“That’s fair.” He laces his fingers and studies them. “You’ve been through a lot.”

“So have you. What with the dying and all.”

“True.”

“You can eat like a normal person, right?”

“You’ve seen me eat.”

“Well, getting cracked on the head, being tied up, and watching my boyfriend get shot made me ravenous. I demand dinner, and I think I deserve to have it brought to me. Right here. While I sit comfortably on this couch.”

“Of course.” Jay leaps up. “Anything you want. Just tell me what sounds good, and I’ll—Hold up. Did you just call me your boyfriend?”

“Is that not a term vampires use?” I pluck at the blanket, avoiding his eyes, my heart throbbing.

His fingers curl at his sides, tight and tense, like coiled springs. “That’s absolutely a term vampires use.”

Again with the silence. Is he waiting for me to say something? Why isn’t he saying something? Was I too impulsive? Maybe I assumed too much. He might not even want that kind of relationship with me.

“Daisy,” he says faintly. “Don’t tease me.”

I look up, and up. He’s so fucking tall, and there’s a stormy aura surrounding him, a mounting tide of emotion.

“Come down here,” I say softly, skimming dangerously close to the tone that will make him my puppet. But I don’t go there. That is a morally gray space I’m not comfortable with, at least not until I understand more about what I can do.

Jay isn’t the only one who’s different in a supernaturally unexpected way. Maybe we’re two of a kind, he and I. More of a match than we ever suspected.

I reach for one of his hands and pull him down beside me, until he’s kneeling on the rug while I sit on my throne of couch cushions and blankets.

“We’ve both changed,” I tell him. “My family’s whole situation changed. And you—your change is, like, way out there, superhard to wrap my head around, but people keep changing throughout their whole lives, right? And after each change, their friends have to decide whether or not to stick with them. I have to be honest. I feel like you didn’t stick with me after we moved away.”

“I’ve apologized for that, and I’ll do it again. I’m sorry.” But there’s a shadow over his words.

I frown at him. “You’re not sorry. Or at least, that’s not the only thing you feel about it.”

His brown eyes lock with mine, a stormy swirl of pain. “You left me, Daisy. You were the only person I had, and you left me behind with nothing. You can’t imagine how that felt—to have my second home ripped away, the place where I had meals, the place where I made all my good holiday memories, where I studied and played. You all treated me as part of the family for years and then, when your dad got his new job, you left.” He lunges to his feet, his voice rising, strained with repressed fury. “You abandoned me, and all you can think about is how it affected you. How you didn’t get emails, or calls, or texts. You tore away everything that mattered to me, and you expected me to remind myself of that rejection by staying in touch? Screw that.”

“What was I supposed to do?” Anger trembles in my heart, in my voice. I throw off the blankets and rise to face him, ignoring the lingering pain in my head. “My parents were in charge. I had to move with them. What the hell did you expect me to do?”

“Fight for me! Ask them to get custody of me.”

“You know that would never have worked. No judge would have given you to us.”

“They might have! Your parents had enough evidence of my mom’s neglect. They didn’t even try.”

“Because you told them not to go to Child Protective Services! You didn’t want to end up in foster care, and that’s what would have happened if they’d spoken out. We weren’t related, Jay. Mom and Dad could never have gotten custody of you—and even if they had, is that what you would have wanted? To be my foster brother?”

“Hell no!”

“Then what, Jay, what? What did you want? I was fourteen. What more could I have done?”

“I don’t fucking know!” he bellows. The blaze in his eyes and the force of his shout sends me back a step.

He sucks in a quick breath, his face drawn taut, his eyes so wide with horror that I forget my anger. He sinks onto the edge of the coffee table, and I sit opposite him, on the edge of the sofa.

“Jay. Are you okay? You look like…like you killed someone.”

“I don’t yell like that.” The words leak between his stiff lips. “That’s not me.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not. I promised myself I wouldn’t, that I would never—” He looks as if he’s about to smack the table, but instead he curls his fist against it with studied control. “This is how it starts, with the yelling. The arguments. I want us to be different, you and me. I don’t want us to ever get like them.”

He’s talking about his parents. I slip my fingers over his fist, settle them between his knuckles. “We won’t.”

“We might.” He pulls away. “I thought I was ready for this, for us, but apparently I still need to work on myself. You deserve that. You deserve the best.”

The finality in his tone is terrifying, like he might actually leave this house, this mountain. Whatever happens, he can’t leave. Not when I just got him back, not when he just revealed his whole secret life to me.

“You don’t have to be perfect, Jay,” I whisper.

He stares at me, incredulous. “Oh, Daisy, of course I do. Of course I do. We live in a world where one mistake can destroy someone’s reputation forever. We all have to strive to be perfect.”

“Perfect to whom, though? Because people don’t all have the same standards, you’ll never be perfect to everyone. The lines are all drawn in different places. Even people who agree on one thing will eventually realize they disagree on something else. Perfection is impossible.”

He gives me a crooked smile. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past eight years, it’s that nothing’s impossible.” He stands again, pulling out his phone. “And you asked who I’m trying to be perfect for, but I think you know the answer. It’s always been you. You’ve been with me through every moment, every decision I’ve made. Even when I hated you for leaving me behind.”

“I’m sorry.” I breathe the words straight from my soul, even though I know they can’t fix his pain.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I forgave you already. Now tell me what you want for dinner, and I’ll make it happen.”

13

I’m warm, so warm, drifting on a sea of spice and heat, rising gently on a swell and then sinking again. Except this ocean isn’t liquid, it’s firm, covered in soft cotton fabric—

I blink slowly, and there’s a lean muscled arm inches from my nose, a strong hand draped over my shoulder. My own hand is curled around a fistful of Jay’s T-shirt, and my hip is nestled between his legs. Beyond the curve of his arm, I can see the empty containers of the Thai takeout we ate last night.

I must have fallen asleep on his chest. And he didn’t move me.

Cautiously I sit up, trying to wring some order from my mass of blond tangles. It’s no use, so I tug an elastic from my wrist and knot the whole mess on top of my head. My breath probably smells awful. There’s water in a bottle on the table, so I drink a few swallows.

Jay is still out, completely relaxed. I’ve seen him asleep before, but he was just a kid then. He’s so much bigger now. His angles have sharpened, while his chest and arms have filled out. I want to trace the curve of his lashes, the arch of his dark eyebrows, the line of his nose. His brown hair is smushed against the armrest of the couch; he’s going to have the cutest bedhead when he gets up.

A vampire with bedhead. I smother a hysterical snicker as everything I learned yesterday rushes back in.

I spent the night with a vampire.

I spent the night with a man, and my parents will know. When I get home, I’ll have to deal with their questions and comments. I hate feeling like I’m back in high school again. Easy and comfortable as it is at Mom and Dad’s, I need to be out of there by the end of the summer.