“If you read it wrong, then so did I.” She frowned, shook her head. “We didn’t read this wrong, Lis. He’s crazy about you. And he trusted you enough to take you to Minnesota. He relied on you to help the Pack.”
That was all true. But still . . . “He bought a house.”
“Yeah,” she said. She put her screen on the nightstand, lay back against the pillows. “It’s weird. You can’t fault the decor, though.” She looked up at the coffered (coffered!) ceiling. “He has surprisingly good taste for a man whose closet is mostly tight T-shirts and leather jackets.”
I snorted.
“I mean, his tile choices alone?” Lulu kissed the tips of her fingertips. “Very squee.”
I sat back, found the pillows almost irritatingly comfortable. “It’s just not normal not to tell your girlfriend that you’re literally living somewhere else.”
Lulu snorted. “When did that happen? Normality?”
I considered, came up with a possibility. “There was an entire week in Paris when it was too hot to move, even at night. People lay around, sat around, and couldn’t be bothered with pretty much anything. So there wasn’t any drama.”
“That wasn’t normal,” Lulu said. “It was a meteorological aberration. That’s what I’m saying—nothing is really ‘normal.’ It’s just an average, a shortcut to explain common things.” She paused. “Normal is a con created by people without imagination.”
“You’re a genius.”
“I know,” she said sleepily.
“Talk to him about it tomorrow,” she said. “After your mean wears off. Dawn is nearly here.”
I turned off the light, but stared at the ceiling, even as dawn threatened.
I could feel the tension in the house. Partly because of me and Connor. Partly because Lulu and I weren’t here by choice but by necessity—because I had enemies outside. The AAM. The person who’d killed Blake. And the person who believed we were “friends.”
It would make even the strongest vampire uneasy. But being here was most unfair to Lulu. This wasn’t the life she’d signed up for, and I needed to get her home.
I needed to get the AAM off my back. I needed leverage, something that would force them to consider things differently and to withdraw their ultimatums.
But dawn stretched its grasping fingers above the horizon, and I had no better ideas.
ELEVEN
When the sun fell again, I wanted to get out of this house. The pain in my shoulder was gone, and I wanted action. And if I was being honest, wanted control. But I didn’t actually have anywhere to go. I wasn’t setting foot in a vampire House, my own house was off-limits, and I’d been fired from the OMB. What were my other options? Hanging out at a coffeehouse all day? Playing water girl while Lulu worked? Volunteering for the Pack?
Zero chance. If I wanted to be bossed around by animals, I’d go hang out with Eleanor of Aquitaine.
I found a message from Carlie checking in, and my heart melted a little more. vampire mom, she said. everything ok with the aam? we aren’t hearing much and we’re worried.
it’s a mess, I admitted. I wanted to shield her from pain, but shielding her from the truth wouldn’t do that. At least the AAM wasn’t pestering her, blaming her for what I’d done.
connor and lulu have my back, I assured her. Or she did, anyway. God knew where he and I stood.
so do we, she said, and I could all but hear the earnestness.
I closed my eyes, grateful I’d had the opportunity to save her. And newly furious that the AAM—or at least Clive’s part of it—didn’t think that was worthwhile.
that means a lot to me. stay careful, and stay safe.
My luck must have turned, because I got a message from Theo: it would be reasonable for a certain civilian vamp to find her way to omb to request assistance from said ombuds and obtain an update. we aim to serve.
“A certain civilian,” I murmured with a grin, feeling hugely relieved by both the contact from Theo and by the invitation. They weren’t shutting me out, at least not now. That mattered to me. Might not matter to Connor, but that was . . . Well. I’d deal with that later.
Maybe I’d pick up coffee and doughnuts en route to the office. Not as an apology—I had nothing to apologize for—but just to smooth the way.
Since the weather had cooled and today was for action, I pulled my hair into a knot and paired today’s tank with leggings and knee-high boots. The house was silent, so I