"Cool is one thing. The kind of girls who accept you for who you really are is another. I'd like something...lasting."
Lasting? For eternity? But I couldn't ask that.
"I want a relationship I can finally sink my teeth into."
Really? Well, I'm your girl! I thought. But he didn't turn toward me; instead, Alexander gazed at the sky.
"So you don't have any friends here?" I asked, trying to pump him for more info.
"Just one."
"Jameson?"
"Someone who wears black lipstick."
We both stared up at the moon in silence. I beamed from his compliment.
"Who do you hang out with?" he finally asked.
"Becky is the only one who accepts me, and it's because I'm the only one who doesn't beat her up." We both laughed. "Everyone else thinks I'm weird."
"I don't."
"Really?" No one had ever said that to me in my whole life. No one.
"You seem a lot like me," he said. "You don't gawk at me like I'm a freak."
"I'll kick anyone who does." "I think you already did. Or at least smacked him with a racket."
We laughed in the moonlight, and I placed my free arm on his chest and hugged him, as my Gothic Mate softly stroked my arm.
"Could those be ravens?" I asked, pointing to a flurry of dark wings circling high above the Mansion.
"Those aren't birds--they're bats."
"Bats! I've never seen bats around here, until you moved in."
"Yeah, we found some hanging in the attic. Jameson set them free. I hope they don't frighten you. They're wonderful creatures."
"It takes one to know one, right?" I hinted.
"But don't worry. They never swoop down and get tangled in jet-black hair like yours. Only in mall hair."
"They like hairspray?"
"They hate it. They know mall hair looks terrible!"
I laughed, and he began softly stroking my hair. His touch calmed me. I thought I was going to melt into the earth.
He was certainly taking much more time than Trevor had. I began stroking his hair, which was silky from his gel.
"Do bats like gel?" I asked.
"They love the way it looks with a silk Armani," he teased back.
I wriggled over him and pinned his arms down. He looked up at me with surprise and smiled. I waited for him to kiss me. But he didn't move. Of course, he didn't move--I was pinning him down! What was I thinking? "Tell me your favorite thing about bats, Bat Girl," he asked, as I anxiously stared down at him.
"They can fly."