What I wouldn’t have given to be a fly in the back seat of that atrociously gaudy car.
I was already getting tired of staking out. It was time for some action. My muscles were screaming for me to get out of the SUV, so I scanned the area, preparing to make a move, and then the passenger door opened. Out slithered Miss I-wear-next-to-nothing. She leaned down giving the neighbors a peepshow and said something to Chase before closing the door.
Damn it.
There were just too many human eyes around. It surprised me that Sierra’s half-demon family lived in a suburban setting. Most Divisa like to live away from civilization, like the Winters. The fewer people they had to deal with the better.
I waited until Chase pulled out and gunned his racecar engine down the road before I put mine in gear. It crossed my mind to follow him, but I didn’t want to push my luck for one day, so I headed home. Not that I was all too keen about going there either. It wasn’t exactly…inviting.
The house smelled like meatloaf and mashed potatoes. My stomached growled in hunger pangs, and I salivated. I couldn’t remember when I had eaten last.
My mom might not be the world’s greatest chef, but when you had been living off prison food, it tasted like five-star quality. Her meatloaf was more like one giant meatball with string cheese in the middle and spaghetti sauce drizzled on top.
It was to die for.
I shoveled a huge helping of potatoes into my mouth.
“How was your day, honey?” Mom asked as she passed me a roll.
I swallowed the lump of mash potatoes, afraid they might get lodged in my throat. “Umm, it was…” What the heck did I say? That I spent the whole day keeping tabs on half-demons? It just didn’t seem like appropriate dinner talk. “Kinda boring. I was in the car most of the time.”
“Oh,” she replied, clearly as uncomfortable as I was.
Awkward.
No one wanted to bring up what it was that I really had been doing during my time home. It was apparently a touchy subject, so we avoided it like a bad case of the flu.
Would I ever feel peace again in my own home? Or would there always be this weird vibe circulating in the air when I walked into a room? I wasn’t sure that my mom and Abi would ever really know me again.
It was depressing, but I was just going to have to accept it. I struggled for something else to say, to keep the conversation flowing. “This is really good. I haven’t eaten a home-cooked meal in forever.”
Fail.
Dead silence.
The silverware stopped clanking.
Mom’s fork stalled halfway to her mouth.
And Abi starred at me with those huge green eyes.
There I went again, bringing up uncomfortable topics and shoving my foot in my mouth with the mashed potatoes. I had blundered the whole evening. Casting my eyes to my plate, I fought with a response to erase the tension. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
A beat went by, and then my mom carried forth like that last few minutes hadn’t occurred. “Abi, why don’t you tell Emma what you did in ballet class today?” There was pride in her eyes.
Abi played with the peas on her plate, making a funny face at them. She looked up when she heard Mom say her name. “A Tour en l’Air,” her soft voice said from across the table.
I smiled gently at her, getting the feeling that I scared her. “Wow. That is impressive.”
Encouraged, she continued, her peas forgotten. “I’m the only one in my class who can do it.”
“She is a very advanced student,” Mom bragged.
In this family, nothing less than perfection was accepted, and there was a time when I had been the apple of Mom’s eye. “Runs in the family. Do you remember that I used to dance before…”
Ugh. There I went again. After that I just shut up. I somehow couldn’t get out two or three sentences without bringing up the fact that I had been gone for over a year.
Monkey nodded her head. “You were the best dancer.”
Holy cow. This was the most Abi had said to me since I’d gotten home. She remembered. My throat got thick with emotion. Please, Lord, don’t let me embarrass myself further by crying. I didn’t want Abi to think me any weirder than she already did.
The rest of dinner had been no less awkward than it had been the other night, and I retreated to my room the first chance I got. I flirted with the idea of going for a run to clear my head, but dismissed it as I let out a yawn the size of Nantucket.