Awake at Dawn (14 page)

At least once a week, and never on the same days, even Della and Miranda would opt out of sitting with her and sit with their kind. Kylie told 112/375

them they didn’t have to sit with her. She understood if they wanted to sit with their same-feathered friends. They didn’t listen.

Whether it was out of loyalty or because they felt bad for her, Kylie didn’t know. But deep down, she appreciated it to no end. Who wanted to eat lunch alone? That would remind her too much of her old high school when Sara was sick or skipping school.

Thinking of Sara, Kylie pulled out her phone and checked to see if she had any messages from her best friend. It had been almost a week since Kylie had sent her several texts asking how things were going and telling her she would be home in three weeks for the weekend. It kind of hurt that Sara hadn’t even gotten back in touch. Did that mean Sara didn’t want to see her?

Sure, Kylie would be the first to admit that they no longer seemed to have a lot in common—Kylie not being human being at the top of the list—but what they had was a ten-year friendship, years of being each other’s best friend. Didn’t that merit her taking a few hours out of her weekend to at least pretend she still cared?

Kylie’s phone rang. Thinking it would be eerie cool, almost psychic, if it was Sara, Kylie waited for the number to come across the screen. Not Sara. She cut off her phone and set it on the table.

“Don’t tell me, either Trey or your stepdad,” Della said.

“Two points for being right.” Kylie grabbed her sandwich again.

“Which one?” Della asked.

“Dad. Stepdad.” Even after meeting and learning to love Daniel, she sometimes forgot that Tom Galen wasn’t her real father. Kylie sank her teeth into the soft bread, but didn’t taste anything.

“Is he still banging his intern?”

Kylie swallowed. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

“Liar,” Della said.

“Okay, how about … don’t know, wish like hell I didn’t care?” 113/375

“Now you’re telling the truth.” She studied Kylie and passed her glass of blood under Kylie’s nose. “Do you want a sip?” Kylie frowned and pushed the glass away. “No.”

“You’re lying again.” Della arched a brow.

“Fine!” Kylie snapped, and even to her own ears, she sounded like Della had earlier. “I want it, but I don’t want it. And don’t go thinking it’s because I think something’s wrong with being vampire. I think it’s fine.

It’s just that I … I’m a bit overwhelmed with trying to figure out what I am.”

“Believe it or not, I understand.” Della continued to study her. “You know, your heart is still beating faster than normal.”

“I know.” Kylie pulled her hair over her shoulder. “And look. My hair grew, too.” She sighed when she remembered how she’d only found one bra that allowed her to squeeze her size-bigger boobs into it.

“Damn.” Della reached out and touched her hair. “Have you talked to Holiday about all this yet?” She glanced at Kylie’s chest again. “I don’t want to scare you or anything, but it’s kind of weird.” Oh, great. Just when she’d almost convinced herself it was no big deal, Della was telling her differently. Kylie let out a deep breath. “No, I haven’t told her yet. I have a meeting with her at two o’clock.”

“You don’t sound very happy about it,” Della said.

“I’m not.”

Della looked shocked. “What happened? You usually sing her praises.

You pissed at her for something?”

“No. But she’s gonna be pissed at me.”

“For what? Going to the falls?”

“No. I don’t think she’ll be upset about me going to falls.” At least Kylie didn’t think she would. “It’s what I did while I was there that’s going to tick her off.”

“What did you do?” Della looked confused as she sipped her blood.

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“I kind of told Burnett about Holiday having had her heart broken by another vampire.”

“Really? What happened?”

“He asked me about her and then—”

“Not that,” Della said. “I mean with the other vampire?”

“I … don’t know it all.” Kylie realized she shouldn’t have told Della, either.

“Okay, so what’s wrong with telling Burnett that?” Della asked.

Kylie rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t my place to tell him. Or you. So don’t say anything.”

“My mouth is sealed.” Della reached over to Kylie’s plate and stole a chip. “You know why you told him, don’t you?” She studied the chip she held with the edge of her fingertips.

“Because I’m stupid,” Kylie answered.

“No, because it’s clear to you and everyone else that those two need to go bump uglies.” She popped the chip into her mouth and made a face. “I used to love potato chips and now … ugg, they taste like toad ass.” Kylie completely ignored the potato chip/toad ass commentary while she tried to understand. “To do what? Bump what?”

“Bump uglies, bang each other, burn off some of those flaming hormones they put out when they’re in the same room together.”

“Uglies?” Kylie still couldn’t wrap her head around it.

Della snickered. “I heard a comedian call it that. She was giving all the different names for doing the deed. Funny, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Kylie said, but couldn’t be sure. Her sense of humor had taken a day off and so had her appetite. She stared at her sandwich, missing only a few bites. Was her loss of appetite a sign? Would she someday think potato chips tasted like toad ass?

“Speak of the horny little devils,” Della said.

Kylie looked up. Holiday and Burnett walked into the dining hall. Holiday led the way, and Burnett studied her from behind. For a second, 115/375

Kylie feared Burnett had told Holiday what Kylie had said. She envisioned an angry and hurt Holiday giving her a good talking-to, and Kylie’s chest tightened. Oh, God, why had she said anything to Burnett? It had been wrong. So wrong.

Then Holiday met Kylie’s gaze—no anger or hurt lingered in her green eyes, only a residual concern. Probably still worried about her and how she walked out of her office this morning. Holiday mouthed the words,

“Two o’clock,” and pointed to her watch.

Kylie nodded.

Holiday smiled and then walked up to the front of the dining hall and took a lunch plate. Burnett continued to follow her, his gaze taking in her every move, as if trying to memorize every inch of her body.

“Wait a minute,” Kylie said. “If vampires can smell those hormones, how come Burnett doesn’t seem to know Holiday feels that way about him? I mean, when I hinted that Holiday might be feeling something other than just annoyance, he seriously acted surprised.”

“That’s simple. We can’t smell our own hormones and most of the time we can’t smell the hormones of the people we’re attracted to. I never smelled my boyfriend’s.” A sad smiled touched her lips as if some memory had tiptoed across her mind. “And I know Lee felt them.” Kylie sensed that Della still cared about Lee, but she also got the feeling that her friend wasn’t about to admit it, nor did she want to talk about it. “That’s weird how that works.”

“Yeah. It’s as if when we’re attracted to someone, the emotion triggers the off button of our hormone sensor. Now, if you aren’t attracted to someone and they’ve got the hots for you—oh yeah, we can smell that like a bad fart.”

Kylie chewed on that information for a few seconds and then said,

“But then how come Derek can tell when I’m thinking about…” Okay, Kylie wasn’t sure she wanted to say that aloud, but curiosity provoked her to continue. “Are you saying he’s not attracted to me?” 116/375

“No.” Della grinned. “He’s not vampire. He’s not even smelling anything. He’s reading emotion. That’s a completely different thing.”

“Oh.” Kylie looked back down at her plate and forced herself to eat a chip but her mind continued to churn. Once she swallowed, she forced herself to ask the question, in a very low voice, of course. “Do Derek and I … do we really spill hormones all over the place? I mean, is it so bad that it’s embarrassing?”

Della’s eyes widened, but she didn’t answer. Which was so unlike Della. She never hesitated to tell you like it was.

“Oh, crap. Is it that bad?” Kylie asked.

Della cut her eyes upward. Kylie was just about to figure out what that eye shift meant when a warm breath whispered across her neck.

“Is what bad?” Derek asked.

Chapter Eleven

“Nothing is bad,” Kylie answered Derek, and desperately tried not to emit any hormones or emotions that might have gone sailing in the air when her gaze locked on him. Problem was, she didn’t have a clue how to stop them. Where the hell was her sensor button?

Off! Off! Off!
She mentally jabbed at the off button in her mind.

Derek shifted and dropped down in the chair beside her. She didn’t want to look at him, afraid that her doing so would increase the leakage of hormones, but not looking at a person was exceptionally rude. Or so said her mom.

“Everything okay?” Derek asked, probably aware she still hadn’t looked at him.

“Don’t be rude,”
she could almost hear her mom say. “It’s fine.” She looked at him. And because she’d been avoiding him for the last few days, she practically gobbled up his image. Her breath caught. Holy moly, did he look good.

Oh, yeah, she was so gonna blame this on her mom!

He was a tad sweaty, not yucky sweaty, but yummy sweaty. His skin glowed a bit, and he smelled a little like sunshine, as if he’d soaked up all the good scents from his hike. She figured his skin would taste a little like salty sunshine if she pressed her lips against it. His brown hair curled up on the tips and looked windblown. He wore a dark green T-shirt that hugged his torso. And the jeans he wore were his favorite. Or at least, it was the pair he wore more than others. She recognized them both 118/375

because the knees were faded and they fit him snugger than most. And snug looked really,
really
good on him.

Della’s snicker drew Kylie’s attention away from Derek. The vampire grinned and waved a hand in front of her nose. Realizing what she meant, Kylie felt her face turn red.

When she stole another glace at Derek, his gaze had shifted and was now glued to her boobs. Which probably meant that he was at this second polluting the air with all kinds of pheromones as he tried to figure out how the girls had grown overnight.

“I … I gotta go find Miranda.” Kylie popped up from her chair and shot out of the dining room like someone wearing white and in desperate need of a tampon.

* * *

“Miranda, you here?” Kylie called out as she entered the cabin five minutes later.

Her friend came scurrying out of Kylie’s bedroom. She had panic plastered on her face and tears filled her eyes. Tears in Miranda’s lovesick eyes had pretty much been the norm these last few days, but something appeared different. Kylie sensed it right away. And yeah, it had a little something to do with the fact that she’d stormed out of
Kylie’s
bedroom immersed in a cloud of guilt.

“I’m so sorry,” Miranda said, and hiccupped. “Really, really sorry.”

“Really, really sorry about what?” Had Miranda found Lucas’s letters and read them? Purposely invaded her privacy?

“I didn’t mean to do it.”

“Didn’t mean to do what?” Kylie insisted, feeling her patience seep out like a balloon with a pinhole. Those letters were private. Heck, she hadn’t even read the second one. When she’d returned from the falls, she’d stuffed it in her drawer with the other one. Told herself she’d read it tonight, or maybe tomorrow, or maybe even never. She wasn’t sure her 119/375

heart could handle dealing with whatever Lucas might say on top of everything else she had on her plate.

“I’ve done it dozens of times before, and I never had a problem undo-ing it until now. Please, please don’t be mad at me.” Kylie suddenly got the feeling this wasn’t about Lucas’s letter. “What did you do?”

Miranda’s gaze shot back to Kylie’s bedroom, but when Kylie took a step, Miranda moved in front of her. “I’ll fix it. I swear I will. I’ll figure it out. I won’t sleep or eat until I fix this.”

“Fix what?”

“Please don’t be mad.”

Kylie physically moved Miranda. Then she walked into her bedroom to find out what Miranda didn’t want her to see and swore she would fix.

Kylie’s gaze shot first to the bedside table where she stored her most private things. The drawer was closed. No letters were strewn on the nightstand. A movement on her bed caught her eye. She shifted her gaze.

She blinked.

She screamed.

Then she hauled ass out of her bedroom in less than a flicker of a second.

She ran right into Miranda, who caught her by her forearms. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

Kylie caught her breath. “Why…?” She inhaled. “Why is there a skunk in my bed?”

Kylie felt a familiar brush against her ankle. She looked down expecting to see Socks. But nope. No Socks.

Kylie screamed again and jumped clear across the room.

The skunk raised its pointed little head in the air, meowed, and came scurrying after her.

“I’m so sorry,” Miranda cried.

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Kylie looked up at Miranda and then down at the skunk quickly approaching her. Its paws pranced up in the air in a very familiar and very cute feline kind of way.

Socks?

“No,” Kylie said. “Tell me that’s not … Oh crap, you didn’t!”

“I’ll fix it. I will,” Miranda said.

* * *

Kylie had just returned from art hour with Helen and Jonathon. Pacing, she stood in front of the office, waiting for her two o’clock appointment with Holiday. How was Kylie going to tell the camp leader that she’d ratted out her past romance with a vampire?

By the way, did you know that Burnett didn’t know you used to date
a vampire?
Nope, that wouldn’t do.

Hey, Burnett and I were talking and I happened to mention how you
had your heart chewed up by one of his kind.
That didn’t sound like it would go over too well, either.

“Kylie?” Derek called out to her.

Oh, crappers!

She saw him walk though a crowd of campers waiting to sign up for kayak classes and she resigned herself to facing him. However, she did take several steps away from the crowd.