Lochlynn kissed me goodbye the next morning, and I skipped out of the room. He had already started the process of unpacking my things. That didn’t bother me, since I knew he would take good care of them. I left the room, and walked across the hall to the other side of this floor.
I barely knocked before Yesterday opened it and came barreling out. “Don’t go in there,” she said. “Linda is dolling herself up, and if she sees you…”
I grimaced. “She’ll cover me in makeup.”
My sister nodded.
I fake gagged.
My friends came out of their rooms a moment later, Derrick included. We all had bags slung over our shoulders, ready for another day at school. I had been doing massive amounts of makeup work the last few days, but I had almost caught up at this point. Everyone else didn’t have the same problem. I envied them, really.
Derrick had been settling in just fine, too. The other students had gawked the first day but stopped after Yesterday threatened to sic a werewolf on them. I didn’t think we had that kind of power, but ya never knew.
“Let’s go before Linda realizes we aren’t in there anymore,” Yesterday said, grabbing my hand. The two of us bolted down the stairs, our friends following.
“She’s really starting to creep me out,” Seanan whispered. “She asked me if I had any condoms.”
“Gag,” Seamus said.
Seanan nodded her head, frowning. “Major gag.”
“She brought me four plates of cookies,” Derrick said. “I didn’t know how to tell her that I was full…”
“You don’t,” Yesterday answered. “You just hope the cookies don’t go stale in your room, so that you can eat them later.”
“I only like chocolate chip,” Derrick said.
“Then sneak them over to me,” Seanan responded. “I’ve got a confession to make. I’m a cookie monster.”
I smiled at them over my shoulder. “That’s not a confession when everyone knows it.”
“Sure, it is!” Seanan said. “It’s more admissible in court than any evidence you’d have against me.”
I laughed as we stepped outside. Houston, the vampire bodyguard, waited by the huge black SUV that he used to take us to and from school. He protected us from something, though none of us knew what. At first, I thought it had been Derrick, but Houston claimed otherwise.
Derrick and I hung back while the others started getting in the SUV. “Something wrong?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “It feels weird, being like this again.”
“Normal, you mean?”
“We’re not normal,” Derrick said, shaking his head. “We haven’t been normal since the second I signed that contract.”
“I suppose not. Does that bother you?”
“No,” he said. “I’m just worried. My life has been hell for the last six months, and this is the best that it’s been. I couldn’t have dreamed of getting something like this, even with all the things that come with it. All the dangers.”
“You think it’ll all go to hell?” I asked.
He nodded, his face looking pale in the morning light.
I touched Derrick’s shoulder, getting his attention. “It’ll be all right,” I said, trying to match Lochlynn’s tone when he told that to me. I actually thought that I did a fairly good job of it.”
Derrick blinked, and some of the tension started to slip from his body. “How do you know that.”
“Because we’re together,” I said. “And I’ll make sure of it.”
He breathed out and climbed into the car. I looked over my shoulder at my and Lochlynn’s window. He didn’t watch me leave, which didn’t bother me at all. I pictured him in our room putting all my things away, and making the space comfortable again. I wore his sweater that day.
Smiling, I turned around, and walked to the SUV.