Tormen - By Lauren Kate Page 0,59

--surely it had to do with Daniel. She also wanted to ask him where he'd been on Saturday, whether he'd heard about Dawn's trip overboard.

Except Roland wasn't online. The only other person in the class who was logged on to the chat room was Miles. A text box with his name on it popped up on her screen:

Helloooo over there!

He was sitting right next to her. Luce could even hear him chuckling. It was cute that he got a kick out of his own dumb jokes. This was exactly the kind of goofy, teasing rapport she would love to have with Daniel. If he weren't so brooding all the time. If he were actually around.

But he wasn't.

She wrote back: How's the weather in your neck of the woods?

Getting sunnier now, he typed, still smiling. Hey, what'd you do last night? I swung by your room to see if you wanted to grab dinner.

She looked up from her computer, straight at Miles. His deep blue eyes were so sincere, she had an urge to turn to spill everything about what had happened. He'd been so amazing the other day, listening to her talk about her time at Sword & Cross. But there was no way to answer his question via chat. As much as she wanted to tell him, she didn't know whether she should talk about it. Even letting Shelby in on her secret project was practically wooing trouble from Steven and Francesca.

Miles's expression changed from his normal casual smile into an awkward frown. It made Luce feel terrible, and also slightly surprised, that she could elicit this kind of reaction in him.

Francesca clicked o the projector. When she crossed her arms over her chest, the pink silk sleeves of her peasant blouse bloomed out of her cropped leather jacket. For the rst time, Luce noticed how far away Steven was. He was seated on the windowsill at the western corner of the room. He had barely said a word in class all day.

"Let's see how well you paid attention," Francesca said, smiling widely at the students. "Why don't you break up into pairs and take turns conducting mock interviews."

At the sound of all the other students rising from their chairs, Luce groaned internally. She'd heard next to nothing of Francesca's lecture and had no idea what the assignment was. no idea what the assignment was.

Also, she knew she was just squatting in the Nephilim program temporarily, but was it too much to ask for her teachers to remember every once in a while that she wasn't like the rest of the kids in the class?

Miles tapped her computer screen where he had messaged her: You wanna partner up? Just then, Shelby appeared.

"I say we do CIA or Doctors Without Borders," Shelby said. She motioned for Miles to surrender the desk next to Luce. Miles stayed put. "There's no way I'm ctitiously applying for some lame dental hygienist position."

Luce looked back and forth between Shelby and Miles. Both of them seemed to feel proprietary about her, something she hadn't realized until now. Truthfully, she wanted to be partners with Miles--she hadn't seen him since Saturday. She'd kind of been missing him. In a friendly way. Like in a let's-catch-up-over-a-cup-of-co ee way, more than a let's-wander-along-the-beach-at-sunset-and-you-can-smile-at-me-with-those-incredible-blue- eyes way. Because she was with Daniel, she didn't think about other guys. She de nitely didn't start blushing intensely in the middle of class while reminding herself that she didn't think about other guys.

"Is everything okay over here?" Steven laid his tan palm on Luce's desk and gave her a big-brown-eyed you-can-tell-me nod.

But Luce was still nervous around him after what he'd said to her and Dawn on the life raft the other day. Nervous enough that she'd even avoided bringing it up again with Dawn.

"Everything's great," Shelby responded. She took Luce by the elbow and jerked her toward the deck, where some of the other students were paired up, already conducting their mock interviews. "Luce and I were just about to talk r?sum?s."

Francesca appeared behind Steven. "Miles," she said softly, "Jasmine still needs a partner if you'd like to pull up a desk next to her."

A few desks down, Jasmine said, "Dawn and I couldn't agree on who should play indie starlet and who should play"--her voice dropped an octave--"casting director. So she abandoned me for Roland."

Miles looked disappointed. "Casting director," he mumbled. "Finally, I've found my calling." He headed o to join his partner, and Luce watched him go.

With the situation di