Cold as Ice (12 page)

Chapter 20

Once they got back to Huntington, they explained everything that had happened—including the fact that Craig wasn’t coming back. Lexi thought that Dan should have kept it a secret so he didn’t get in trouble, but Anna had insisted on not keeping any secrets that could land him in trouble.

Luckily, the security guards didn’t seem to have a problem with what had happened. They were just happy to know that no vampires knew about Huntington, like they’d originally thought. It still baffled Lexi th
at they were only a town away.

“Want to swap dorm rooms?” Anna asked, as she unlocked their door. “I’ll go stay with A
ustin, and Dan can stay here.”

Lexi hesitated. “Don’t Austin and Gabe share a dorm room?” It had been so long since she’d been to their room that she didn’t even remember the actual setup—especially since Austin spent so much time with her and Anna in their dorm. Half the time, it felt l
ike he was the third roommate.

“Well, they do, but Gabe is basically living with Rhonda now,” Anna explained. “So, he said Dan can stay there indefin
itely.”

“Oh.” Lexi hoped that Anna couldn’t tell by looking at her face how disappointed she was to hear that Gabe was sleeping in the same room with Rhonda every night. Less than a month ago, he had been sleeping with her at night. In fact, she had felt like she had
needed
him in order to fall asleep.

Now, they were two differe
nt people in different worlds.

“I’m sorry Gabe is turning out to be such a jerk lately,” Anna said, obviously perceptive of Lexi’s change in mood. “Austin and I both think you can
do so much better than him.”

Lexi didn’t say anything. It wasn’t about doing better than him; it was the fact that, since she’d been back, he had chosen to be with Rhonda instead of her. Their relationship must have meant
nothing to him.

“Anyway, at leas
t Dan is back,” Anna told her.

Lexi could feel her face soften a little, and she grinned. “I’m so happy about that.” It still made no sense to her why it had taken so long for the book to allow him to come back to the present time, but she wasn’t about to complain. All that mattered was that he was back and, even m
ore importantly, he was alive.

“Good, so you’ll want to spend all the time with him that you can,” Anna said, throwing some of her clothes into a duffle bag. “I’m going to Austin’s dorm room for the night. I’ll send Dan over here to
keep you company. Sound good?”

Lexi nodded. “Yeah, that sounds great.” She slumped down on the bed and glanced in the trashcan. There were several empty boxes of tissues and mountainous piles of crumpled tissues stacked high. Hopefully Dan wouldn’t look in the garbage and see how lame she had been by crying over him th
e whole time that he was gone.

A few moments later, he
r dorm room door clicked open.

“Ah, good, you’re here,” Lexi said, breathing a sigh of relief. “I just wa
nt us to cuddle all night and—”

“That’s sweet,” a voice sad, and Lexi cringed. It was Rhonda. “But I
don’t want to cuddle with you.”

“What are you doing
in here?” Lexi snapped at her.

Rhonda’s lips twisted into a grin. “Hello to you, too, Lexi. I must say, I do understand what Gabe saw in you. You’re so
innocent
.”

Lexi gritted her teeth. She knew that by
innocent
, Rhonda meant immature and childlike. It was obvious
that she thought she was just the opposite—mature and ‘grown up enough’ for Gabe. Just the idea that Gabe thought that Rhonda was better for him than Lexi was made her feel sick to her stomach. What was wrong with him? How could he not see
through Rhonda’s manipulation?

“Anyway, I just wanted to stop by because Anna has a notebook for Stakeology class that she promised she’d lend to me,” Rhonda replied. “I just
wanted to see if she had it.”

“Well, she’s not here right now,” Lexi snapped at her. “You’ll have to ask her at a later time.” She motioned to the door, just in time to see Dan standi
ng there, watching them both.

Rhonda followed her gaze and her face lit up when she saw Dan. “
Who’s this hottie?” she asked.

“This,” Lexi said, taking a step protectively tow
ards him, “is Dan. Now leave.”

“Oh, you can’t just send me away right now,” Rhonda replied, running a hand through her strawberry blonde and giving Dan a flirtatious smile. “Not when I’ve only just met
the latest hot guy on campus.”

Dan gave her
a small smile. “Who are you?”

“I’m Rhonda. Gabe’s offspring,” she said. Shooting a stare at Lexi, she extended her hand to hi
m. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“I didn’t realize that Gabe had any offspring,” Dan said. Even though he sounded polite enough, Lexi thought she picked up on a frosty tone in his voice. Was he already beginning to see through Rhonda? She hoped so because it annoyed her that, so far, she had been the only one who ever seemed to notice the girl for what she was. Lexi didn’t know if it was because Rhonda’s mind-control didn’t work on her, or if it was because she was one of the few people w
ho she didn’t try to use it on.

“I’m his first,” Rhonda said proudly, glancing over at Lexi, who rolled her eyes. It was bad enough that she was acting like being his first offspring was something to brag about, like the way someone would brag about taking someone’s virginity, but it was also obvious that she was bragging to make Lexi jealous because Gabe hadn’t turned her, and now, she would never be abl
e to become a vampire herself.

“Well, we’re going to sleep,” Lexi told Rhonda, who was wearing a black dress that was really flattering on her. “So, you can leave now. I’m sure you have
somewhere else to be, anyway.”

“That’s true. Gabe will probably start to miss me if I’m gone for too long,” Rhonda said with a smirk. Blowing a kiss over her shoulder, she
disappeared into the hallway.

Lexi closed the door behind her and locked it. She didn’t want Rhonda coming inside her room again—or anyone else, for that matter. The whole Craig situation could have been avoided if she and Anna had locked the door behind t
hem during the security alarm.

Turning to Dan, she breathed a s
igh of relief. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi.” Dan smiled back and, turning off the light, he sat down on her bed. Pulling her close to him, he ran his hands over her back. “So, tell me, how d
oes it feel to be an immortal?”

“I don’t feel different because I’m not an immortal yet,” Lexi reminded him. “I have to do a
selfless act first, remember?”

Dan nodded, his eyes shining through the light from the TV that reflected against them. “What
are you planning to do then?”

“I don’t know,” Lexi hesitated. “I guess
I could volunteer somewhere.”

“I’d want
to go with you,” Dan told her.

“Why?” Le
xi raised her eyebrows at him.

“Well, I mean, there’s that risk of you running into someone. We don’t want to risk that,” he replied. She knew that by ‘someone’, he was referring to Greg Lawrence, her aunt and uncle, or someone else from Br
iar Creek who needed her blood.

“I’ll go somewhere a few towns over, so I should be safe,” Lexi rep
lied.

“You don’t want me coming with you,” Dan commented. Even though he was playing it off coolly, she knew t
hat the idea disappointed him.

“No, it’s fine, I just doubt you’d have a lot of fun hanging out at
a cat shelter,” Lexi replied.

“I ha
p
pen to love cats,” Dan told her. “So, that’s wher
e you want to volunteer then?”

She nodded, brushing a piece of hair behind her ear. “Yes, I love cats. It seems like a f
un place to volunteer my time.”

“Okay, then,” Dan said. “That
’s what we’re doing tomorrow.”

“Why tomorrow?” Lexi asked.

“Well, the day after tomorrow is Christmas,” Dan replied. “I doubt you’d wa
nt to volunteer on Christmas.”

“I’m not sure that Christmas really means anything anymore,” Lexi murmured. “Besides, after tomorrow, I’ll have hundreds of Christmases that I can enjoy. This one
won’t even make a difference.”

“Well, I want to spend Christmas with you,” Dan tol
d her gently. “If that’s okay.”

Glancing over at him, Lexi noticed the hopeful look in
his eyes. “Yes, it’s perfect.”

*

The next morning, they got up early and went straight to the library where Lexi looked up a cat shelter about a half hour away. They borrowed Anna’s car and drove there, picking up something at the gas station fo
r Lexi to eat on the way over.

When they arrived at the cat shelter, a short older woman named Mary greeted them at the front desk. “Are you looking to adopt a cat today?” she asked, peerin
g over her red-framed glasses.

Lexi shook her head. “No, we’re not planning to adopt any animals. We would like to volunteer. Right
now, if that’s okay with you.”

“Of course it’s okay with me! Normally I would need to interview the two of you first but you look like you’re both hard workers.
We’re always short on help this time of year,” Mary told her. “Most of my volunteers are college students, and they all go home during the holidays to visit their families. I’m getting old, so running this place on my own can
be a real challenge at times.”

“Well, just tell us what to do and we’ll help,” Dan said. He sounded really ent
husiastic about volunteering.

Lexi raised her eyebrows. She had known that Dan would be coming with her, but she hadn’t been expecting him to actually volunteer, too. Then again, he would have looked rude if he had just stood there watching Lexi volun
teer without helping out, too.

“Well, one of you can give the kitties some fresh food and water,” Mary said, her eyes scanning the room as she considered what needed to be done, “and the oth
er can clean the litter boxes.”

“I’ll take the litter boxes,” Lexi volunteered, assuming that taking the more difficult of the two tasks would be a m
uch more selfless thing to do.

Dan seemed to catch on, and he nodded. “Okay, food and wa
ter it is. Let’s get to work.”

Lexi began sifting through the kitty litter with a little shovel like Mary demonstrated for her. It took a while to go through each and every little box, but once she was done, she felt like she had more energy to help out with other tasks. Glancing over at Dan, she found that he still had quite a
few ca
t bowls to fill up with food.

“Is there anything else you nee
d help with?” Lexi asked Mary.

“Well, you could play with them,” Mary suggested. “I don’t always have time to give all of the cats the attention they deserve.” She went over to one of the cages
and let a few of the cats out.