Carpe Corpus Page 0,90

seconds, then carefully reached out and put her hand on the table, just a few inches from his.

His fingers twined with hers.

"Dammit," he whispered. "No, I'm not mad. I just feel . . . I guess I feel relieved. I wanted to know. Nobody would talk to me."

"I should have said something," she said. "I know. I'm so sorry. I just didn't know how. But I didn't want you to hear it from Oliver or something, because that would just . . . bite."

"No kidding." He took another deep breath, then raised his head. His dark eyes were glittering with un-shed tears, but he blinked them back. "He wouldn't have wanted to go on like that. He made a choice. I guess that's something."

She nodded. "That's something."

She'd ripped off the bandage, and now at least he could start healing.

It was the same everywhere. Healing. All over Morganville, burned buildings were being demolished and rebuilt. City Hall, destroyed by a tornado, was getting a municipal makeover, with plenty of marble and fancy new furniture. All of the surviving Founder Houses - even the Glass House - were getting repaired and repainted. The ones that hadn't survived were being rebuilt from the ground up.

In an amazingly short time, Morganville life had gone back to normal. As normal as it ever was, anyway. And if the vampires weren't happy about things changing, well, they were - so far - keeping their objections on their side of the fence.

Shane sipped his coffee - plain coffee, not the fancy milky stuff she liked - and watched people go by outside the front windows. She let him sit in silence and come to terms with what she'd said; he was still holding her hand, and she figured that had to be a good sign.

"Oh, great," Shane said, and nodded to the door. "Trouble, twelve o'clock. Just what we needed."

Monica Morrell posed in the doorway, making sure the light caught her best side. She'd returned to town, along with her BFFs, and slipped right back into her role as Morganville's queen bitch without a pause. It helped that Richard Morrell was still mayor, of course, and that Monica's family had always been rich.

Monica surveyed the busy room disdainfully, snapped her fingers, and sent Gina to stand in the coffee line. Then she and Jennifer made a beeline for the table where Claire and Shane sat.

Nobody spoke. It was a war of stares.

"Bitch, please," Shane said finally. "You can't be serious. Out of all the people in here, you pick us to evict? Really not in the mood today."

"I'm not evicting you," Monica said, and slid into the chair next to him. Jennifer looked deeply shocked, then put out, but she bullied some poor freshman out of his chair at the next table, and yanked it over to plop down as well. "I thought since you had extra chairs, you wouldn't be a complete dick about it. Should have known you'd be a bad winner or something."

He blinked.

"Not that you won," she said quickly. "Just that you're, you know, still here. Which is a form of winning. Not the best one."

Shane and Claire exchanged looks. Claire shrugged. "Oliver take you back?" she asked. Monica traced some old carving on the tabletop with a perfectly manicured fingernail, and then flipped her still-dark hair over her shoulders.

"Of course," she said. "What would Morganville be without the Morrell family?"

"Wouldn't I like to know?" Shane muttered. Monica sent him a freezing glare. "Kidding." Not.

"I heard you're working," she said. "Wow. Good for you. Shane Collins, actually earning a paycheck. Somebody should alert the press."

He flipped her off, then checked his watch. "Speaking of the job, damn," he said. "Claire - "

"I know. Time to go."

He leaned over and kissed her. He made it extraspecial good, with Monica watching, which made Claire warm all the way down to her toes; he took his time, to the extent that people at other tables started clapping and hooting.

"Watch your back," he murmured, his lips still against hers. "Love you."

"Watch yours," she said. "Love you, too."

She watched him walk away with an expression she was sure made her look like a total fool, and she didn't care. Other girls watched him go, too - they always did, and he rarely noticed these days.

Monica made a retching noise into the coffee that Gina thumped down in front of her. "God, you two are disgusting. You know it's not going to last, right?"

"Why, because you're going to take