alone, he’s not about to steal Lisa away from you.” She paused. “…are you?”
“Yes, I was already plotting how to take Brian down and steal Lisa away for my own—of course I’m not going to ‘steal Lisa’! Besides, someone already owns me.” He shook his head. “I followed a higher-ranking Were here. Ashi, the craptastic jerk upstairs. He had some plan—anyway, it ended badly. So we’re here. For a while. I guess.”
“Doesn’t stop some of the people around here from being letches,” Melissa said.
Jessica snickered. “Yeah, Angus would sleep with anything in a skirt if she’d let him. He doesn’t care who they’re contracted to either.”
Brian grinned. “He hit on you again?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Anyway!” Melissa cut in. “You can come chill with us whenever you want. I think we were going to grab food at some dive down the street and then head over to party at The Underground. You game?”
Christoph glanced down at his sweats, wondering what The Underground was. “Normally I wouldn’t pass up something like that, but this is the only piece of clothing I have. I didn’t expect to stay.”
“That’s not a problem,” Jessica assured Christoph, turning around and waving over the flock of vampires. “Hey, Mouse! C’mere a sec!”
Mouse gave Jessica a pleading look which went ignored as Clarisse and Angus led her into the kitchen, then took a seat on countertops or leaned against the cabinets. Ken picked up one of the bags on the floor, curiously examining the contents.
“Christoph needs something to wear when we go out to The Underground tomorrow night. Can you help?” Jessica asked.
Mouse nodded, still looking a bit drawn and worried. She gestured halfheartedly at the bags Ken was going through, and he was clucking his tongue and making disapproving noises.
“Oh, honey, no, no, no. We’ve got to do him better than this,” he said, pulling out a pair of jeans and one of the bottles of aftershave and examining them critically. “This will never do. I’ll have to go with you.”
Real pants! Still, no briefs, but real pants! And aftershave meant a razor. God, he needed a shave.
“Jeans are great,” Christoph said, reaching for them. “Seriously.” 'Please. A man deserves pants. Distract him!’ “Hell, Ashi needs clothes, too. You can’t get me all gussied up and ignore him. He’s with Sebastian.”
“Actually, Christoph’s right,” Royce said, drawing every eye in the room. He was leaning in the doorframe, an amused smirk curving his lips. “If those two are going to work for me, they need to be dressed appropriately. I want them at Twisted Temptations four nights a week. Ken?”
Ken smiled, nodding as he puffed out his chest in self-importance. Mouse’s face fell at this pronouncement.
“Excellent. How’s the knee?” Royce asked.
Every Were instinct Christoph had was screaming at him to either go for Royce’s throat or curl up in puddle of pee and cry for mommy. He was proud that he managed not to do either of those things, and instead nodded stiffly to Royce. “Better.”
After the Were ran off to the bathroom with the jeans Ken had been doing his best to withhold, Royce looked over the assembled crowd, thoughtful.
“Is all this what I think it is?”
“Odds are high on three weeks, low on two and four.”
“Put me down for $100 on four weeks.”
In the kitchen, Ken was still clucking over the contents of the bags. “Good Lord, did you really buy… Oh, no.” He groaned theatrically, and summarily tossed the aftershave in the trash.
Mouse was a mite peeved by now, her eyes gaining a reddish tint.
“I do the shopping for the men-folk from now on.”
She flipped him off.
Royce was still chuckling over Ken’s antics as he exited Mouse’s apartment. He ran into Analie, who was holding a box, in the hall. Clarisse and Angus, who followed Royce out, both waved a greeting to the girl.
“Welcome back. How was class?”
Analie smiled broadly, feeling like her face was going to crack.
“It was great. Too busy in the kitchen, so Jacques kicked me out early. ‘Scuse me, please.”
She edged around the shadowy group and raced upstairs with the box of cookies. Tonight had been way too stressful—difficult cookies, no chaperone—and as soon as she dropped off the box, she was going straight to her room to text Freddy. Crap, she still had to ask Royce or someone about the White Hats. She’d do it later, after she wasn’t so jumpy.
At the end of the hall she knocked on Sebastian’s door. She could hear a movie going on inside and it sounded