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“Don’t freak me out like that again,” Riley said, smacking him on the chest.
“So, what about visiting Charlotte?”
Riley turned toward Blaire. “What about Charlotte?”
“He mentioned visiting her while you were gone.”
“Yeah,” he said, tossing the empty packet into the trashcan beside his bed. “I dunno what it is, but something seems off. Maybe the stress of starting college, but she seems down. Figured she could use a distraction.”
“A distraction? Meaning you?” Riley cocked her head to the side. “I saw those texts you sent her.”
“What texts?” Seth smirked.
“Aiden’s been flirting with Charlotte.” A saccharine smile spread across Riley’s face. “And she’s been flirting right back.”
“We haven’t. I mean, not much. We’re friends. Just playing around.”
Blaire tapped her fingertips on Lukas’s thigh as she studied Aiden. “I thought y’all couldn’t date humans.” She looked up at Lukas. “Except in our case, I mean.”
“We can. There’re no laws prohibiting relationships between our kind and yours, but it’s frowned upon and not recommended,” Lukas said, brushing a strand of Blaire’s hair from her face with his fingers, tucking it behind her ear.
“Why?”
“Because in the end, we can’t form a lasting relationship if they are going to die while we live hundreds of years. Questions will pop up. Not to mention the whole blood thing.”
He’d heard it all before. He and Lukas already discussed the possible fallout if Charlotte found out about who he was when Lukas asked if he was interested in her before. They discussed how it might shake her relationship with Blaire. How the Blackthorn Clan might order her memory wiped.
He hadn’t told Lukas he felt something for Charlotte because he still had to sort through his feelings himself. He liked the girl, and she was fun to be around, but there couldn’t be anything long lasting. If he found his Korrena mate, or she discovered what he was, anything they built between them would have been pointless.
He also didn’t want to put her in danger.
He wouldn’t hurt her, but if she discovered his secret, or someone at the academy got wind of his involvement with a human, they might hurt her.
He cracked his neck. “I’m not getting into anything with her.”
The day at the diner when he first spoke to her, when Blaire first introduced them, wasn’t the first time he’d seen her. Before they discovered how her old boss had conspired with Blaire’s stepbrother against her, he and his friends often visited the diner where she worked, but because of her status as a human, he never spoke with her.
When he finally got the opportunity to meet her, he had the strangest feeling he knew her. Something felt familiar and nostalgic. The others reasoned it was from their previous visits, but he wasn’t so sure. Even her scent seemed familiar.
A sweet combination of pineapples, vanilla, and warm, buttery brown sugar, reminding him of homemade pineapple upside down cake.
Great. Now he was hungry.
“I swear, it’s just friendship,” he said, ignoring how his stomach rumbled. “I thought about going up there and playing some video games to take her mind off things.”
Seth asked, “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s been telling Blaire and me she hates her major,” Riley said.
“Same here,” Aiden said, shifting to sit against the wall, giving Seth and Riley more room. He felt better, but he didn’t want to risk another sudden headache by moving around too much. If it came back, he would visit the nurses. It wasn’t normal.
Blaire asked, “When are you going?”
He looked at her. “Thought about early tomorrow, since I’m not feeling it today. Come back in the evening. Think I should?”
“It can’t hurt. Want me to come too? I miss her already.”
In truth, he wanted to go on his own.
