My head started to bother me around 11 that night. I blamed the margarita, and it reminded me why I should have just stuck to what I knew didn't induce headaches. Shame on me for being a "copycat" (according to the Prince of Darkness).

It wasn't at an unbearable pain level, but it was there, just enough for me to be aware of it, and when I was aware of it, it was all I thought about. The subtle pulsing at my temple and behind my eye - always on my left side - that would only be temporarily relieved when I rolled over, then emerge again and force me to roll over...again. And again. And again.

It was dark in our room, but enough moonlight trickled through the blinds to cast a glow on Evie's sleeping figure. I sucked in a breath and rolled over again, my gaze now towards the hotel room door, and the sliver of light that spilled in through the crack at the bottom seemed extra bright. When I tried to shut my eyes, the throbbing resumed.

I weighed my options: if I took an excedrin now, I probably wouldn't be able to sleep for a few hours (because of course, the operating ingredient that makes excedrin work for me is caffeine), but at least my headache would probably go away since it wasn't severe yet. But if I didn't take it and tried to fall asleep, I ran the risk of waking up with the headache, along with giving it time to get worse. A headache could swell like a hurricane if left unchecked.

Not sleeping for a few hours was decidedly less risky than playing headache roulette. So I slid out of bed, and tip-toed in my slippers to the bathroom for my toiletries bag, swallowed two pills, and splashed some cold water on my face.

When I looked up into the mirror, I tried to convince myself that the harsh fluorescents of the bathroom (which were never flattering in a hotel) overly emphasized how unadjusted I was to all of these hectic late nights and close quarters traveling. My skin was not this dull, my hair was not this flat, and my dark circles were not this bad.

That being said, I decided that another thin layer of my Jet Lag mask was never a bad thing, and if I was going to commit to staying up and watching Mean Girls on my phone, I was going to treat myself to some candy at the vending machine and tell myself tomorrow would be better (and so would my skin).

Not wanting to be out and about in no bra (even if it was a desolate hotel hallway at near midnight), I slipped my pink & Other Stories cardigan over my pajama cami before cracking our hotel room door open just enough to slide myself through so the light or the noise didn't wake Evie.

The throbbing in my head with each step I took was subtle - but still there - as I treaded down what felt like a mile to the little room at the end of the hallway where ice and the vending machine was tucked away.

When I stepped into the threshold of the doorway, I nearly slipped on the linoleum flooring at the unexpected sight of Devon standing in front of the vending machine, humming to himself. I hoped that meant he couldn't hear the way I gulped at the sight of his bare arms out in that same cut-off tank top he'd been wearing the other night.

As he reached up to gently brush a bit of hair out of his face, I noticed an unfamiliar little gothic symbol etched behind his ear.

When he glanced up and finally registered me standing in the doorway, he staggered backwards like the sight of me had electrocuted him. "Jesus fucking christ. You can't sneak up on people like that."

There was something oh so satisfying about knowing I'd managed to startle the Prince of Darkness himself (however unintentional it was), and I smirked up at him. "Guess that's payback for the other night on the bus."

Devon heaved out a sigh and turned his attention back to the vending machine, his face bathed in a pale glow. "Guess so."

All I wanted was some candy for my movie, but now there he was - in my way in what felt like more ways than one. I shifted uneasily on my feet as we continued our silent standoff in this tiny room, the hum of the ice maker suddenly loud in the background. Which one of us was the cat and which one of us was the mouse now?

"You need something?" he asked flatly.

I decided now was as good a time as ever to try and take on the role of the cat, leading the mouse towards some kind of sustained civility. "Uh...your voice sounds better," I offered.

Devon scoffed, and after he'd retrieved whatever he'd gotten from the vending machine, he glanced over at me again. His dark eyes flicked downwards, where my cardigan had become very much open, very much exposing my entire braless existence. As if on cue, a chill prickled down my neck and into my chest.

"Cute slippers," he let out a snort as he nodded towards my fuzzy bunny slippers. Unsurprisingly and annoyingly so, Devon's deflection was convincing.

"Thanks," I grumbled out, trying to be subtle about pulling the edges of my cardigan as tightly over my chest as it would go without ripping it entirely.

"You didn't answer my question."

He'd squared his shoulders to face me head-on now, slapping a packet of Sour Patch Kids against his palm. Fitting.

"I was going to get some candy and watch a movie. I, um...I can't sleep," I admitted, trying not to wince as my head pulsed again. I needed to get out of the light and back to a cool, dark place (what was I, a god damn fungus now?).

Devon sucked in a breath and rubbed the back of his neck. "Me either. I was maybe gonna..." he vaguely gestured out into the hall. "...walk, clear my head. If you also maybe feel like walking..."

His voice trailed off, and the subtle awkwardness shouldn't have been as endearing as it was.

"I'm sorry, are you willingly asking for my company?" I played coy, and his cheeks pinkened just slightly.

"Whatever helps you sleep," he grumbled as he brushed past me, wafting his clean scent over me.

In that moment I realized he was still the cat, leaving me crumbs to follow naively right into what could have been a trap. Part of me - the idealist part - thought that maybe there was no trap, which is why I decided to follow him.

That, and Devon McCall could have also been perceived as a cool, dark place. Maybe a distraction was all my head needed.

He led us out the heavy double doors at the end of the hallway into the chill of the night, and suddenly I was even more thankful for my cardigan.

"Aren't you cold?" I asked him as I wrapped my arms tightly around my torso.

"Why, you gonna offer me your sweater?"

I gawked at what seemed like an attempt at being funny, and my reaction was clearly the exact one he wanted as a subtle smirk graced his lips.

We followed the path around the perimeter of the hotel to the pool at the back, where the humming of the pool filter and the lights gleaming under the water created a little oasis in the dark. We could have been alone for miles and not known.

"Uh, I think it's closed." I gestured to the sign tacked to the front of the white metal gate, where a list of obvious things like no lifeguard on duty and no running were concluded by pool operating hours: 8 AM to 8 PM.

Devon heaved out a sigh and shook his head before reaching a long arm over the gate and unlocking it from the other side. The gate squeaked as he pushed it open and gestured for me to walk in first.

"Okay then." I grumbled before skirting around the edge of the pool and picking the least questionable looking chair to sit up cross-legged in.

He settled into the chair beside me, leaning back with his legs out and his eyes closed.

There were still tattoos of his I felt like I was seeing for the first time, like the portrait of a woman's face that took up almost his whole left bicep, pale with a moth covering her mouth. Below that, a knife on the inside of his forearm surrounded by roses, with a detailed reflection in the knife of a man in a mask.

No matter what I thought about him, he was covered in art, and it was impossible not to appreciate art for what it was - beautiful and enticing and difficult to look away.

At some point he must have felt my gaze, because he opened one eye and squinted at me. "What?"

There was no point in trying to hide that I'd been looking at him, so I pivoted instead. "So...you came out here to just sit in silence?"

He closed his eyes again and sighed. "We can't all be yappers like you. And...I like the silence."

I snickered. "Interesting for someone who plays loud music for a living."

"There you go with the interesting again," he grumbled.

"Well you are," I blurted out. "Interesting, I mean."

The sudden admission seemed to take us both by surprise as he finally turned to look at me, his chest heaving as he took an unsteady breath. As the warm glow from the pool lights lit him up in almost an angelic way, I figured there was no point denying that I did genuinely find him interesting. I hoped maybe he understood that and would stop giving me just crumbs for bait to lead me along.

"I like music." He finally said with his gaze down as he fiddled with the hem of his shirt. "I'm good at music. I mean, I was basically engineered to be good at it...and not really much else. Including talking and...making friends and stuff."

I shifted on the chair so I could face him fully, resting my hands on my knees. "Okay, how about this? I'll ask you a question about yourself, but then you get to ask me one, and we can go back and forth, so it's fair."

He let out a hollow chuckle. "I feel like I'm at fucking freshman orientation all over again."

I scoffed. "Or we could just sit here and listen to the pool filter."

And we did, for maybe a few moments. I watched him intently as his Adam's apple bobbed behind the tentacles of the giant squid inked on his neck, swallowing his words down. Eventually, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the packet of Sour Patch Kids, dumping a few in his hand before extending it to me. I offered him a faint smile and took a red one.

"I don't go out of my way to be an asshole, you know." This time when he spoke, there was that unsteadiness to it, but soft like the gentle autumn breeze that threaded itself through the trees around us. "At least...not all the time. I'm just..." He paused and let out another sigh. "I was always a shy kid. I didn't have friends growing up, so I guess I didn't develop many social skills. Now I'm angry and shy, which is even worse."

My heart lurched at his admission, the same way it did when he wrote YES in my notebook, and I was overcome with a horrifying urge to reach for his hand, half out of understanding and half out of guilt. I shifted in the chair and sat on my hands instead.

"And I'm just a stranger who came in out of nowhere and got uncomfortably in your face. Which...I'm really sorry for. I mean, that I acted like I knew everything from the jump instead of actually trying to get to know what works for you guys and your music."

He threw the rest of the sour patch kids in his mouth before holding his hands up. "Hey, you said it, not me."

I tried not to laugh, but there was something about the way his voice lifted that made me smile. "You know Devon, you're funny when you're not trying to be."

"Thanks...I think."

When he turned to look at me, he smiled back (no fangs), in a way that made his dark eyes glint in the light. If we were going by traditional vampire lore, the Prince of Darkness was an angel first, and I had to believe that sometimes he still looked it.

"Anyway, I have my first question," I announced, sitting up straight so I could rip my gaze away from the weird aforementioned angelic glow. "Since I know you're from New York, where'd you go to school?"

"Juilliard."

His answer came so calmly and so effortlessly with almost no thought to it, and he threw back a few more Sour Patch Kids in his mouth. I had to blink a few times to see if there was an indicator that he was joking again.

He noticed, and he smirked in response. "Yeah, that's the look I usually get."

I felt an embarrassment of warmth spread through my cheeks. "N-no, no, I just...I'm trying to figure out what you studied."

"Music performance, but for two instruments, so...kind of like double majoring but not really."

"What instruments?"

"Piano and cello," he admitted begrudgingly. "I also somehow found time to minor in sound engineering."

"At least that part makes sense," I chuckled, and I tried to picture Devon in one of those plucky suits that professional orchestra people wear, hunched over a big cello. "Guess you must have been really good, huh? Isn't Juilliard like, the best school you could possibly go to for music?"

Devon shrugged. "I wasn't that great. I was just obedient."

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to..." Yap like an ignorant bitch. Despite whatever direction our conversation was headed, he was still Devon, and that meant the rather glaring misplaced sense of insecurity had to appear at some point.

If it bothered him, he didn't show it as he sat up in his chair and rolled his shoulders back. "It's my turn anyway. Since we all know you're not a New Yorker..." I rolled my eyes at that, a faint smirk tugging at my lips. "...why'd you move there?"

"Well, you already know I'm from North Dakota," I began, folding my hands in my lap. "It's a small town outside of Fargo, and-"

"Oh boy," he settled back into the chair again as he bit the head off of a green Sour Patch Kid. "This is going to be long-winded, I can tell."

"You asked." I shot him an annoyed glare.

"I know, I know. Go on." He waved his arm around.

I took a breath before continuing. "Well, it's one of those towns that nobody ever leaves. Everyone just grows up, marries someone else from town, and the cycle continues. It's like geographical inbreeding."

That got a snicker out of him, and I found myself smiling as I continued. "So, when I was a teenager, parents paid for premium cable - and this was like, a huge deal where we lived - and one night I stumbled upon reruns of Sex and the City on HBO. I was immediately smitten by pretty much everything about it. The clothes, the city, the people. So I applied to NYU and Columbia. Didn't get into Columbia but got into NYU. Stayed for grad school. Never left, and I probably never will."

Devon nodded, slowly and contemplatively the way that people do when they actually listen. "Nothing you wanted to stay in fucking Fargo for, huh?"

I snickered (because I knew he'd heard that I didn't actually live in Fargo), and he handed me another Sour Patch Kid - a red one. The fact that he realized that those were the only ones I'd been eating was maybe what made me decide to tell him more. Like he knew and understood and gave me this soft but utterly gleaming look that made me want to tell him more.

"No," I shook my head and exhaled a breath. It had gotten cold enough to see it materialize in front of me, but I felt strangely warm. "I mean I wasn't cool, and I wasn't a nerd or a loser either. I was just kind of...nothing and nobody. One day I guess I just decided I didn't like that. Carrie Bradshaw helped."

It wasn't that I did anything weird or worthy of being bullied or rejected like some cliche teenage outcast. I was just shy and awkward like teenage girls could be. Or...like he had been. The realization hit me hard and fast, and suddenly my heart was in my throat.

He nodded again, lips pinched together, like he was deep in thought, wondering what to say next. "You know, I knew you were from North Dakota before you even told me."

I grinned, forcing my heart back down my throat. "Really? How?"

"I can hear it in your voice." He gestured to my neck. "The accented o. Trademark Midwesterner. You actively try to hide it, though."

I shrugged, still grinning. "Comes out more when I'm mad."

"I'm surprised I haven't heard it more then," he grumbled, faintly mirroring my grin.

"Honestly, me too."

This time we shared a laugh - a real, deep-chested laugh that up until now I wasn't sure he was even capable of, and hearing it only made me smile wider.

"Okay, my turn." This time I reached my hand out for more candy, and he plucked out a few red ones to place in my palm. "Why don't you like pickles? You were so skeeved out at the bar."

"Oh god," he rolled his eyes. "This is a dumb story."

"Well now you have to tell me." I nodded for him to continue, hoping maybe he saw the same look in my eyes that I saw in his and felt compelled to confide in me the way I did.

"Well, apparently pickle juice is really good for cramps," he began, a faint smile lifting the corners of his mouth. "So, my mom found this out and would make me drink this pickle juice she'd get from this market in Brooklyn for the cramps I'd get in my hands from playing all my godforsaken instruments. Now I hate pickles."

He handed me another red Sour Patch Kid, and his hand lingered on mine for a fraction of a second longer than I expected it to, shooting warmth through my body. "I know I just had a question, but...can I ask you another?"

"Is my rule breaking rubbing off on you already?"

I smiled again, this time more to myself. "What's the meaning of the name you give to the hotels? Kato, right? It's not your real name...is it?"

His eyes darkened, and suddenly all the warmth was gone.

"I uh...I think I've exerted my voice enough tonight." He groaned as he got up from the chair.

I felt like strangling myself - maybe that would stop the yapping. "Devon, I-"

"It's late." His tone had turned as cold as the night air. "We should both get some sleep."

So I followed him back into the hotel in silence, and it wasn't until I'd made it back to our room that I realized my headache was gone. Unfortunately, I was still very much awake, and with my heart thumping in my chest I did what I should have done the first time I heard it. I opened up Google, and I typed Devon Kato into the search bar, unprepared for the information hole I was about to fall into.

New York Youth Symphony Solo Pianist Devon Kato Stuns in Symphony's 80th Year Anniversary Performance

My thumb twitched over the article, but I didn't click on it. There were a few more of a similar nature as I scrolled, not entirely surprised at Devon's documented musical prowess. Eventually I found an article from Forbes, and that was the one that spiked my interest level.

Hiro Kato's Exalting Journey from First-Generation Japanese Immigrant to the Biggest Self-Made Property Developer in Manhattan

The article was dated December of 2014. Below the headline was a large photo of what I had to assume was Devon's family in perfect, saturated color, seated on a warm brown leather couch in front of a grand spiral staircase.

The caption underneath the photo read: photographed in Hiro Kato's personal library nestled in the family's Upper East Side penthouse. From left to right clockwise, Hiro Kato, wife Emma McCall Kato, daughter Joelle, 20, and son Devon, 16.

Devon's father stood behind the couch on the left, his expression cold and hardened (and something he'd clearly passed on to his son), and beside him was Devon's mother, blonde and beautiful in the traditional way you expected wealthy Manhattan socialites to be. She wore an impossibly large jeweled necklace with what looked like a sapphire at the center.

A young woman (who I had to assume was Devon's sister) sat in front of Devon's mother, with dark eyes like Devon and his father but a rounder face like their mother, her smile self-assured to the point where it was almost smug.

Then there was Devon. I knew he was young in this photo, but there was a stern matureness to his face, his hair short, his posture rigid, and no tattoos to be found. His father's hand rested on his shoulder, but obviously not out of familial affection.

I gulped as I backed out of the article and returned to my Google search. The final article was an exclusively New York City Page Six type who sometimes thought they were Gossip Girl. This one was dated 2019.

Son and Heir of Property Development Magnate Hiro Kato Not Seen with Family at Fourth Event This Year, Further Fueling Rumors of His Disownment

I locked my phone and clapped it to my chest, feeling my heart thumping against my hands.

Devon shutting down my question was enough context to understand that whatever happened between them was bad enough for Devon to discard his surname, but this was nowhere near anything I could have figured out on my own.

And here I thought the Prince of Darkness was just a funny way of calling him a vampire (the whole dark soul sucking attitude thing seemed to just fit). But Evie had known. She had to.

Devon McCall - sorry, Devon Kato - appeared to be actual Upper East Side royalty. I could practically hear Kristen Bell's voice as the real Gossip Girl narrating it - A modern day prince who'd spent his whole life sequestered up in his penthouse tower, now spurned for wanting a musical life outside the rigid confines and expectations of being the only son of the wealthiest property developer in Manhattan, and by doing so forsaking his birthright. Not all princes become kings.

⋆ ★

THE SMILE HAS ARRIVED (and so has the lore) AND IT'S ANGELIC

it's actually crazy to me that we're already 40k words in, since i still feel like we've barely started. the right pacing is always a huge priority of mine when starting a story, and sometimes i realize that i take things *too* slowly at the start because one of my biggest writing fears is the pacing of a story being too fast. so that being said, i would love to get YOUR thoughts on the pacing of the story - if it's too slow, too fast, just right, etc. it would be extremely helpful to me as i get into the second half of the story. love and appreciate y'all!