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That day, Claire went to class. Eve argued with her; Shane didn't. Nothing much happened, although Claire spotted Monica twice on campus. Monica was surrounded by admirers, both male and female, and didn't have time for grudges. Claire kept her head down and stayed out of any deserted areas. It was an early afternoon for her - no labs - and although she wanted to get home and wait around for Michael to show up (and boy, she wanted to see how that happened!) she knew she'd drive herself crazy, and make Shane suspicious.
As she walked in that general direction, she spotted the small coffee shop, wedged in between the skateboard shop and a used-book store. Common Grounds. That was where Eve worked, and she'd said to stop by....
The bell rang with a silvery tinkle as Claire pushed open the door, and it was like walking into the living room of the Glass House, only a little more Gothic. Black leather sofas and chairs, thick colorful rugs, accent walls in beige and blood red, lots of nooks and crannies. There were five or six students scattered at cafe tables and built-in desks. None looked up from their books or computers. The whole place smelled like coffee, a constant simmering warmth.
Claire stood for a second, indecisive, and then walked over to an empty desk and dumped her backpack before going to the counter. There were two people behind the waist-high barrier. One was Eve, of course, looking perky and doll-like with her dye-dark hair in two pigtails, eyes rimmed with liner, and lipstick a dramatic Goth black. She was wearing a black mesh shirt over a red camisole, and she grinned when she spotted Claire.
The other was an older man, tall, thin, with graying curly hair that fell nearly to his shoulders. He had a nice, square face, wide dark eyes, and a ruby earring in his left ear. Hippie to the core, Claire guessed.
He smiled, too.
"Hey, it's Claire!" Eve said, and hurried around the counter to slip her arm around Claire's shoulders.
"Claire, this is Oliver. My boss."
Claire nodded hesitantly. He looked nice, but hey, a boss. Bosses made her nervous, like parents.
"Hello, sir."
"Sir?" Oliver had a deep voice, and an even deeper laugh. "Claire, you've got to learn about me. I'm not a sir. Believe me."
"That's true." Eve nodded wisely. "He's a dude. You'll like him. Hey, want a coffee? My treat?"
"I - uh - "
"Don't touch the stuff, right?" Eve rolled her eyes. "One noncoffee drink, coming up. How about hot cocoa? Chai? Tea?"
"Tea, I guess."
Eve went back behind the counter and did some stuff, and within a couple of minutes, a big white cup and saucer appeared in front of Claire, with a tea bag steeping in the steaming water. "On the house.
Well, actually, on me, because, yikes, boss is right here."
Oliver, who was working on some complicated machine that Claire guessed was something that made cappuccino, shook his head and grinned to himself. Claire watched him curiously. He looked a little bit like a distant cousin she'd met from France - the same kind of hook nose, anyway. She wondered if he'd been a professor at the university, or just a perpetual student. Either looked possible.
"I heard you had some trouble," Oliver said, still concentrating on unscrewing parts on the machine.
"Girls in the dorm."
"Yeah," she admitted, and felt her cheeks burn. "Everything's okay, though."
"I'm sure it is. Listen, though: if you have trouble like that, you come here and tell me about it. I'll make sure it stops." He said it with absolute assurance. She blinked, and his dark eyes moved to rest on hers for a few seconds. "I'm not without influence around here. Eve tells me that you're very gifted. We can't have some bad apples driving you off."
"Um...thanks?" She didn't mean to make it a question; it just came out that way. "Thanks. I will."
Oliver nodded and went back to his work dissecting the coffeemaker. Claire found a seat not far away.
Eve slipped out from behind the counter and pulled up a chair next to her, leaning forward, all restless energy. "Isn't he great?" she asked. "He means it, you know. He's got some kind of pipeline to - " She made a V sign with her fingers. V, for vampires. "They listen to him. He's good to have on your side."
Claire nodded, dunking the tea bag and watching the dark stains spread through the water. "You talk about me to everybody?"
Eve looked stricken. "No! Of course I don't! I just - well, I was worried. I thought maybe Oliver knew something that...Claire, you said it yourself - they tried to kill you. Somebody ought to be doing something about that."
"Him?"
"Why not him?" Eve jittered her leg, tapping the thick heel on her black Mary Janes. Her hose had green and black horizontal stripes. "I mean, I get that you're all about being self-sufficient, but come on. A little help never hurts."
She wasn't wrong. Claire sighed, took the tea bag out, and sipped the hot drink. Not bad, even on a blazing-hot day.
"Stay," Eve said. "Study. It's a really good place for that. I'll drive you home, okay?"
Claire nodded, suddenly grateful; there were too many places to get lost on the way home, if Monica had noticed her after all. She didn't like the idea of walking three blocks between the student streets, where things were bright and busy, and the colorless hush of the rest of the town, where the Glass House lived.
She put the tea to one side and unpacked books. Eve went back to take orders from three chattering girls wearing sorority T-shirts. They were rude to her, and giggled behind her back. Eve didn't seem to notice - or if she did, she didn't care.
Oliver did. He put down the tools he was using, as Eve bustled around getting drinks, and stared steadily at the girls. One by one, they went quiet. It wasn't anything he did, exactly, just the steadiness of the way he watched them.
When Eve took their money, each one of the girls meekly thanked her and took her change.
They didn't stay.
Oliver smiled slightly, picked up a piece of the disassembled machine, and polished it before reattaching it. He must have known Claire was watching, because he said, in a very low voice, "I don't tolerate rudeness. Not in my place."
She wasn't sure if he was talking about the girls, or her staring at him, so she hurriedly went back to her books.
Quadratic equations were a great way to pass the afternoon.
Eve's shift ended at nine, just as the nightlife at Common Grounds picked up; Claire, not used to the babble, chatter, and music, couldn't keep her mind on her books anyway. She was glad of an excuse to go when Eve's replacement - a surly-looking pimpled boy about Shane's age - took her place behind the counter. Eve went in the back to get her stuff, and Claire packed up her backpack.
