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I wore a strapless white dress that flowed from the empire waist to the floor, and I could see enough of my fading reflection in a nearby mirror that I knew I wore white flowers in my hair. Never had I felt so beautiful.
But that wasn’t because I’d dressed up. It was because I was finally here with Lucas.
“Do you know how to waltz?” I whispered to him.
“Not a clue. But if you want to dance, let’s get out there and fake it.”
Laughing, I let Lucas take me in his arms, and we spun upon the dance floor. No, he couldn’t waltz, but it didn’t matter that we didn’t fit with the other dancers. I watched them all around us—Patrice with her hand in Balthazar’s, Courtney snickering at Ranulf’s clumsy footwork, Dana neatly leading Raquel through a turn—and wondered why none of them danced the way they wanted to.
Then another figure appeared amid the dancers, a translucent figure that shimmered in aquamarine. The wraith came close to us and said, “May I cut in?”
“Of course,” I said, wondering how she knew Lucas and why she wanted to dance with him. But it was my hand she took, and I gave him a regretful glance as the wraith and I got lost in the crowd of dancers. I could see him watching me, but then the crowd swallowed him up.
I awoke with a start. Quickly I glanced around to remind myself where I was and rested my head on Lucas’s shoulder again. He mumbled something in his sleep before drowsily turning toward me, and I smiled, reassured.
We got to Philadelphia in the late afternoon. That wasn’t so much where we were heading as it was a place for us to go, a city large enough for us to get lost in. Better yet, Philly had no permanent Black Cross cell. It was less likely that they’d be able to mount a large-scale hunt for us there.
“We’ll stay here a couple of days at least,” Lucas said. “We can find someplace cheap. Lie low. Figure out our options.”
“Buy some more clothes,” I said, motioning to our bedraggled T-shirts and jeans, “so we look a little less homeless.”
“We are homeless,” Lucas pointed out.
I hadn’t thought of it that way before. “Clothes,” I insisted.
“Not a whole new wardrobe but some clean stuff. And toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant—”
“Yeah, I get your point.”
A trip to a big-box store took care of all that. I got a couple of cheap little sundresses, one in dark blue and one in a deep green, that looked cool and comfortable, a simple purse that would go with everything, and a pair of thong sandals that would see me through the summer. Lucas grabbed some khakis and a couple of black T-shirts. Then we went to the drugstore section to get everything we needed to be less stinky, more pretty.
We turned the corner and there, lined up in rows, were the condoms. I started to avert my eyes, the way I always did, because I’d always been slightly embarrassed just by the packaging. I’m that big a wimp. This time, though, I stopped.
“Maybe we should get some,” I said. I meant to sound womanly and confident, but instead it sort of came out squeaky.
“I guess.” Lucas gave me a long, hard look. “Bianca, you know there’s no rush.”
I played with the ends of my hair, which had become suddenly fascinating. “I know that. I do. It’s just—if we want—we should have them around. Just in case. Right?”
“Yeah.”
For a couple seconds, neither of us moved, but then Lucas took the closest box and dropped it into our basket. My heart turned over stealthily, surprising me with the warm glow that seemed to light me up.
I couldn’t make eye contact with the lady at the checkout counter. She didn’t seem to care, though.
We got a hotel room downtown, not far from the bus station. It was nicer than I would’ve expected, for the price—a coffeemaker in the room, a big TV, a nice bathroom with a blow-dryer and tons of fluffy white towels, and a very large bed.
“We should get some more rest before we get anything to eat,” I suggested. We were both so tired that, even with the condoms sitting there in their plastic bag, I couldn’t think of the bed except as a place to sleep.
Lucas seemed to feel the same way. “Yeah, let’s. There are some diners around here we can go to later on.”
“You know Philadelphia?”
“Been here a couple of times. That’s all.”
Together Lucas and I crawled into bed. Nothing was on my mind but sleep—until the moment we were under the covers, with him next to me.
We reached for each other at the same instant. Lucas’s mouth found mine, and we kissed desperately, like we hadn’t been together for years. His arms pulled me close, and I wound both my legs around one of his as our kisses deepened.
