"Owen is probably a little silly and I don't think he would handle it gracefully. Probably more like 'what the hell vampires aah' with a side of 'oh cool how do I become one' and– would either be terrified or ridiculous about it. Matt, uh, is probably the best bet? But– I don't know, he's sort of quiet and sometimes a bit difficult to predict – like, I'm sure he wouldn't do anything terrible, but I'm not sure what in particular he would do."

"Matt sounds okay to me, too."

"Okay, well," he looks at his watch. "I guess I will call him, in that case."

"Should it maybe be me? I think I could probably convince Matt to come and might be better overall to avoid the time wasted over thinking this is a prank or something."

"Yeah, okay," he says. "He's coming here, right, we're not having him come somewhere else and meeting him there?"

"Yeah, here's better, I think." Phone's out, dialing.

And shortly, Matt picks up! "Hey. You alright?"

"Yeah, something came up this morning and I couldn't go to school, um, and I have a weird request, how free are you today?"

"Don't have anything planned, why?"

"Can we meet? And, um, ah, in front of Theo's old place?"

"Um… yeah? Now, or…?"

"Now would be ideal, yeah."

"Okay," he says. "I will… be there shortly. Is that all, or– meet you there?"

"Yeah, meet there. Thanks."

So he hangs up.

"Fun," says Theo.

"Yyyeah I wouldn't call it that. I think I'll go wait for him outside and then, um, you open the door when I knock?"

"Yeah. That should work."

"Alright, then. Be back in a few minutes."

Out he goes.

And after a few minutes, Matt is there.

He waves.

"Hiya. How're you?"

He shrugs. "About as well as can be expected?"

"...yeah, about that. Can I ask you to trust me for about, oh, two minutes?"

"… Yeah?"

"Okay. So, um, follow me?" And he makes his way to the door.