this. You know it freaks me out when you’re too nice to me. It makes me think you’re going soft,” he teased as he shot her a lopsided grin.
“Hardly.” She found herself grinning back at him, her mood lighter than it had been all day. “As you will discover when we do our virtual tests tomorrow. Because, Mr. Green, I hate to inform you that I plan to whip your dragon-slaying butt.”
“Really?” His lips twitched in amusement. “I’ll have you know that just about the only time this stupid broken leg doesn’t hold me back is when I’m doing a simulation test.”
“Uh-huh. Sure.” Emma smiled and turned to walk away.
“Oh, and Jones?”
“Yes?” She turned back around for a moment to see that he was still grinning.
“Try not to stay up all night reading that stuff, because if you want to beat me, you’re going to need your sleep.”
“In your dreams,” she retorted as she watched him swing his way back toward his dorm. But it wasn’t until he was gone that she realized she was still smiling.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Thank God you’re back,” Loni announced fifteen minutes later as she walked into Emma’s room and collapsed on the chair by the window. “I swear I would rather listen to one of Professor Edwards’s boring lectures on why you will no doubt need to use pi every single day when you’re an adult than have to spend one more minute with Brenda. Especially since I just found out she’s a Scorpio.” She gave a dramatic shudder. “Anyway, now I completely understand why you were so upset about getting stuck with Curtis. There is nothing worse than working with someone who drives you insane.”
Emma looked up from the book she had been reading and smiled slightly. “Actually, turns out that Curtis isn’t so bad. Did you know that he’s from a sight-blind family and that his dad used to hit him just because he was different? Even worse, his mom left them and his brother died. It’s sort of hard to imagine, isn’t it? I mean, he seems so together, what with the hair and the attitude.”
For a moment Loni didn’t answer as she silently studied Emma’s face. Then she suddenly sat up bolt straight and widened her violet eyes. “Oh my God. You like him again. I knew it. I just knew you would change your mind. Man, I so should’ve taken that bet with Tyler.”
“What?” Emma demanded as she tried not to flinch under her friend’s piercing gaze. “Of course I don’t. Why do you think that?”
“Because I’m all-knowing and all-seeing,” Loni retorted. “Plus you’re doing that thing with your fingers which means you’re preoccupied. So what happened to the practice-range fiasco?”
“Don’t laugh, but he thought I was asking him to actually practice fighting demons and the only reason he said no was because he prefers to do his practice in the simulation labs,” Emma explained as she examined her fingers to see what thing she was supposedly doing.
“What?” Loni was momentarily distracted. “Who likes to fight pretend elementals when they can fight real ones?”
“I think you’re missing the point.” Emma coughed as she gave up studying her fingers. “The important thing is that he wasn’t blowing me off.”
“That’s true.” Loni clapped her hands in excitement. “And it also means I was right. There was a simple explanation for it. You know, I just never get sick of feeling right. Er, so why don’t you look happy?”
“I am happy,” Emma quickly assured her as she thought of Curtis’s gorgeous face. However, her mood dampened as she recalled the dark shadows that seemed to overtake it from time to time. “But—”
“There’s a ‘but’? Why’s there a ‘but’?”
“I’m not sure.” Emma wrinkled her nose. “When I hated him, I thought his attitude was merely because he didn’t want to hang out with a fairy slayer. Like it was beneath him. But since I’ve gotten to know him, I don’t think it’s that. But there is something. I just can’t put my finger on what.”
“Yes, it’s called a Y chromosome,” Loni retorted. “Guys aren’t supposed to be like girls because otherwise they would take up too much room at the mall and steal our makeup. I think you’re reading too much into this. He explained why he went all weird outside the simulation labs, so now you have nothing to worry about. You like him and I’m sure that he likes you. It’s perfect.”
“Well, except for the invisible fairy who knows my mom,” Emma corrected