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The warm taste of butterscotch swept away the last of the adrenaline trembles from my body, so I pointed myself at the troll and slipped out my phone so I could take pictures and notes.First, I have a job to do.
* * *
Two days later,I stood in front of Shelby’s door, my mouth dry.
Do you want to go to the fall market with me? No, would you and Mia like to go to the fall market with me?I repeated the phrase endlessly in my head hoping the repetition would make it easier to say.
I’d been planning this for days—I’d asked for the evening off two weeks ago—but I kept missing the opportunity to ask any of my neighbors until today and, so far, I wasn’t having any luck.
Mrs. Weston had been sorry but said she was going out with her bridge group when I’d asked her this morning on my way to the gym. I’d managed to stammer out an invitation to Molly and Rachel—two college roommates—but they both had classes they couldn’t skip. Even Ms. Elly—the nosey lady who had the only ground floor apartment and acted as the building gossip—was busy.
That left Shelby and her toddler daughter, Mia, as my last hope.
Shelby is very nice and patient. I can ask her. She won’t mind.
Screwing up my courage, I knocked on the door, my heart buzzing in my chest.
A door closed, and I glanced down the hallway to see Connor slipping his key into his trouser pockets as he studied his door.
Great. My audience.
He’d been around for several of my failed invitations—apparently, he went in and out of the apartment building a lot as he wasn’t the lurking type.
“Yes?” Shelby opened her apartment door and peered out at me. Her nose was red, and tiny little coughing noises slipped out of the apartment. “Oh, hi, Jade.”
“Hi. Hey.” I said, jittery with nerves. “Thanks for answering. Um.” My brain temporarily blanked.
Shelby faintly smiled, her expression patient as she leaned against the door. Although I couldn’t see Connor as I faced Shelby, I could feel his eyes on my back.
“I was wondering if you and Mia wanted to go to the fall market with me,” I blurted out. “The supernaturals put it on—there’s really cool stuff they sell. I think Mia would like all the magical sights.”
“I wish we could, but Mia is sick.” Shelby said, and I realized she was sagging against the door not with casualness but exhaustion. “She was up all-night coughing and probably shouldn’t go out.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said, the politeness my mother drilled into me speaking for me so I wasn’t scrambling for words.
“Thank you so much for thinking of us,” Shelby said.
“Yeah, I hope Mia feels better,” I said.
“Thanks. Have fun at the market,” Shelby smiled as she closed the door.
I stood there for a moment, thinking.Well, I figured she was the least likely to be able to go.
“How unfortunate, it seems that everyone in this apartment building leads very busy existences.” Connor strode closer to me. “Although I will say in this case it is perhaps sheer misfortune.”
“Yeah,” the word leaked out of me like air from a balloon. “I knew I should have brought it up sooner. Asking the day of is very last minute.”
Connor chuckled and for a second I thought I saw actual amusement in his dark red eyes. “You are very courteous for someone who is self-conscious.”
I shrugged. “It comes with the territory of fretting.”
“That sounds very inconvenient,” Connor said. “I’m glad I am not similarly plagued.”
“I don’t know that a vampirecanbe self-conscious.” As I turned away from Shelby’s door and drifted towards my apartment, Connor fell in line with me, and I vaguely registered his faint swirl of power. “You’re too convinced of your superiority—as a whole, I meant. Not individually.” I tried reading his face to see if I’d offended him but Connor was staring at the end of the hallway, his lips curved in a melancholic smile.
“Yes, I’m afraid that—to borrow your phrasing—comes with the territory of immortality. It offers a farce of protection, but it never actually works…”
He trailed off and for a moment I wondered if I’d misjudged him—not as a person, but his power level.
