She sighed. “It’s our first day back. It feels like we’re pushing it too hard. Like if we get greedy, something’s going to break. Isn’t it hard enough to be in your classes without facing this many of them all at once?” She hesitated. “And then there’s the small matter of my friends.”
I searched her face. “Worried I won’t pass judgment as your boyfriend?”
“No, of course not! I just don’t feel you should have to try to earn their approval and deal with all those humans and the smells and sounds and the Clann’s attitude on your very first day back.”
I stared at her, everything inside me going still now. “Are you worried I can’t handle it?”
She groaned. “All I’m saying is, why push so hard all at once when you could space out the challenges a little and make it easier on yourself?”
“You’re forgetting I used to play football. I like a good challenge, and the bigger the better.”
She groaned again. “Fine. But the second you look like you’re stressing out, we’re out of here. Okay?”
I nodded.
“Promise me.”
I grinned and held up a pinky. “Pinky swear.”
The flashback to our childhood got a grin out of her. She hooked her pinky with mine. “Deal.”
Finally.
I grabbed the metal handles of both doors, threw them wide-open, and we made our grand entrance into the beehive that was JHS’s cafeteria. Almost every head in the place turned to stare at us. You could practically hear crickets chirp.
SAVANNAH
He was all too happy to lead the way to my friends’ table, which he didn’t even have to search for.
I told you, I’ve spent hours over the years staring at you with your friends and wishing I could be there beside you, he explained silently. I could map out this table’s location in my head at home.
Mmm, stalker much? I teased, trying to ignore the audience all around us.
“Sav!” Michelle squealed as soon as she saw us. All of my friends jumped up from our table.
“Finally!” Anne pushed past Ron so she could be the first to give me a fierce hug. “I knew we should have ignored you and gone over to your house last night anyways.”
As Carrie elbowed her out of the way so she could give me a hug next, I gave Anne a pointed look over Carrie’s shoulder. “You know we had a lot of...unpacking to do.”
Actually, I’d been too nervous about having all three of my human friends at my house with Tristan and my dad. The mere idea had seemed a disaster in the making, so I’d begged my friends to wait for lunchtime today for our group reunion.
Carrie stepped back, and I smiled at Michelle, expecting her to step up for a hug, as well.
But she seemed rooted to the linoleum floor, her already large eyes even bigger as she stared openmouthed at something over my left shoulder.
Oh. Of course, Tristan.
“Hey,” he said by way of a greeting.
Time to ease Tristan into the group. “Everyone, you know Tristan Coleman, right?” Who didn’t at our school? “He’ll, um, be sitting with us from now on.”
“I thought you were going to skip this?” Ron leaned over and muttered.
I shrugged and made a face. “I tried to, but somebody’s a spoiled brat and insisted on it.”
Tristan waited to see which chair I reached for so he could be sure none of us had switched the routine seating arrangement. Then he gently nudged my hands free of the plastic chair so he could pull it out and hold it for me. I rolled my eyes. He was taking this show way too far.
Carrie poked Michelle in the ribs, making her jump then remember to return to her seat on the opposite side of the table.
As everyone sat back down, Tristan took his sweet time helping me hang my Charmers bag’s strap over my chair. Finally he flopped down in the chair beside me, turning sideways away from me to stretch out his long legs. Sighing loudly with satisfaction, he propped his hands behind his head then grinned at my friends.
Gradually the noise level around our table returned to normal as everyone lost interest. But then the hairs along the back of my neck stood up. I snuck a peek over my shoulder. Yep. We still had a small audience over at the Clann table, and they did not look happy. My hands yearned to rub away the mild prickly sensation caused by their staring, but I resisted the urge, knowing the movement would give them a tiny victory they didn’t deserve.
Tristan caught that thought and made a big show of throwing an arm around my shoulders across the back of my chair. In the process, he tossed them a quick grin over his shoulder. I shook my head, glad at least he was able to enjoy this ordeal despite the noise of the cafeteria that had to be giving the inside of his head a beating by now.
Then he settled into his chair and turned to face my friends.
Our table was quiet. Too quiet, like they didn’t know what to say to him. Not the reaction I’d hoped for. I had figured they would jabber on among themselves like they always did, and Tristan could either sit back in silence while getting used to everyone, or he could choose to jump into the group conversation when he was ready. Instead, everyone sat there staring at us with raised eyebrows as if they expected us to do all the talking. But what could we say about our long absence? Anne and Ron were the only ones at our table who even knew about the existence of vampires and magic.
As a Coleman and the former Clann golden boy, Tristan was known by everyone on our campus. But since my friends weren’t descendants, none of them had spent much time hanging out with him. So what could they really talk about with him?
I looked at my friends, quickly considering each one’s history with Tristan. Sitting at my right side, my best friend, Anne, was first on the list. She knew the truth, and she’d even helped out during the battle between the vamp and the Clann in the Circle last November. So she’d been there and actually seen me turn Tristan with her own eyes. She’d also teamed up with Tristan once or twice to secretly help fend off my first gaze-daze victims last year.
Not that we could talk about any of that as a group.
Next up was Ron, who sat at Anne’s other side. As a shapeshifting Keeper and an ally of the Clann, he also knew all about vamps and the Clann and had seen me turn Tristan. He and Tristan had played for the JHS Fighting Indians football team, before Tristan’s Clann abilities forced his parents to pull him from the team last year. Now Tristan’s new vamp abilities would still keep him off the team.
That crossed football off the list of subjects to talk about.
Michelle sat on Ron’s right. But she had a weird hero worship thing going on with Tristan, thanks to his helping her off the track at an eighth-grade track meet when she could hardly walk from shin splints. Even if she could actually find her voice before the end of our lunch break, they didn’t have much in common to talk about. Neither of them had run track since junior high.
That left Carrie. But out of all of my friends, hers would be the toughest approval for Tristan to earn. Like Michelle, she knew only general rumors about the Clann and nothing about their true abilities or that vampires existed. And Tristan had never had an opportunity to help her or work with her on anything. A quick peek into her mind showed all she knew about him was his reputation as our school’s biggest, richest player. She hated players. But worse than that was the money issue. She wanted to become a doctor, but her parents didn’t earn a lot and were struggling to figure out how to finance her college dreams. Even my switch to expensive clothing, at my father’s demand last summer when I’d moved in with him, had temporarily caused some tension between us. And we’d been friends for years.
Could she look past Tristan’s last