Nana: Methinks he protests too much.

They finally let us leave, and I apologized all over again.

“That was brutal,” he gritted out.

“I know, I’m sorry. They aren’t normally like that, I promise. They just want to make sure I’m safe with you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said as he slid into the driver’s side of his truck, but his voice was still as tight as it had been inside the house, and I knew he was going to worry about it for weeks.

I searched the sky as I buckled into the passenger seat. It was dark, a handful of clouds evident. Please be gone. Please don’t be—

The rabbit was there.

Cold fingers of dread crawled down my spine. “Drive slowly, okay?” I said to Justin. Frosty had slowed down and survived. Justin would, too. Surely. Please.

“Whatever your grandparents told you, I’m not drunk!”

Yeah. He was still worrying.

“I have a car phobia, that’s all.”

He kept things at a smooth jog. It was enough to prevent a freak-out.

I closed my eyes and retreated to the back of my mind. At least I didn’t have to worry about the zombies. Because they’d come out last night they now needed time to rest and—here was an increasingly sickening thought—digest their food.

“We’re here,” Justin said.

“How? Only a minute or two—” I blinked and saw that he’d already parked. Cars were lined up all over Reeve’s driveway, in the grass and along the street. “Wow. We really are here.” I must have lost track of time.

He’d survived. I’d survived. What a fantastic day! Being forewarned must be forearmed. And you know what? I could live with that. Literally.

We walked to the front door side by side. The moon was a mere sliver of gold now, the clouds gone and the sky dark though peppered with hundreds of pinpricks of light.

I was surprised when I noticed that Justin was scanning the bushes, cars and trees as we approached the porch. I was doing the same thing.

He missed a step, righted himself and snarled out, “Cole.”

“What? Where?”

I found him a second later. Cole was on the porch, leaning against the brick wall beside the door, a beam of light raining over him. He popped his jaw when he spotted Justin.

He wouldn’t meet my gaze, was too busy glaring at Justin. Had he been waiting for me?

“This is who you decided to come with?” Cole asked, his voice dripping with disgust.

“She knows a good guy when she sees one,” Justin said stiffly.

Lips I’d kissed pursed with irritation. “I need to talk to Ali. Alone.”

“No way I’d ever leave her alone with you. You’re not the kind of—”

Cole was in his face before Justin could finish that sentence. “If you don’t go inside, you’ll be eating your teeth. You know I can make you do it. I have before.”

“Enough!” I got between them and pushed them apart. Still Cole didn’t meet my gaze. “Seriously, that’s enough.” Clearly these guys had some history, but come on. Ruining a party before it had even begun was overkill.

“Why don’t we let Ali pick?” Justin said with a smug inflection that had me gnashing my teeth in annoyance.

“Ali,” Cole snapped. “I waited for you for a reason. You can guess what it is.”

“I—” might have a vision, I realized. This was the first time I’d seen Cole today.

Neither one of us knew what would happen when our eyes met. “I’ll, uh, meet you inside,” I said to Justin.

His gaze whipped to me, hurt falling over his expression. “You said you weren’t seeing him.”

“I’m not.” At least, not now. “He’s my friend.” Kinda sorta.

“His friends die.”

Yeah, but Justin had no idea why. “Well, I won’t.”

“Fine. Whatever,” Justin snapped, and I realized I’d probably lost his friendship sooner rather than later. “I hope you enjoy being stabbed in the back, because that’s all he’s good at.”

He stomped inside, leaving me alone with Cole—who grabbed me by the wrist and tugged me into the shadows.

“Do you have any idea what a snake that guy is?” he demanded, pressing me against the cold of the wall. “Are you working with him?”

“No!” I kept my gaze down, on his boots. “I don’t even know where he works.”

Cole mumbled something like “Are you kidding me?” under his breath. “So you’re just dating him, then.”

“I’m not dating him.” I want to date you. “We’re just friends.” Kinda sorta.

“Like we’re just friends?” he sneered.

I balled my hands. “I haven’t kissed him, if that’s what you mean.”

A pause. A sharp inhalation. “Just so you know, he’s the kind of friend who will go for your throat—while you’re sleeping.”

Definite history there. “He basically said the same thing about you. So what happened between you guys?”

“That’s none of your business.”

His voice had risen with every word. In a few seconds, he’d be shouting and kids would be spilling out of the house to discover who Cole was murdering. “Let’s just get this over with, okay? Look at me.”

“Not okay. Don’t you want to know where I was this morning?” he asked, settling his hands on my waist.

So warm, so strong. So distracting. I cleared my throat. “Will you tell me if I say yes?”

“I was reinforcing your house. I saw the worry in your eyes when I mentioned that we draw the…you know, and not the you know you were talking about last night. I wanted to make sure your grandparents were protected.”

That was, like, the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me. “Thank you.”

“And then I find you here with Justin Silverstone.” Anger pulsed from him, each wave slamming into me. He placed two fingers under my chin and lifted my head. “So yeah, we’ll get this over with and go our separate ways.”

I had to purse my lips to hold in my protest. Had he meant go our separate ways permanently or just for tonight?

The moment I met those gorgeous purple eyes, the world vanished and my mind blanked. No longer were we standing—

—we were lying down, and he was on top of me. We were dressed, though my shirt had ridden up to just under my bra. Grass cushioned me. We were in a backyard, but it wasn’t mine. Sunlight spotlighted us, but we didn’t care. He had one hand on my stomach, and one on my face.

“Are you sorry?” he asked.

“No. Are you?”

“Never. I just wish we could—”

Someone laughed from inside the house, and the too-short vision vanished in a puff of smoke.

I gently beat at Cole’s chest. I think we were destined to be interrupted every time.

He accepted the abuse without comment. When I settled, I murmured an apology, unsure how many others I’d have to make tonight, and leaned my forehead against him, despite the fact that I wasn’t certain of my reception. His heart thumped wildly, a mimic of mine, and I took comfort in that.

“What do you think I was sorry about?” I asked.

“Your date with Justin?”

I hit him again.

“What? It was just a guess.” At least the anger had drained from him.

That was, hands down, my favorite vision, even though we hadn’t really done anything. Would have been nice to know what we’d done before the conversation—and what we’d been leading up to.

Whatever the answers, happiness began to flood me. Everything we’d seen had happened in some form or another. Therefore, Cole wasn’t done with me permanently. We would sprawl in someone’s backyard and touch and talk and…whatever else.

“Let’s go inside before I do something I’ll regret,” he muttered, ushering me to the door.

“Like what?”

“Like, I can’t say. Knowing you, you’ll run.”

Before he could open the glass, two boys I’d never met peeked out. They leered when they spotted me, even issued my mouth an invitation to the party in their pants—or tried to. Their words tapered off when they noticed Cole. They frowned and backed away, the color draining from their cheeks.

“You weren’t lying when you said everyone’s afraid of you,” I remarked.