take a couple of steps back, right before my cousin, Macy, slams straight into my side.
She wraps her arms around me like a limpet and practically jumps up and down as she squeals, “You’re really here! I wouldn’t let myself believe it until I saw you! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
Jaxon winks at me and mouths, Text me later, before moving back into the passing horde.
I nod as I turn to embrace Macy, even going so far as to do the up-and-down tippy-toe/jump thing with her. And as she wraps me in a giant hug, I can’t help but be grateful for her. Can’t help but think just how much I’ve missed her, even though I didn’t know it until right this second.
“How are you? Are you okay? How are you feeling? You look good. What class do you have right now? Can you skip it? I’ve got about a gallon of Cherry Garcia ice cream squirreled away in my dad’s freezer—I’ve been stockpiling it for weeks, just waiting for you to come back!”
She pulls away and grins at me, then leans back in and hugs me again even more enthusiastically. “I’m so glad you’re back, Grace. I’ve missed you so much!”
“I’ve missed you, too, Mace,” I say as she finally lets me go. And because I have no idea which of her eight million questions/comments to start with, I say the first thing that pops into my head. “You changed your hair.”
“What? Oh yeah.” She grins at me as she runs a hand through her short pink pixie cut. “I did it a few weeks ago when I was missing you. Kind of an homage, you know?”
Of course it’s an homage, because she still thinks hot pink is my favorite color… “It looks fabulous,” I tell her. Because it does. And because she’s pretty much the greatest cousin and friend a girl could ever wish for.
“So what class do you have next?” she asks, tugging me across the foyer toward the staircase. “Because I think you should blow it off and come hang in the room with me.”
“Don’t you have a class now, too?”
“Yes, but it’s just a review for the midterm on Friday.” She waves a hand in the air. “I can skip it to hang with my favorite cousin.”
“Yeah, but your favorite cousin has art right now, and I don’t think I should skip it. I need to find out if there’s something I can do to make up for everything I missed.” I eye her ruefully. “I am not prepared to repeat my senior year.”
“If you ask me, you shouldn’t have to make up anything. I mean, hello. Saving the world should get you straight A’s, like, forever.”
I laugh, because it’s impossible not to when Macy is on a roll. And she is very definitely on a roll right now. “I wouldn’t exactly call it saving the world.”
“You got rid of Hudson, didn’t you? It’s close enough.”
My stomach tightens. That’s the thing. I don’t know if I got rid of Hudson or not. I don’t know if he’s dead or off plotting his next act of world domination or trapped somewhere in between the two. And until I do know, I feel really shady letting anyone think I did something that might have helped “save the world.”
For all I know, I made everything worse.
“I have no idea where Hudson is right now,” I confess eventually.
Her gaze widens, but she catches herself and plasters a smile back on her face. “He’s not here, and that’s good enough for me.” She hugs me again, a little less enthusiastically this time. “So what do you say? Cherry Garcia in the room?”
I glance at the new phone Jaxon gave me, note that I only have about fifteen minutes to make it to art at this point. And I do want to go, despite how tempting it is to crash in our room and have Macy fill me in on everything that’s happened.
“How about we compromise?” I say, shoving my phone back into my pocket. “I go to art, you go to your last class, and we meet back in the room at five for ice cream?”
She quirks one brow at me. “You’re going to show up, right? You’re not going to blow me off for the resident vampire in chief?”
I burst out laughing all over again, because of course I do. How can I not when Macy is at her ridiculous best? “I’m going to tell Jaxon you called