“No, just heard about it.” He chucked my chin. “But I’d have come to your aid.”
I laughed, more cynical than amused. “Sure you would have. Real knight in shining armor, right?”
“I might be.” He waggled his eyebrows. “How would you know when you never try me?”
“I tried last semester, but Lilac blocked the view.”
He barked out a laugh, then said in a teasingly somber tone, “All is not what it seems. Maybe I was actually secretly pining for you.”
I felt my cheeks flush red—I was so not used to guys talking to me this way. “Flirty banter is not what I signed up for.”
He leaned down to whisper in my ear, “You think I’m flirty?”
I flinched away. “Is this part of the German instruction?”
“No, but lunch is.” He put his hands on my shoulders, turning me down the hall. “You can’t learn if you’re hungry.”
Grudgingly, I fell into step with him. “Yeah, like you actually have something to teach me.”
“Look, don’t take this out on me. You’re hungry, and you’ve got to go back to the dining hall sometime. Come on. I’ll walk with you.”
Willing to stand by my side in public? It was more than Yasuo had done yesterday.
I began to waffle. My traitorous stomach growled again as if it wanted a vote.
He steered me toward the exit. “We’ll talk on the way—no vampires, no Lilac. And if we walk, and we talk, and we get there, and if you don’t hate me by the end of it, I’ll tell you some things to read. You can give it a go, and if you want, we’ll meet next week to talk more. Easy, right?”
I stopped at the door. I really was starving. “Okay. I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Maybe yes, or maybe no?”
“Maybe yeah.” I nodded reluctantly. “I guess so.”
“You don’t have to look so happy about it.” He held the door open for me. “I promise I won’t bite. Yet.” He flashed a wide grin, and I realized what I’d thought were a couple of regular teeth were actually halfway-grown-in fangs.
I looked away quickly, as if I’d accidentally walked in on him in the bathroom or something. “You’ve got…teeth.”
His fangs were more developed than Yasuo’s, but I guessed my friend’s teeth couldn’t have been far behind. He snapped them playfully. “The better to nip you with.”
I swatted him a little harder than necessary as I stormed out the door.
He caught up to me, rubbing his arm where I’d hit him. “Crikey, Drew. They said you were strong, and they weren’t lying.”
His unexpected comment made me self-conscious. “They who? Who says I’m strong?”
He shrugged, refusing to buy into the drama. “Some of the other Acari. It’s cool, though. You are strong, right?”
“I guess so.” I’d never given it much thought. But he was changing the subject—I didn’t want to talk about me; I wanted to talk vampire teeth. “I thought you arrived when Yasuo did.”
He nodded.
“So, why do you have fangs and he doesn’t?”
He grew wary but kept talking. “Some of the changes happen fast. Yas will get his soon, I imagine.”
What the hell other changes happened? I shuddered to think.
I decided I’d gotten enough information out of Josh, and this time I was the one who changed the subject. And anyway, I wanted to get this business German nonsense over with as quickly as possible.