“He’s very nice,” Maggie said with a teasinggrin.
Aiden leaned away from her and draped hisarm across the back of the booth. “I think you might have a littlebit of the devil in you after all, Magdalene.”
She laughed. “I definitely do.”
CHAPTER 26
After the waiter left, they fell into aneasy conversation about their completely different lives. Aidenregaled her with stories about how he and his siblings would alltorture each other, the Stooges, and their parents. She told himabout knocking out Ray Jessup and the couple of foster homes she’dactually liked, but she’d still acted horribly in them until theysent her back.
“Looking back, I think I was scared I’dbecome attached to the people and get hurt by them,” she said asshe cut up her bloody steak. Aiden sliced the meat in front of himtoo, but whereas she dug eagerly in, he picked at his and spentmore time pushing it around his plate. “Sure, I wanted to get backto A.J. too, but now I realize there was more to it. I never wouldhave admitted it to anyone else or even myself then. It totallywould have ruined my wicked badass reputation.”
“Totally,” Aiden agreed, and shelaughed.
“What about you? What did you do after highschool? Did you go to college?”
“I did, for a few semesters, but I left soonafter.”
“How come?”
“It wasn’t for me.” He couldn’t tell herthat even before he stopped aging, the urges he started havingdidn’t fit in well with the human world.
“Didn’t know what you wanted to be when yougrew up?”
“I wanted to get into sports medicine orbecome a coach, something along those lines. I enjoyed sports, evenif I had to keep myself in check around humans when I played andcouldn’t go to a school where they did drug testing forathletes.”
“Take a lot of drugs, did you?” she asked,her hands freezing on her utensils.
“No drugs. Like alcohol, it would take a lotto affect me, and I don’t like being out of control.” For him, sucha thing could prove lethal to anyone near him. “But my blood isn'texactly human DNA compatible, and trying to keep up a front andchange memories all the time wasn’t worth it.”
“Oh, yeah.” Maggie wiped her mouth andplaced the napkin on her plate. “They took a lot of my blood when Iwas a kid, and they never found anything unusual.”
“Your human side must be stronger in thataspect,” he replied.
“Interesting.”
The waiter returned to remove their plates.“Would you like dessert?”
“No, thank you,” Maggie replied, and Aidenshook his head. From somewhere out back, music started playing.“What’s that?”
“The hotel also has a club; the doors openat eight,” the waiter replied.
“Oh.”
“Would you like to check it out?” Aidenasked when the waiter left again.
“I’ve never been one for clubbing or thatkind of music.”
“And what kind of music are you into, MaggieMay?” Aiden asked.
“I’m a straight-up alternative, hard rockkind of girl,” she said with a smile. “I like my music angry.”
“I see.”
She wasn’t sure if it was the atmosphere,her increased energy from dinner, the whiskey, or Aiden, but shefelt almost flirtatious as she leaned across the table toward him.“I’ll tell you a secret.”
His eyebrow lifted as he sat forward. Thisclose, she could see the emerald and forest flecks of green in hisamazing eyes. A five o’clock shadow lined his jaw, and the clovescent of him enveloped her.
“And I’ll keep it,” he replied.
