That was, in terms of what had gone on in Claire's life, a really long time ago, and it struck her as oddly funny. She tried not to let it show. "No, really, it was fine. I'm fine."
"Ah, you relieve me." Naomi settled back in her chair, as if she really was relieved, which Claire sincerely doubted. "Now that I'm reassured on that point, I can proceed to my second. I came to pay a call on my youngest relative."
Again, Claire went blank. "Um . . . excuse me?"
"Michael," Naomi said. There was something that turned warm and even sweeter in her voice when she mentioned Michael's name, and that wasn't vampire at all.... That was something Claire understood completely. "I have been missing him."
It was purely a girl-appreciating-a-hottie reaction.
And just like that, it all became crystal clear for Claire. There was, after all, a hidden vampire angle to what was going on with Eve and Michael.... He must have been seeing Naomi. On the side. Without telling anyone, or at least not discussing it in front of Claire and Shane, and Claire was pretty sure that Eve wouldn't have been just Oh, fine about it if she'd really known.
The pretty blond reason for Michael's erratic behavior was sitting across the table and smiling at her.
Claire stood up, all in one rushed motion. "I'll go get him," she said. She knew it sounded rude, and saw surprise on Naomi's face, but she didn't care, not at all. "Stay here." And that was probably even ruder, that somebody with royal whatever blood was being told to stay in the kitchen like the help. Good.
Claire burst through the kitchen door. She must have interrupted some intense guy talk, because both Michael and Shane stopped talking and straightened up the way people did when they felt guilty. Michael hushed his guitar strings with a flat palm.
"You have a visitor," Claire said. She spat the words out flat and hard, straight at Michael, and she thought he must have been able to hear how fast her heart was beating. Maybe her face was red. It should have been; she felt hot all over. "It's Naomi."
If she'd had any doubts at all about it, the sight of his face when she said the name erased them. That was the most shocked, caught-red-handed expression she'd ever seen, and God, in that moment she hated him.
Shane looked over at his best friend, but by the time he did, Michael had managed to wipe away all guilt from his expression and just look curious. "Oh," he said, and stood up, leaning his guitar against the arm of the chair. It seemed to her to be not just careful, but too careful, as if he was afraid to be seen rushing. As if he felt he had to slow down and make sure he didn't make mistakes. "Of course. Thanks, Claire."
She glared at him, and avoided him as he went past her toward the kitchen. She headed straight for the steps, prepared to run all the way up, but Shane's voice stopped her. "Hey," he said, keeping it low. "What the hell?"
"You go ask. You're always telling me not to try to analyze," she said, and went up, wondering if she should tell Eve, wondering if that would lead to the ultimate Glass House apocalypse. She didn't, only because she heard the shower running. Eve tended to shower when she got unhappy. There wouldn't be any hot water for anybody else, not for a while.
Claire passed up the bathroom, closed and locked her door, put her headphones on, and blocked out the world with the loudest, saddest music she could stand.
Oh, Michael, how could you?
If the knowledge hurt her, how awful was it going to be for Eve?
Chapter Two
CLAIRE
Claire expected a blowup - daily - of the Michael/Eve relationship; Eve didn't mention Naomi, and neither did Michael, and the tension kept spinning up inside of Claire like twisting rubber bands.
Shane hadn't said much about Naomi's visit, either, though Claire could tell it troubled him. When Claire had tried to talk about it, he'd gone back to his old refrain. Ask Michael. Yeah, right, like she was going to get in his face and ask, when she already knew.
He also said stay out of it. And that was probably good advice. But Claire couldn't just see this all heading for the cliff and not at least try to turn the wheel. It might be wrong, it might be messy and crazy and a very bad idea, but she had to do it.
So she took Eve out for an ice-cream soda at Marjo's Diner, which Eve happily accepted, because there were no better ice-cream sodas available in the known universe, and Eve never turned down something ice-cream based. It was, Claire thought, a good thing Eve ran on so much nervous energy, with all that sugar craving.
As she spooned up the deliciousness, Eve couldn't put down her cell. She was scrolling through her to-do list, shaking her head. "You would not believe how much there is," she told Claire. "I mean, I've been doing this for weeks, and this list never gets smaller! It's insane. And I've only got a couple of days left. Oh! I need to get my appointment to get a waxing done."
"I really did not need to know that," Claire sighed. Eve threw her a wink and slurped up dessert. "Uh - I have something I need to tell you."
Eve's eyes widened, and she put both spoon and cell down. "It's Shane, isn't it? It's always Shane getting himself into some kind of crazy trouble. What vampire did he - "
"No, it's not Shane." Although Claire honestly couldn't blame her for jumping to that conclusion; Shane was trouble-prone, no doubt about that. "It's about Michael."
Eve smiled, but it looked manic and wrong. She was wearing an absolutely incredible shade of magenta lipstick, and her eye shadow matched. In the tired mid-last-century Formica and rusty chrome of the diner, she looked like a deadly, exotic flower, something imported from a place that had never seen day. Beautiful, but intimidating. And strange. "Well, at least I know Michael's not in jail. On the other hand, Shane just loves the gray bar hotel. Maybe it's the food or something." But there was a flash of desperation in her eyes. She didn't want to talk about Michael. Not at all.
Claire felt like something was pressing on her chest, driving all the breath out of her. "I'm not kidding," she said. "You need to hear this, Eve. About Michael." It hurt, saying this, physically hurt, and she felt tears tingle in her eyes. She blinked them away, fast. "I think he's seeing another girl."
Eve had picked up her spoon, and now she sat there, perfectly still, staring. She cocked her glossy black-haired head slowly over to the side, as if trying to puzzle out what Claire had just said. "Another girl," she said. "What do you mean, another girl?"