My clothes are still spinning around in the washing machine so I sit back down but instead of opening my book again I just watch Joanna do her laundry.

“I’m not into vampires. This is just a good book,” I say going back to previous statement.

“Of course, I just didn’t think you’d be into the macabre. You look so innocent,” she says and turns around to give me what I call a “bless your heart” look. Jo’s from the south but she doesn’t always act it and she doesn’t really sound like it either. Except when she’s drunk and I’ve had to witness that quite a few times.

“Stop it, I’m not that innocent,” I pout.

“Whatever you say, Colin, anyway I have some interesting news,” she starts the washer and turns around to lean against it with a big wide grin. I wonder if I should be worried.

“Okay,” I say slowly and carefully. I sit the book down beside me and pull my knees up to my chest.

She gets that glint in her light blue eyes that tell me she had been listening to the old gossip twins from 9B and it has to be something juicy for her to be this excited about it. “I heard Martha and Mary talking about a new tenant on my floor,” she finally says.

“Really?” I am genuinely surprised seeing as we haven’t had a new one in over nine months.

“Yeah, apparently he’s a young guy, maybe around my age. I wonder if he’s cute but perhaps not because the girls said he’s sort of creepy and reclusive. He doesn’t come out of his apartment much except at night and the doorman said he wears a lot of black and looks really pale,” she pauses and seems to think a moment. “Maybe he’s a goth or a drug dealer or both. How curious is that though, right?”

It is kind of curious but we do have some other weird tenants, so it can’t be that unusual. Still, only goes out at night, pale, and wears dark clothing makes him sound almost like a…no, that’s stupid. I blame this book for that train of thought. “Maybe he’s just a weirdo like the rest of us,” I say instead of mentioning what I briefly first thought.

“Hey! I am not a weirdo. I am an artist,” she says and sticks her tongue out at me before she wanders over to a stack of magazines beside me on a little table. She picks up an old issue of Vogue and starts to flip through it. “I kind of want to meet this mysterious guy.”

I roll my eyes, “Don’t you have a boyfriend?”

She scoffs, “Kyle and me broke up last week.”

“What? Are you serious?” I stare at her in shock. They’ve been together for a year and a half.

“Yeah…” She sighs and plops down beside me tossing the magazine back on the table.

“What happened, Jo?” I ask carefully.

She shakes her head and reaches over to pinch my cheeks a little roughly, “I don’t want to talk about it right now, Collie.”

I frown but after pulling her hands off me, I don’t mention it again. She’ll talk to me eventually about it I’m sure of it. Instead, the sound of the washing machine with my clothes in it buzzes and I get up to move them to the dryer. I change the subject back to the new guy and we discuss outrageous notions of his character. Still the thought of this guy being the undead never leaves the back of my mind even if it’s extremely absurd.