Werewolves & Wisteria by A. L. Tyler Read Free Book Online Page B

did.
    We didn’t cuddle. We didn’t even touch. I kept waiting for him to make a move, but I guess we were both too worn out after the week we’d had. I got a little freaked out by his sallow cheeks every time I looked over at him because he looked seriously ill. It was a good movie, anyway.
    I said goodbye and goodnight as the credits rolled, then went upstairs to get ready for bed.
    I cried out of relief in the shower. I didn’t know how much of it he was faking—probably a lot—but the fact that he even had the will and the energy to fake it was a good sign. It was odd, because even though I’d had Lyssa and Gates with me, I had felt alone in my dilemma up until now. Charlie gave me some support, but after having glimpsed what his life as a demon was like, it was hard for me to imagine that he could really feel the same toward me.
    Vince had seen me cry that day, and even though he was sick, tired, and facing an uncertain future, he had made me laugh. He had taken me out to dinner, and he had made me feel normal.
    I was never going to forget what he had done for me, just for having courage in that one moment. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I might have a chance at living my life.
     
    ~~~~~~~~~
     
    The next day Vince left for classes early. It was a little odd, rolling over in the morning to find him creeping past my bed and trying not to wake me. I was forced to admit that I might need to ask Charlie to move the door hatch into the living room, even if we would have to move the furniture to accommodate it.
    I had picked my schedule to group my classes in the afternoon so that I could work in the morning, but with Charlie hiring on extra help for the greenhouse, it really wasn’t necessary anymore. I had no doubt that I would still be pulling a few hours at the greenhouse to care for certain plants and collect needed spell items. Today, I was sleeping in.
    I had one class overlapping with Vince’s on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and one that overlapped on Tuesday and Thursday. If he moved his classes, we would have more together.
    Around eleven I set off toward my Intro to Women’s Literature class, and then I had two astronomy classes that ran from one to three in the afternoon—the first of which was shared with Vince. I had a break between three and four, and then a Japanese literature class. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I had an intro to computer science class at four with Vince, and that was followed by a late astronomy lab at seven.
    I found astronomy interesting, but I didn’t really have an interest in becoming a career astronomer because I didn’t think there were many job opportunities. I had always loved books, but I felt the same about becoming an English or literature major. I reflected mournfully that I hadn’t even spent any time in the reading nook that Charlie had made for me yet.
    Computer Science was really the only class I was taking that I saw a practical use in, but the others filled the college’s requirements for humanities and science, so I felt good about the schedule I had put together.
    The walk across campus was nice, and my women’s literature class was uneventful. The changing fall leaves were a nice distraction from my thoughts, but I kept waiting for something awful to happen. I didn’t know what, exactly, but the thought that it had been a week since Walter and Stark had dropped Vince on my doorstep weighed heavily on my mind. I hadn’t heard from them since, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one.
    Maybe Vince had been a warning to stay away, and Walter felt that he had done his piece unless I tried to start something. I hadn’t done anything to openly threaten him, even if he did have certain assumptions, which were probably normally correct, about people who kept the company of demons.
    Maybe Vince had only been the beginning, and I feared that was much more likely. As Charlie said, escalating things to such an extent so quickly felt