he too was pleased at having me around. My mom still looked kind of stunned. I think she was used to me being unreasonable-which, usually, I was.
"You'll really stay?" she asked.
"Good God." I laughed. "How many times do I have to say it? Yes, I'll go back to school."
"And stay?" she prompted. "The full two and a half months?"
"Isn't that implied?"
Her face was hard-and very mom like. "I want to know for sure you aren't going to up and run away again. You'll stay and finish school no matter what? Stay until you graduate? Do you promise?"
I met her eyes, surprised at her intensity. "Yes, yes. I promise."
"Excellent," she said. "You'll be glad you did this down the road." Her words were guardian-formal, but in her eyes, I saw love and joy.
We finished dinner and helped stack dishes for the building's cleaning service. While scraping uneaten food into a trash can, I felt Adrian beside me.
"This is very domestic of you," he said. "It's kind of hot, really. Giving me all sorts of fantasies about you in an apron vacuuming my house."
"Oh, Adrian, how I've missed you," I said with an eye roll. "I don't suppose you're helping?"
"Nah. I helped when I ate everything on my plate. No mess that way." He paused. "And yes, you're welcome."
I laughed. "You know, it's a good thing you didn't say much when I promised Mom I'd stay here. I might have decided otherwise."
"Not sure if you could have stood up to her. Your mom seems like someone who gets her way a lot." He cast a covert look to where Lissa and my mom stood talking across the room. He lowered his voice. "It must run in the family. In fact, maybe I should get her help on something."
"Getting a hold of illegal cigarettes?"
"Asking her daughter out."
I nearly dropped the plate I held. "You've asked me out tons of times."
"Not really. I've made inappropriate suggestions and frequently pushed for nudity. But I've never asked you out on a real date. And, if memory serves, you did say you'd give me a fair chance once I let you clean out my trust fund."
"I didn't clean it out," I scoffed.
But standing there, looking at him, I remembered that I had said that if I survived my quest for Dimitri, I'd give Adrian a shot. I would have said anything to get the money I needed then, but now, I saw Adrian through new eyes. I wasn't ready to marry him by any stretch of the imagination, nor did I fully consider him reliable boyfriend material. I didn't even know if I wanted a boyfriend ever. But he had been a good friend to me and everyone else throughout all of this chaos. He'd been kind and steady, and yeah, I couldn't deny it... even with a fading black eye, he was still extraordinarily handsome.
And while it shouldn't have mattered, Lissa had gotten it out from him that a lot of his infatuation with Avery had been compulsion-induced. He'd liked her and hadn't been ruling out a romantic attachment, but her powers had cranked up the intensity more than he actually felt. Or so he claimed. If I were a guy and all that had happened to me, I'd probably say I'd been under the influence of magic too.
Yet from the way he looked at me now, I found it hard to believe anyone had taken my place for him in this last month or so.
"Make me an offer," I said at last. "Write it up, and give me a point-by-point outline of why you're a good would-be suitor."
He started to laugh, then saw my face. "Seriously? That's like homework. There's a reason I'm not in college."
I snapped my fingers. "Get to it, Ivashkov. I want to see you put in a good day's work."
I expected a joke or a brush-off until later, but instead, he said, "Okay."
"Okay?" Now I felt like my mom had earlier, when I'd quickly agreed with her.
"Yep. I'm going to go back to my room right now to start drafting my assignment."
I stared incredulously as he reached for his coat. I had never seen Adrian move that fast when any kind of labor was involved. Oh no. What had I gotten myself into?
He suddenly paused and reached into his coat pocket with an exasperated smile. "Actually, I already practically wrote you an essay. Nearly forgot."
He produced a piece of folded paper and waved it in the air. "You have got to