Ghost Town Page 0,60

absolutely wicked. "Any guesses?"

"I think I just became psychic," he said. "Holy crap."

"Romantic."

"You want romantic? Date--"

She put two fingers on his lips, hushed him, and then kissed him, long and warm, with tongue. When she was finished, she let him breathe. "You were saying?"

"Not a damn thing," he said, and used both hands to hold her hair back from her face. "How'd you get to be so good at this?"

"I had a good teacher."

"Better not have been Myrnin or I'll have to kick his predatory ass."

"I mean you, dummy."

"Oh." He kissed her back, and somehow they rolled over again, and this time she was on the bottom. It could have felt like suffocation, but he was good at this. It just felt . . . sexy. "How am I doing now?"

"I'm learning all the time."

"Well, you're a scholar." He trailed a finger down her neck, into the open part of her shirt, to where the first button held it closed. It felt like every nerve in her body paid attention to that, to the pressure, the slow speed at which his finger moved, the tug of fabric where he stopped. "Oh, damn, sorry." The button slipped out of the hole. "You're undone."

She looked down. The top of her cream-colored bra was showing, but only the top. It wasn't X-rated yet. It wasn't even PG, except that they were outside, and anybody could walk by and see them. Somehow it didn't feel like that, though. Here, with him, she felt like there was nothing else in the whole world except the two of them.

"Um, Claire?" Shane said. His finger had moved down to touch the skin right at the top of her bra. "Maybe we should finish our tacos inside."

"What about--"

"Eve and Michael are at work. I go in at two."

Oh. "That might be a good idea, then."

He stood up and helped her rise, and they gathered up the plate and Cokes and went inside.

Best. Lunch. Ever.

Claire spent the rest of the afternoon humming around, ridiculously happy; when Eve came home and saw her, she put down her coffin-shaped purse and said, "You look mussed. If I wasn't a total lady, I'd guess that you and Shane--"

"Excuse me? You're a lady?"

"I bought a title on the Internet. I own one square inch of Scotland, you know. And you're changing the subject." Eve gave her a sharp grin and grabbed her hand. "Give, already. Deets."

"I'm not telling you details." "Sure you are. We're girls. It's what we do!"

"If we were guys, that would be gross."

"Wait, checking . . ." Eve held an invisible phone to her ear. "Nope. We're still girls, and the referee says that makes it okay. So give it up, Danvers. You look starry-eyed. It must have been fantastic."

Claire might have actually told her, at least up to the parts that made her blush, but just then, Michael came in the front door toting his guitar, tossed his keys into the tray on the hall table, and yelled, "Eve's got dinner duty!"

"Hey!" Eve yelled back, and stomped her foot. "Your timing sucks, Michael!"

"Why, was there hot wild-girl action--"

"Shut up, you perv."

"Can't catch a break," he said, and flopped down in the chair. "I was just speaking for Shane, since he's off heroically chopping barbecue for money. Hey, you guys notice anything weird happening the last couple of days?"

Claire forgot all about the fun she'd just been having, and focused in on him with laser intensity. "Other than the vampire going nuts at the diner, you mean?"

"Yeah, I see your point, but I mean . . . more people acting weird. More than usual. Two of my guitar students didn't show up. When I called one of them, he said he didn't know what I was talking about, and he wasn't learning the guitar. Which is definitely strange, because he's already paid me for the whole month."

Michael had noticed it. It wasn't all in her head. Claire swallowed and glanced at Eve, who was frowning, too. "I guess," Eve said slowly, and crossed her arms over her black and pink striped rugby shirt, with a skull where the logo should have been. "When I got to the coffee bar on campus, there was this girl wandering around, asking everybody if they'd seen her roommate. Trouble is, she doesn't have a roommate. She hasn't for, like, years. But she was describing her like she actually existed."

"That's what I'm talking about." Michael nodded. "Weird shit. I met at least two other people