Before I could reply, Rachel called out that dinner was ready, so we stood and walked over to the table.
“Caitlin, how was your birthday?” my aunt asked, breaking the silence as she handed her husband a bowl of salad.
I almost choked on a crouton. Adrian patted my back helpfully. For half a second, I toyed with the idea of telling her the truth: Well, Aunt Rachel, I went to school, I came home, I put on my boots, and I got naked-ish and cried on a large rock, but Adrian here just had to stop me, and oh yeah! he’s a vampire and we’re dating now. I think.
“It was good,” I lied.
“Adrian,” my aunt began, “I can’t tell you how nice it is to have you here. And I wanted to thank you for taking Caitlin to school; it’s been such a help.”
“No trouble at all,” he replied, smiling warmly.
I was clearing dishes later, so I didn’t notice at first when Adrian took Joe into the living room to talk. Over the dishwasher, Rachel leaned in conspiratorially.
“So,” she began, trying to sound casual. “What’s going on with you two?”
I’d known this was coming, but my face still turned red. Norah was rinsing plates in the sink and trying to listen without looking like she was listening.
I scrubbed at an imaginary spot of food on the plate I was holding and mumbled, “We’re dating, I guess.”
They both gasped and turned to each other with equal I-told-you-so smile.
“He’s a very nice young man,” Rachel said.
I peeked over at Adrian. “I’m not sure Joe agrees.”
As if he heard me, Joe stood and walked toward us.
“Well, I better be going before the roads get too bad,” Adrian announced, following him into the kitchen. I threw a tight smile at everyone as they wished him good night, grabbed Adrian by the arm, and walked him to the door.
“What did you say to Joe?” I whispered.
“Not much,” he replied, tugging on his boots. “Mentioned the weather, the horses, what my intentions toward you are.”
I paled.
He smiled, looking satisfied. “Don’t worry, your uncle and I have an understanding.”
“An understanding,” I replied flatly.
He bent down and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
He opened the door and walked back out into the night. I stood there in a daze as the engine to the truck revved to life. When I turned around, Joe, Rachel, and Norah were staring at me.
“Um,” I said intelligently, “I think I’m going to go do some homework. If that’s all right.”
“Sure,” my aunt said, smiling. “Good night!”
I headed upstairs, closed my door softly, and started a fire in my tiny little fireplace before wrapping myself in a blanket to huddle in front of the heat-spitting light.
I was now dating Adrian de la Mara.
I didn’t really know how that had happened, but there it was.
I mouthed the words Caitlin Marie de la Mara as a joke—after all, it wasn’t like we were actually dating.
Right?
I thought back to all the times he’d had headaches. Were they really headaches? Or did it have something to do with his weird eye thing? What did I even call the weird eye thing? And did I really have to call him a vampire? Because that was completely ridiculous. Had it all been in my head? Did I dream up the snow fight, the molten-silver eye trick, that little tidbit that his dad was a demon? Was this all just one incredibly detailed hallucination? Hallucination seemed more plausible than Adrian being immortal. I was totally in the middle of a fugue state, wasn’t I? Maybe if I just slept, I’d snap out of it in the morning. That seemed reasonable.
*
The truck looked exactly as it had the day before. Maybe I was expecting it to turn into a giant pumpkin carriage or a flaming chariot, but it was just a truck, black, at least a few years old, with a couple of dings in the door. Probably the only thing of Adrian’s I’d ever seen that wasn’t brand-new and flawless. The driver’s side window rolled down.
“Morning, sunshine,” Adrian said with a big smile.
Who was this and what had he done with the brooding underwear model I’d known before?
“Hi,” I returned, and climbed into the passenger side. “You’re still a vampire?”
“Yep.”
“Cool, yeah, just checking.” Damn. Not a fugue state. “And we’re still pretend-dating?”
Instead of answering, he just put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me against him, driving left-handed down the road.
I looked up at him. “I take that as a ‘yes.’”
He smiled.
I settled into his arm, because why not? “So now’s the part where I ask you questions, just FYI.”
He kept his eyes on the road. “What do you want to know?”
What did I want to know? Everything. “How did you find me yesterday?”
He opened his mouth to reply, then closed it, glancing at me. “Before I say anything, please keep in mind that half of this is lore, the other half’s myth, and the rest is bullshit that’s been passed down so long no one really remembers the truth anymore.”