The wedding party and guests lifted glasses all around the room.
“To Ryker and Leslie,” Tai said.
“Ryker and Leslie!” chimed from every table.
Claire touched her glass to Nova’s, and… “You’re crying?”
“No.” Nova sipped her champagne and blinked a few times. “Just happy.”
A smile filled her heart before it found her lips. “I’m happy too. For today, yeah, but also that they can know, can really know.”
Nova shifted in her chair toward Claire. “Know what?”
Should be obvious. “That it’s forever.”
“You mean because it wasn’t…for your dad?”
Claire darted a look up and down the table, but the turn of their conversation seemed unnoticed. She sent Nova a half-hearted glare. “Not the best venue to talk about men who change their minds.”
“I’m sorry. I should’ve kept that to myself.”
“No, you’ve made my point, actually.” Claire forced her shoulders to shrug, her mouth to curve upward. She nodded toward Ryker and Leslie. “They literally cannot do what he did. They’re bloodbound, chosen by some benevolent something for one another’s soul. Throwing each other away out of boredom willneverenter their heads.”
“Claire.” Nova set a kind hand on her shoulder.
Claire shrugged again, this time to dislodge the kindness, because a pressure was beginning behind her eyes that needed to stop. “Anyway I’m really impressed with the catering, and I’m really happy for our friends, and this is a great day.”
Nova studied her a moment too long, then nodded. “Agreed on all counts.”
When Claire excused herself to the restroom a few minutes later, she had wholly squelched the little voice inside that sounded far too much like her newly-eleven-year-old self, admitting for the first time that Dad was not coming home. She was her present self again, not quite thirty, relaxed, happy, and determined to ignore the soft steps that followed her.
Philippa chased her inside, waited for the door to shut as if it would give them extra privacy from vampire ears, and even glanced around the restroom to be sure they were alone. Then she turned on both faucets and lowered her voice to a whisper.
“Woman!Whatis going on?”
“Are we in a spy movie?” Claire shut off the faucets.
Extra sound in a room would of course help not attract vampire attention, if said vampires weren’t already trying to listen in. But Philippa had spoiled any chance of that by stalking Claire into the restroom in full view of everybody.
“I want to know what changed, when it changed, and above allwhy.”
Could she answer vaguely enough not to cause a whole friend group confrontation at Ryker and Leslie’s wedding? “Regarding…?”
“You know I’m talking about Tai.”
“I misjudged some things back then.”
“How exactly does one misjudge what he did?”
Oh, let her count the ways. “It’s a long story, Pippa, and this isn’t the time or the place to get into it, and some of it isn’t mine to tell.”
“When did this new information come to you?”
“Thursday.”
Philippa stared, shook her head, and then a slow smile spread over her face. “Well. You wasted no time then.”
“Don’t.” But Claire couldn’t keep away a smile of her own.
