“What if I wanted to be an immortal?”
Giovanni’s hand tightened, and Ben realized for the first time how much his uncle truly wanted him to say yes.
“Either of us,” Giovanni said. “You know this. Either of us would consider it a privilege to sire you.”
Ben blinked hard. “And if I wanted to get an office job, find a nice wife, and raise fifteen kids?”
“I’d be godfather to every single one,” Giovanni said. “And we would watch them always. Protect them always.”
“Why are you making it so easy?” Ben sniffed.
“Because I love you. I want you to be happy.”
Ben started to laugh. “And yet I hear a ‘but.’”
“But I also want you to be challenged. Excited and driven about whatever you do. Because you won’t be happy unless you’re challenged.”
Ben put his head in his hands and gripped his hair. “Why can’t you just tell me what to do already?”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Sometimes I wish it did.”
“No, you don’t.” Giovanni dropped a slab of steak on his plate and passed the bread. “Besides Ben, if I told you what to do, you’d find a way to do exactly the opposite. Then you’d argue with me that your way was what I should have chosen to begin with.”
He took a deep breath. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Of course I’m right. Now eat your dinner. I didn’t ruin it this time.”
“Thank God for small miracles.”
❂
THEY were kicking a ball back and forth the next night when Ben finally asked about her. “So did she go back to LA?”
Giovanni didn’t need to ask whom he was talking about.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “She told me you needed human time.”
Ben nodded.
“She also told me not to leave you alone too long because you’re a brooder.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m fairly sure Tenzin thinks any reaction time over five minutes long is brooding.”
Giovanni chuckled. “I’m not sure about that, but she does live in the moment.”
“Has she always?”
“Well…” Giovanni stopped the ball with his foot. “You have to remember, she’s the type of immortal that will get fed up with the world, then go sleep—figuratively speaking—in a cave for a century without thinking twice. So when she’s awake, she’s present.”
Ben thought about that and it made an odd kind of sense.
“To get to be that age without going mad,” Giovanni continued, “I think you have to live in the moment.” Giovanni started kicking the ball again. “They’re very different personalities, but if you think about Carwyn, he’s the same way. He exists in the present. It’s rare to get him ruminating about history. Vampires who ruminate about history tend to meet the sun because they become melancholy.”
“You ruminate.”
Giovanni nodded. “I used to. And how long do you think I would have lasted if I hadn’t met Beatrice? Not long.”
“Gio?”
“Hmm.”
“Do you wonder? About me and Tenzin? About… whatever it is we are?”
Giovanni paused. “Not anymore. I love you both. Whatever you are… you’ll figure it out, Ben. Both of you are simply more alive when you’re together than when you’re separate. I don’t know what that means yet. I don’t think you do either.”
Ben let that one sink in for a while.
“It’s okay,” Giovanni said with a smile. “You don’t have to know yet.”
❂
THEY were playing chess and drinking wine the following night.
“I think I want to move back to New York,” Ben said.
Giovanni paused, a rook held in his hand. “You want the town house?”
“No,” Ben said. “I’d stick out like a sore thumb in that neighborhood. I’m thinking about a loft in Brooklyn.”
“For?”
Several kicks under the table from Fabi, a few dropped hints from Tenzin, and lots and lots of sleep were starting to make things clear. “I want to do what you do,” Ben said. “Or at least I want to try. But not with books. I can’t spend that much time looking for books, Gio. I’ll go crazy.”
“Do you think this is a surprise to me?”
“I want to find art,” Ben said. “Antiquities. Take on clients and find things for them on commission. What do you think?”
Giovanni paused and finished his wine. It took three more moves from both of them before he replied.
“You can’t do it alone,” Giovanni said. “Not in the immortal world. No matter what your reputation, skills, or connections, there will be some who only take you seriously if you have a vampire partner.”
“She’d go with me. You know she would.”
“So you’re the brains and Tenzin is the brawn?” Giovanni tapped the table. “It has possibilities. You’d be in O’Brien territory.”
“Would that be a problem?”
“I don’t think so. You don’t have political ambitions, and neither does Tenzin. If you gave them a cut rate for family and associates like I do with Ernesto, you’d probably be fine. Cormac is the one to approach. Talk to Gavin.”
Ben nodded, growing more and more excited about the idea as he thought about it. “I can do that.”