We saw Nate for like, all of three or four pages in the first book, so bear with me. I thought it would be neat to work with his character a bit.

I don't own the Darkest Powers or Darkness Rising series.

CHLOE'S POV

"Okay, Derek, we're just stopping by my old apartment to pick up some things before Dad moves everything, and then we'll go out to lunch."

Derek grunted at me softly, turning the wheel of the SUV we had "borrowed" and veering around the corner. I was having a hard time paying attention to the road; I was so focused on remembering every landmark and building that we passed by on the way to my old home. My father had finally moved up to Badger Lake with me and Aunt Lauren, and he had decided to sell the apartment that we (mainly I) had used to live in, so Derek and I had escaped for the day to get some of my keepsakes from the room and have some time alone together.

There was that rusty bus stop sign that someone had spray painted a smiley face on. That old china shop that I had never gone into for fear that I would end up breaking a priceless piece of a tea set. That one tree that had grown around the telephone wires that crisscrossed the streets and looked like the letter v.

I sighed and slumped against my seat, peering out the front window again and pointing. "There. We can park on the side of the road."

Derek nodded and glanced into the rearview mirror as he put on the turn signal and pulled rather smoothly into a spot right in front of the apartment. I had to admit, I was impressed, but I would never let Derek know that. He already teased me enough for having failed my first driving test; no need to let him know that even I thought he was doing better than me.

I waited until he had shut the car off and then swung open my door, jumping to the pavement and brushing off my jeans. "Okay," I murmured, glancing up at the building. "I lived basically on the top floor, and the elevator in here doesn't go all the way up to the top."

Derek stepped up next to me with a bewildered look on his face. "Why?"

I shrugged. "The building was added on to a while ago, and it would have cost too much to make the elevator go all the way to the top or something. I dunno. All that means is that we have to take the elevator to floor 15 or something like that, and then climb the stairs the rest of the way."

I dug into my pocket and tossed the keys at Derek, who caught them without even glancing at them. "I take it you want me to go in first?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

I pushed his shoulder gently. "You would have even if I said no. Come on."

We ventured into the building together and took the elevator quietly to the highest possible floor. Sometime during the lift, Derek reached out and took my hand in his, which kind of surprised me. I squeezed his fingers tightly and relaxed against his shoulder. It felt weird to be back in my old building after so many things had happened. Raising the dead, using zombies as weapons, and having a werewolf as a boyfriend and a ghost as a best friend really put a lot of things into perspective.

As we exited the elevator and started trotting up the stairs, my mind drifted back to my old art school. What had ever happened to my "friends" there? They had never bothered to check up on me while I was at Lyle House. Had they heard that I had gone missing? Had they seen the reward my father put out? Or had they all decided it was better to forget about me?

Derek nudged my shoulder, shaking me out of my trance. "You okay?"

I chewed on the inside of my cheek and glanced at the floor number as we rounded the corner. "Yeah. Just thinking about everything that happened before I got sent away and met you guys."

Derek slowed and looked at me curiously. "What all happened? Besides the dead janitor thing?"

I frowned and pushed open the door that led to the 18th floor, gesturing Derek in ahead of me. "End of the hall," I directed him, my eyebrows furrowed.

What had happened before the dead janitor showed up? I had dyed my hair in the bathroom, gotten my period, something about a director's position. There had been a dance, hadn't there? And Nate Bozian….hadn't he kind of asked me to the dance?

I blinked in surprise, watching as Derek inserted the key into the door and pushed it open. He looked back at me and raised an eyebrow. "Well?"

I shook my head and crossed the threshold, looking around the living room like I had never seen it before. Most of the small trinkets were boxed up to be moved, and I knew that the housekeeper wasn't here, but the room still felt almost homey. It had been the last place my mom had lived in. It always felt like that.

Derek settled a hand on my shoulder, making me jump. "Where's your room?"

I snorted. "Thought you would have sniffed it out by now."

A smile twitched on his lips and I knew that he knew exactly where my room was, and was just giving me a minute to reminisce. I appreciated it, and cast another long gaze around the room before leading Derek down the hall and to my old bedroom.

Nothing, save for bedding, had been put away. The room was clean and free of dust and dirt, but everything was still scattered the way I had left it when I had last been inside it. I stepped inside and spun slowly on my heel in the center of the room, identifying the movie posters on my walls with barely a glance.

Derek remained silently in the doorway, slumped against the doorjamb and watching me with a sparkle in his eyes. "You good?"

I nodded and walked over to my desk, rifling through the papers. "I'm good. I want to grab some clothes and shoes, maybe some of my movie notebooks. Dad said whatever I didn't decide to take he would just have thrown away."

I hesitated and pulled open the top desk drawer, sliding aside a pile of long overdue homework and unveiling an old photo of me and my mother on my first day of first grade. My hair was in ponytails and I was wearing the dumbest little butterfly dress, but I was smiling and my mom was there in her jeans and t-shirt, laughing and kissing my cheek. It was one of the only pictures I had of her and I and I knew there was no way I wasn't taking it with me.

"Your mom?" Derek grumbled behind me, his tone soothing for someone of his size.

I leaned back against his torso and one of his arms wrapped around my upper chest as he placed a kiss to my scalp. "Yeah."

He made a soft sound in the back of his throat. "You look just like her. Minus the red streaks in your hair."

I chuckled and tilted my head to look up at him. "Thanks. Ready to start packing?"

He held up a suitcase with his free hand, presumably found in the closet. "Let's go."

It only took about twenty minutes for me to determine which clothes I did and did not plan to take back to the lake area with me, and another five for me to sort through everything else and grab several of my old script notebooks and a few photo albums. I picked up my mom's jewelry box from the dresser and handed it over to Derek, who managed to slip it into the suitcase and zip it shut. Everything had fit into the one bag, and all of my notebooks were in an excess backpack that I had found under my bed.

I shut the door to my bedroom on the way out and made a quick sweep of the apartment to make sure there wasn't anything else that I wanted to take with me before finally leaving and locking the door behind us.

Derek hauled the suitcase down the steps to floor fifteen, and tried to take my backpack from me. I gave him a quiet glare and he dropped it, letting me call up the elevator. He settled the suitcase onto the floor of the lift and tucked his hands into his back pockets casually. "So, where were you planning to go for lunch?"

I grinned. "This cool Chinese place down the road. I used to go there all the time when I lived here. My friends and I would…."

I bit my lip and glanced down, trailing off. "Maybe we shouldn't go there."

Derek looked at me with a frown. "Why?"

I shrugged, crinkling my nose. "What if I see someone I know?"

Derek looked like he thought I had lost it. "So what?"

I spread my hands, glancing up at him. "So…I don't know. It'll be awkward, I guess."

The elevator dinged and deposited us at the ground floor, and Derek swung the suitcase back into his hand and led the way out the door. "If you really don't want to go, we don't have to, but I doubt you'll run into anyone you know. It's lunch time on a Monday. Aren't they all in school?"

I breathed a small sigh of relief as Derek shoved the suitcase into the trunk, holding out his hand for my backpack when he had finished. I nodded as I handed it to him. "Good point. Okay. Do you want to walk? It's right down the street."

Derek slammed the trunk shut and locked the car as he stepped back up onto the pavement. "Sounds like a plan," he agreed, slipping the car keys back into his pocket.

He enveloped my hand in his and we walked silently down the sidewalk, me taking in all the familiar sights and sounds and him identifying all the new ones. As we neared the restaurant, my excitement grew. "I think you'll really like this. The servers are super nice, and the portions are really big and they cook it all so well and if you ask your server nicely they'll write your name in Chinese for you and give you chopsticks and stuff."

Derek was laughing quietly as I rambled and his chuckles were infectious. We were basically snorting as we rounded the corner, and I slammed heavily into a mass of flesh so firmly that I nearly hit the ground. Derek caught me before I fell, but the guy I had smacked into wasn't so lucky. He landed squarely on the sidewalk with a shout of pain as his palms skidded sharply on the concrete.

I managed to regain my footing quickly and reached a hand out to help the person up. "I am so sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going, I-"

My voice caught in my throat as the guy looked up from checking his hands. Hazel eyes that always had a gleam of laughter in them, bright red hair that would make Ariel jealous, and a smattering of freckles across his upturned nose and dimpled cheeks. He was wearing a Phantom of the Opera t-shirt and jeans and his eyes now held surprise instead of laughter. "Chloe?"

I swallowed, unable to say much. "Uh….hi, Nate. S-sorry about that. R-running into you I mean."

His eyebrows twisted a little and a smile slid across his face as he took my hand and pulled himself to his feet. "It's no problem."

Derek had remained silent through the whole exchange, his eyes watching the two of us closely. Nate looked up at him and smiled hesitantly as he stuck his hand out. "Uh, hi. I'm Nate. Nate Bozian. Chloe and I were in film club together back at school."

He nodded and took Nate's outstretched hand calmly. "Derek."

"Speaking of school," I said, causing both boys to look over at me. "Why aren't you there?"

Nate grinned again and pointed to his head. "I'm out for two weeks with a concussion. Which you probably just made worse by knocking me to the ground."

I snorted and waved my hand. "Right. Like that tumble hurt you. And if anything, you knocked into me. But how did someone like you get a concussion?"

Nate flexed his arms jokingly. "Didn't you know? Tried out for the football team."

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest, leaning against Derek's side. "The school doesn't have a football team, Nate."

He shrugged sheepishly. "Caught me. I was saving a damsel in distress."

Derek and I looked at one another and then back at Nate. I could tell Derek was amused by this bouncy red ball of energy, which relieved me. I had been afraid that he might see him as a threat.

Nate held up his hands. "Fine. My sister whacked me on the head while she was playing softball with some friends. This is the second week I have to serve out of school. Happy now?"

I giggled and nodded. "Absolutely. Hey, do you uh…you wanna grab lunch with us?"

Derek tensed slightly and I glanced up at him pleadingly. It didn't seem like Nate hated me or was grossed out by me, and to be perfectly honest, I had missed him. Derek's eyes softened a little at my expression and we both looked over at Nate.

"It looks like you two were getting ready to have a nice lunch together all alone," he said teasingly, his eyes sparkling, "so I guess I'll just have to go continue knocking women off their feet elsewhere."

"No, it's okay," I said quickly. "I just wasn't expecting to see anyone I knew here on a school day."

Derek nodded above me, the smallest smile on his face. Nate relaxed visibly as he got Derek's approval, and he rubbed the back of his neck. "Sure. My mom gave me some money to get out of her hair. Me being home for two weeks is really starting to get on her nerves."

Derek pulled the door open and gestured us in, Nate going first and Derek and myself following behind. The restaurant was a seat yourself, so we settled into a booth along the side of the restaurant and picked up the menu's that had been laid out for us in advance. A waitress came by to take and give us our drink orders and then vanished again.

The first few moments were quiet only because we were trying to decide what to eat, but as soon as we had placed the orders with the waitress, the three of us fell into an uncomfortable silence.

"So…" Nate said, fiddling with his straw wrapper nervously. "How have you been?"

I smiled and took a slow sip of ice tea, trying to figure out how to answer the question. How do you explain to a mortal friend that you had been raising the dead, hanging out with witches and ghosts, and were dating a werewolf? "I've been….okay. Life's been a bit confusing these last couple of months."

Nate nodded. "That's to be expected."

I gave him a funny look, and out of the corner of my eye I could see Derek doing the same, only his confusion was closer to suspicion than anything else. "What do you mean?"

His face turned so scarlet that it nearly matched his hair, and he ducked his head quickly. "Sorry. I had just heard a lot of rumors about what happened to you. I just…heard you were going through a rough time."

I fiddled with my necklace for a moment, feeling Derek tense beside me. "What kind of rumors?" he asked, his voice low.

I put a calming hand on his thigh and he relaxed a little as Nate winced. "Well, after you left. Not many people saw what happened, but there were a few. They said you attacked one of the teachers when they tried to stop you from jumping out a window. I uh…had heard rumors that you got sent to a group home, and I figured if they were true, it would have been kind of confusing for you."

I pursed my lips and nodded. "They weren't wrong," I admitted after a minute, pausing my explanation as the waitress appeared with our food. I shifted so that one of my legs rested outside of the booth and speared a piece of chicken with a fork while I continued speaking. "I wasn't going to jump out the window, but I did freak out and attack one of the teachers, and I did get sent to a group home."

Nate looked somewhat embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

I waved him off, chewing thoughtfully. "It's okay. Derek and I met there, so it wasn't all bad."

Derek grunted quietly, a smile twitching on his lips as he twisted lo mein around his chopsticks. How he handled those so delicately with such large hands I would never know.

"And then you guys ran away, right?"

I nearly choked on my honey chicken, grabbing for my tea and taking a long drag on it while Derek shot Nate a glare and Nate looked startled. "Whoa, sorry. I just saw the ad that your dad put in the newspaper."

I nodded quickly. "Right, right. I forgot that he did that. Um…anyway, can we talk about something else?"

I hated to be so abrupt, but both Derek and Nate looked relieved at the suggestion. "Right, sure. Derek, what do you uh…what do you like doing?"

Derek looked surprised that Nate had spoken directly to him and he popped a piece of beef in his mouth before answering. "Science. Science is pretty cool."

I nearly snorted at the mild understatement, but Nate looked intrigued. "Really? What kind of science? Like medicines, or earth science, or like animals?"

If you had told me that Derek could look any more stunned than he already did, I would have told you otherwise. But I knew that Nate liked the mechanics and science behind movies and screenplays, so his curiosity wasn't surprising. I let the two hash out different animation techniques and the new technology being used to create 3D printers while I ate, focusing on what Nate had said.

So there had been rumors spread about me. That wasn't a big deal, all things considered, but I was surprised that Nate was so calm about the whole thing. I certainly hadn't been; then again, he hadn't been on the run.

"Chloe!"

I jumped nearly a foot in the air, making the boys stop their conversation and turn to me, their eyebrows raised. "Chloe?" Derek asked carefully. "You good?"

I nodded, glancing sideways to find Liz standing next to me, her face anxious. "Yeah, fine. Just got a chill, like a ghost or something."

Derek's eyes flashed just to my right and he nodded, while Nate's eyebrows climbed higher onto his forehead. "Okay. It is kind of cold in here."

He turned back to Nate and picked up the conversation again while I dug back into my food and tilted my head inquisitively at Liz. She got the message that Nate didn't know I was a necromancer and launched into a fast spiel of words.

"Chloe! Moreno followed you guys here! He lost you on the highway-I was with him, but he didn't know that-but apparently there's a tracking device on the van you guys stole. He's pretty pissed off that you both left without telling anyone, and he was talking to someone back at the lake about revoking your driving lessons and Derek's license."

I cursed softly, making both guys look at me again. "Chloe?" Nate asked cautiously.

I waved a hand. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Uh…Derek? Liz just texted me, said that Moreno is looking for us. Apparently he's close by."

Derek groaned and immediately gestured over my head for the waitress. "Who's Moreno?" Nate asked as the lady came over with our checks.

I rolled my eyes. "The guy in charge of this…private school that we go to, for people with needs like ours. We kind of snuck away to get some alone time and also to grab some left over stuff from my old apartment."

Nate didn't pry about the needs portion, for which I was grateful. Instead, he dug into his pocket for his wallet and pulled out a twenty, handing it over to the waitress and telling her to keep the change. "Well? Then what are we waiting for? You guys obviously want some time away, let's go to my house."

Derek and I just stared at him for a moment in disbelief. "Seriously?" I choked out.

Nate tilted his head, his eyes flickering past me towards where I assumed the waitress was. "Yeah, seriously. Come on."

Derek grabbed his debit card back from the waitress and we hurried for the door. I leaned close to Derek and whispered only loudly enough for his werewolf hearing to pick up: "There's a tracking device on the van."

He shot me a questioning look-where?-and I glanced back at Liz, who was alongside me as we left the restaurant. "Where?" I asked quietly.

She snorted. "On the underside of the glove compartment of all places. It's easy to see once you know what you're looking for. Also, when I saw him last he was a couple blocks away, so you guys better hurry."

Nate was looking at us funny and I smiled. "Our van is this way," I informed him, leading the way down the street as quickly as possible and checking over my shoulder a couple of times to make sure Moreno wasn't on our tail.

It wasn't that Moreno was a bad guy; sure, he had tried to kill us a few times, but he was a generally a good person. It was just that when it came to punishment, he was harsh, and I didn't particularly want to get caught by him in a public area where everyone would see us getting reprimanded.

Derek slid into the driver's seat and I leaned over under the passenger side for a just a moment, claiming that I wanted to stash my purse there. Nate rolled his eyes but didn't question me, and I spotted the tracking device immediately and ripped it from the underside of the glove compartment with ease, bracing myself for some kind of alarm to go off. When none did, I backed out of the car, let Nate into the front so he could give Derek directions, and dropped the device onto the pavement under me.

Liz appeared in the car just as we pulled away from the curb and grinned. "Oh good. He was just turning the corner down there. I'll keep tabs on him while you guys chill, okay? Let you know when he starts to head back for his car so you can get out of the city first."

I tilted my head at her and settled back into the seat, imagining the look of pure irritation that would cross Moreno's face when he found the tracking device.

Nate was actually really good at giving directions and we reached his house in no time, settled on the outskirts of the city. It was actually a duplex, but it was way bigger than an apartment, so it was basically a house. Derek parked the van around back and Nate led the way inside, looking around for his mom before finding a note held onto the fridge with a magnet that said she had gone out to do some errands for a couple of hours.

He grinned and waved the note at me. "She said not to have any parties. Sorry guys, you gotta go."

Even Derek cracked a small smile at that and I shook my head. Nate reminded me of a bizarre cross of Corey and Simon, which was actually a really fun concept. He held all of the smarts and kindness of Simon (not to say Corey isn't smart or kind; I actually think Liz has a tiny crush on him, because I hear all the time about how nice Corey is) and the enthusiasm and humor of Corey. I realized suddenly that that was why I got along so well with both boys despite how different they were; Nate was basically the two of them as one person.

"Have a seat, guys," Nate said, breaking me from my thoughts and leading us to the living room. It was worn but comfortable, pale green curtains tied back with a ribbon over a window that faced into a yard small enough to be a garden, old leather sofas that had seen a lot of lounging, and a dark center table with coffee rings at the corners.

I sank into one of the couches and sighed as Derek turned to Nate. "Where is your bathroom?" he asked, glancing at me hesitantly.

I knew Derek wanted me to be able to catch up with an old friend, but I also knew that he didn't want to leave me alone with a guy he barely knew. I gave him a small smile as Nate pointed upstairs. "Up the stairs, third door on the left. You hit my room you've gone too far."

Derek nodded and vanished up the stairs and Nate flopped down on the other end of the couch from me, studying me like he wanted to ask me a question. "What's up?" I asked pointedly.

He chewed on his lip for a minute and held up his hands. "I'm gonna need you to hear me out, okay?"

I frowned and nodded slowly. "O…kay…."

He glanced down at his hands and began picking at a cuticle as he spoke. "Well….after your dad put the article in the paper about you, I called him."

Seeing my look of surprise, he smiled sheepishly. "I was uh…I was worried about you. He told me the place of the home you had been in; didn't say what kind of home, which is why I wasn't sure if the rumors had been true, and I couldn't find anything about it online. But he had told me the general town it was in so I started keeping an eye out for news articles about the abandoned warehouses around that area."

He looked up, catching my gaze. "I um…ran away as a kid a few times, knew something about hiding. I always came back."

I nodded, waving for him to go on.

"Anyway, there wasn't anything the first day, but the second time I checked there was a brief article about a group of workers stumbling across a body in one of the warehouses that they swore hadn't been there the previous day. Thing was, it was too decomposed to have died there overnight."

I swallowed. I remembered that body well. It had crawled onto me in the middle of the night, and then the ghost had the nerve to chase me for several blocks and call me a bunch of names. "Okay," I said slowly. "And?"

Nate glanced towards the stairs-for Derek, I realized-before continuing. "Today at the restaurant, you jumped really badly, like something had startled you. But it wasn't cold in there; both Derek and I were sweating. We actually mentioned it while you were zoned out."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek, wishing that Derek would come back downstairs. "So? I get cold easily."

"No you don't," Nate retorted. "You forget I've known you for like four years, Chloe. You don't get cold easily. Everyone gets an occasional random shiver, but that wasn't what that was. Also, you don't have a cellphone."

I frowned at him. "What?"

Nate reached into his jacket to pull out his cell. "You don't have a cellphone. If you had gotten a text from your friend Liz, you would have had to move your hands to get it from your pocket and then, at the very least, turn your head down to read it. Knowing you, you wouldn't hesitate to hold it over the table."

I gave off a harsh laugh. "What are you trying to say, Nate?"

"I'm trying to say that you're a necromancer."

Of all the things I had expected him to say, that, surprisingly, wasn't one of them. All I could do was stare at him, mouth wide open as I tried to figure out how to respond. He raised an eyebrow at me and tilted his head and it dawned on me that my lack of response was response enough.

I jumped from the sofa and backed up against the wall. Nate's look of smugness immediately vanished, replaced with worry. "Chloe?"

"Who are you?" I finally asked, fairly loudly. "How…could you possibly figure that out from only those three clues?"

Nate suddenly looked as if someone had slapped him in the face and he got up, holding out his hands. "Whoa, hey, Chloe, no. Trust me, I'm not gonna like….try to capture you or anything. No way, I don't work for those guys."

I stared at him, unable to process what I was hearing. "Those guys?"

He flinched and stepped back, running a hand through his hair. "I'm not making much sense, am I?"

"Not one bit," Derek growled, stepping into the room and balling his hands into fists. Nate paled visibly and backed up a bit more. "You have about ten seconds to explain before I get pissed."

Nate swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Werewolf, I'm guessing," he let out with a squeak.

Derek's eyes narrowed even more and Nate quickly threw his hands up in a calming gesture. "I'm a shaman," he spit out, shutting his eyes and bracing himself.

Derek's face morphed into surprise and Nate peeked at us through one eye. Seeing that we weren't going to hit him any time soon, he lowered his arms and sighed. "That's…how I figured it out so quickly. I'm a shaman. Well…kind of. My dad's a shaman and my mom's a witch, but since witches don't have warlocks, I'm more of a half shaman with some boosted powers from Mom's side."

Derek suddenly cursed. "Bozian. I knew your last name sounded familiar; is your mom Emily?"

Nate looked stunned. "Yeah. How did you-?"

"She and my dad knew each other a while back. He hasn't talked to her in a long time, but when he was talking to Simon-my brother-and me about where to go in an emergency, he mentioned her name."

Nate smiled. "Yeah, that sounds like Mom. She's always ready to help supernaturals on the run. Anyway, I didn't figure all that out by just watching. Since my powers are more enhanced, my abilities aren't just like healing and mental transportation and whatever. Since shamans are basically spiritualists, we have a connection with the ghost world. I couldn't see your friend Liz, but I could sense that she was there. That's why I knew she wasn't texting you, Chloe."

The guys suddenly realized that I hadn't said a word and was just staring at Nate. He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry for freaking you out."

I pulled myself together, scowled, and punched him in the shoulder. "Way to not tell me, jerk."

He grinned, rubbing at his arm good naturedly. "Couldn't go giving away secrets until I was sure. We good?"

I rolled my eyes and glanced at Derek, who was struggling not to smile. "Yeah, I think so. Just so you know, we don't live in like an institution for teens with mental illnesses. We live at a camp for supernaturals."

Nate blinked. "Damn that sounds cool. Can I come visit? I assume the guy you're running from right now is one of the guys in charge there?"

Derek and I nodded. "Yeah. And I don't know about visiting, but we'll see," I said with a chuckle.

Nate ducked his head and nodded. "Right."

"Chloe!"

I didn't jump this time, merely turned to Liz with a mock glare. "You gonna stop sneaking up on me?"

Her mouth worked for a moment as she looked from me to Nate, who had glanced back up and was staring in Liz's general direction. "You…huh?"

I shook my head. "Liz, Nate. Nate, Liz," I said, gesturing back and forth. "He's a shaman, apparently. He can sense you."

Nate grinned cheekily and waved at Liz, who just shook her head in disbelief and turned back to me. "Okay, whatever. Anyway, Moreno just started heading back to his car. He found the tracker and started cursing a lot. You guys might want to leave while you can still get out ahead of him."

"Will do," I said, waiting for her to vanish before turning back to Nate and Derek. "Moreno is getting ready to leave the city; we have to go."

Nate led us back outside and shifted awkwardly while Derek started the van. "So…sorry again about freaking you out. Call? Or write or something?"

I smiled and hugged him. "Will do," I assured him. "And hey, if we're ever around and need some healing whatnot we'll come to you."

I gave him my cellphone number (despite what he thought, I did in fact have a phone) and then clambered into the van with Derek and waved as he pulled down the driveway. When we had turned out of sight Derek raised an eyebrow. "He was…interesting."

I smirked, crossing my legs at the ankles. "You know you liked him."

Derek grumbled under his breath and glanced sideways at me. "He seemed to really like you."

I gave Derek a smoldering glare that made him chuckle. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Think we'll beat Moreno back to town?"

I leaned my seat back and shut my eyes, letting the afternoon drift away to the feeling of the tires on the road underneath me.

"Not a chance."