“Hi, guys!”
A bright, chipper voice cuts through my gloomy thoughts. Magnus pulls away from our embrace and my eyes fall upon the person I least want to see in the whole world.
“Hello, Jane,” Magnus says in a gravelly voice and for a moment I wonder if he’s been crying, too. “I didn’t realize you planned to dine here this evening.”
“Well, I heard it was really the only cool place in town for bloodsuckers like ourselves,” she replies, throwing her arms around my boyfriend. I love how she’s already calling herself a vampire, even though she hasn’t gone through with the biting yet.
Magnus pats her awkwardly on the back, then pulls away. Her eyes fall on me and let’s just say they’re not exactly friendly. “Am I interrupting something?”
she asks pointedly.
I open my mouth to say yes, yes she is and she needs to leave Club Fang and never come back, but Magnus is too quick.
“Not at all,” he says. “Have a seat.”
I squeeze my hands into fists. Have a seat? Have a seat? Did he just tell that bitch to have a seat? The one he claims will never come between us is now literally between us, squashed into a table designed for two and ordering a cappuccino with a double shot of A negative. Which is completely ludicrous since she’s not even a vampire yet and has zero reason to be drinking blood.
“This is good, actually,” Magnus says. “It’ll give you two a chance to get acquainted. Jane, this is Sunshine McDonald, my girlfriend.”
“Oh Mags, that’s so cute. You have a human girlfriend! I love it!” She offers me a small white hand and I notice that Rayne was totally right about the pink vampire designs on her fake nails. So cheesy. “Hello, Mortal,” she says in total baby talk, as if I’m four years old. “How are you tonight?”
Is she for real? “Um, Jane, I don’t know if you’ve looked in the mirror lately, but I don’t see any fangs in your mouth either,” I snark, unable to help myself. This chick is way too much.
She waves a hand dismissively. “Simply a temporary technicality. I’ve already got through all the training and am officially certified by the council. In a few days, I will be as undead as a doornail.” She tosses me a patronizing smile. “It’s kind of complicated, Sunshine,” she adds. “I don’t expect you to fully understand our ways.”
I squeeze my hands into fists. Complicated? I’d give her complicated. How about some complicated right up her ass? If only Rayne were here. God, sometimes it really sucks to be the helpless human half of team twin. Magnus places a hand on my knee under the table, an attempt to calm me down I guess. “So, Sunny, Jane comes to us from England, where she just completed her Master of Science degree at Oxford,” he explains. “With a concentration in political theory.”
I suck in a deep breath, trying to channel my inner Zen, for his sake at the very least. “Wow,” I say. “That’s . . . impressive. And to think I barely passed Western Civ last year.”
Jane snorts. “Western Civ?” she repeats. “What, are you, like, in high school?”
To my chagrin, she starts laughing. Loudly. “Ohmigod, you are! You’re in high school. That’s so adorable!” She turns to Magnus. “You’ve been robbing the cradle, huh, baby?”
I sit there, teeth clenched, waiting for Magnus to defend me. But he’s just as bright red as I probably am at the moment and isn’t saying a word. Is he embarrassed? About me still being in high school? He never had a problem with it before . . .
Oh God, it’s already happening. I’m being displaced, right before my very eyes and there’s not a thing I can do about it.
“Excuse me, I’m going to go see about your cappuccino,” Magnus mutters in a barely audible voice as he gets up to make a hasty retreat. Coward!
And now I’m stuck one-on-one with Jane. Which, I try to tell myself, isn’t necessarily a bad thing since it gives me a chance to put all my Internet research to work.
“So, Oxford,” I say casually. “That’s really pretty awesome.”
Jane rolls her eyes and snaps her gum. “Yes, it’s very . . . awesome,” she repeats, obviously making fun of my word choice. “Like, totally tubular.”
“You know, I’ve been researching the place a ton,” I inform her, taking a sip of my now perfect temperature coffee. “Since I’m thinking of attending next fall.”
Jane suddenly looks a bit uncomfortable. Aha! “You are?” she asks. “How . . . nice. Hope you can get in.”
“Me, too!” I squeal in my best silly high school girl voice. “It’s like, so tough, I know. But how cool would it be to live in England. I just love England. Where’s Oxford again? Is it London?”
“Oxford is in Oxford,” Jane replies, a big “duh” in her tone. Darn, guess I couldn’t fool her that easily. But I’m guessing she’s going to need one of her lifelines for round two.
“Oh right. Of course. London’s just the hometown of Professor Davis, the best political science teacher ever, right? Did you have Professor Davis when you went to Oxford, Jane?”
Now Jane looks like she’s just swallowed a raw turnip. “Um, I’m not sure,” she says picking at one of her fake fingernails. “I don’t think so.”
“Huh,” I mused. “That’s really strange, since I read that Professor Davis’s Theory of Politics course is one that’s required for anyone to earn a political theory degree.”