tyson seemed to see the steel in his eyes, because he sighed and didn’t even make an attempt to change the subject.

“Originally? France. But not the France that’s there now. It was so different then.”

“How long ago?” Avery had always felt like Tyson was too touchy before. He’d been afraid to ask too many things.

“Six hundred years.”

Avery had known Tyson was old, but…. He didn’t even know how to conceptualize having seen all that life. All that history.

“What was it like?”

“France?” Tyson chuckled. “Dangerous, hard. My parents died when they weren’t much older than you. I was on my own, a peasant boy on a country farm.”

“A genius.”

“It didn’t matter. Or at least it shouldn’t have. But I impressed the right people, I suppose. I managed to find a way out of the fields and into the monastery school. I studied. I learned. That part was….” He looked wistful. “You know, I can still remember it a little. It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago. There was this monk. François. He hated me, thought I was a little devil because I didn’t follow the rules half the time. But he was the one who ended up pointing me toward finding the mineral. He didn’t know it, but he made me who I am.”

“How?”

“I encountered someone else like I am now, someone who’d already been alive for so long. I knew they’d done something. I knew I had to figure it out. At the time it was simple curiosity, not any real desire to live forever, but once I found it, it was too tempting.”

“The stories you must have.”

Tyson smiled sadly. “Some better than others. The world, as bad as people think it’s gotten now, there were times in history that were so horrible. I can’t even begin to explain. I like it here. Let’s just say that.”

“And Mrs. Peggs?”

Tyson chuckled. “She was born in the late eighteen hundreds. She has fond memories of the ’90s.” He shrugged. “She’s got a thing for Nirvana. We might have spent some time in Seattle.”

Avery laughed out loud. “Now that I can imagine.”

“So where do we go from here?” Tyson asked.

“You saved me. You risked everything to save me. I don’t know what that means for tomorrow but thank you.”

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” Tyson cupped his face. “Do you need anything right now? A shower?”

“Yes, please. I need food too, and sleep. And then you and I need to talk. Really talk. I’m sure you’ve done a thousand lifetimes worth of talking, but this time I need to do it.”

“I think I do too.”

“Sleep first?”

“I haven’t slept well in weeks.”

“Yeah. Me neither.”

THE rest of that day, Avery slept and ate the food Tyson brought for him, slept some more, and managed to contact Macy, who was about to lose her mind. When he told her he’d been kidnapped and taken to Rome, that didn’t help. But she promised to get his passport from his dresser and have it sent to Tyson’s apartment.

“I’m going to have to sell this place,” Tyson mused that night. “I’ll get Mrs. Peggs to contact realtors when I get home.”

It was dark outside, and Avery hadn’t seen a single block of Rome. He hadn’t been there since college, and he’d always loved the city. He had a feeling that after this, it was going to take him a while to want to come back. Maybe that day would never come.

“You will?”

Tyson looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Of course. I don’t want anything to do with it anymore. You were terrified here. Clara tried to shoot you. I never want to come here again.”

“I guess that’s a good reason.”

Tyson crossed the room and sank down on the pale couch next to Avery. “Avery, I love you. I… have completely fallen in love with you. I don’t want to be anywhere that you weren’t happy.”

Avery hadn’t expected that. At all. “But—”

“No, listen. I have to get this out, and then we can talk about whatever you want. I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve ever been as sorry for anything in my life, and that’s a long time.” He smiled ironically. “I got scared, and it was stupid of me, but if you’ll have me back, if you’ll even think about it, I’ll make it up to you. I won’t push you away again.”

It was sudden. Really sudden. And after the past few days he’d had, Avery wasn’t sure how to handle it.

“I don’t know what to say.”

Tyson cupped his face and looked at him like he was the most precious thing in the world. “I want to be with you, for your lifetime, for longer, however long you’ll have me. I can’t go back in time and undo my mistake, but I would if I could.”

“I’ve just learned to deal with the immortality. And the vampires. I think time travel would be taking it over the top.” He smiled.

“Just… think about it. Please. That’s all I can ask.”

Avery nodded. “I’ll think about it.” He took a deep breath. “And I love you too.”

AVERY had never ridden in a private jet. Once, he’d been able to upgrade to first class when he’d flown to Boston for a lecture, but that was nothing compared to this. Needless to say, he really liked it. They settled in their seats with champagne and a blanket. It was quiet, perfect. Avery almost didn’t know what to think of the lack of babies crying and people trying to shove luggage into overhead bins.

“I could get used to this,” Avery muttered. “It’s nothing like getting elbowed by the six-foot linebacker types who always manage to sit next to me on regular flights.”

Tyson chuckled. “I guess I’d be that guy if we were on a normal plane.”

“But we’re not. How long is this flight?”

“About ten hours, but then we still have to get home from Atlanta. You can take a nap on this flight.”

Tyson had been so warm, so attentive. It was like since he’d made his decision that Avery was what he wanted the most that he’d changed somehow. It was something else Avery could get used to. He was worried that he’d get moody, distant Tyson back sometime in the future, but for now?

“Hey.”

“Mmm-hmm?”

“So you know how I said I had to think about what we were going to be?” Avery said.

“Yeah.” Tyson looked nervous.

“So—” Avery was cut off by the first officer announcing that the flight was about to take off. He buckled his seat belt and gave Tyson a look that said the conversation could be continued as soon as all the safety info and usual stuff was over.

By the time the plane was in the air on the way to Atlanta, he’d gotten himself all nervous. What if he’d been reading Tyson the wrong way? What if that wasn’t what he wanted? He remembered how Tyson had been with Clara in the past, and how he didn’t want anything to do with her. He could be the same. But then he remembered Macy telling him one time that he’d never know if he could be really happy if he never gave himself the chance to try. If he never tried, well, he’d never know, would he? He took a long deep breath and turned to Tyson.

“Okay. So I decided. At least I decided for me. Then you can tell me what you want.”

Tyson nodded.

“I want to be with you. This you for sure, not the hesitant, distant you from before. I want this Tyson.”

“I think I can do that.” Tyson smiled tentatively.

“Good. But it comes with a problem, and you know what that is.”

“I’m not aging.”

“Yes. I don’t even want to suggest it.”

“Hey. Maybe another day, okay?” Tyson said.

Avery frowned. He wasn’t going to jump into Tyson’s life completely. He was just… asking. He’d always wanted to know everything about a situation. He’d meant what he said about not wanting the Tyson who ran away from them and buried himself in his other world.

Tyson lifted his chin and pecked him on the lips. “What are you thinking?” he asked softly.

“You’re pulling away from me again. I was just asking a question.”

“I’m not,” Tyson said. “We’re on a plane. And we do have things to talk about when we’re back at my house.” There was only them and the flight crew, but the flight crew had ears, he supposed. Avery could wait.

“Like how this will work for us with all your… stuff.”

“Yeah. I want it to work too, in case I wasn’t clear enough. It’s probably going to be hard for me to not revert to old habits, but I don’t want to. I’m going to try not to. I want to be with you.”

“That’s the best I can ask for right now.”

Tyson reached over and laced their fingers together. “It’s not, but we’ll talk about it more at my house. Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”