"Such language, Miss Danvers. Oh, wait, shit--I'm a bad influence."
She settled her head down again, ear against his chest, listening to the rush of his breathing. "Tell me what you were like in school."
"Why?"
"Because I missed it."
"You didn't miss much," he said. "Me and Mikey hung out a lot. He was Mr. Popular, you know, but really shy. Girls, girls, girls, but he was pretty choosy. At least, up until our junior year."
"What happened in your junior year?" she asked before she thought.
Shane's fingers kept stroking through her hair as he said, "House burned, my sister Alyssa died, my family went on the run. So I don't know how Mikey was the last two years of school. We caught up some when I came back, but it wasn't the same. Something happened to him. Sure as hell something happened to me. You know." He shrugged, even with her weight on him, but then, she wasn't much of a burden, and he was a strong guy. "There's not a lot to say about me. I was a pretty boring dumb-ass."
"Were you in sports?"
He laughed. "Football, for a while. I liked hockey better. More chances to hit people. But I'm not really a team player, so I ended up in the penalty box about twice as much as everybody else. Not as much fun." He was quiet for a few seconds, then said, "I guess you know Monica was after me for a while."
That surprised her. "Monica Morrell? You mean, after you, in the sense of--"
"I mean she slipped me really dirty notes and tried to rip my clothes off in a broom closet once. Which I guess to her was love. Not so much for me." His face got hard for a moment, and then relaxed. "I blew her off, and she got pissed. You know the rest."
Shane believed--and Claire had no reason to doubt it--that Monica had set the fire that had burned his home and killed his sister and destroyed his family's life. That wound was never going to heal; he was always going to hate Monica with an intense passion that was two seconds from violence. Not that Monica didn't egg him on, most of the time; she seemed to enjoy Shane's rage.
Claire couldn't think of much to say, so she kissed him again, and it felt sweet, warm, a little distracted on his part. She shouldn't have brought it up, she thought. He didn't like to think about those days at all. "Hey," she said. "I didn't mean--"
"I know." His smile came back again, and she thought he was back in the here and now, with her, instead of in the bad old days. "Glad you weren't here for all that, actually. I wasn't really all that good to know then. Plus, if you want to know the truth, I was kind of a jerk in junior high."
"All boys are jerks in junior high. And mostly in high school. And then they grow up to be jerks." She kissed him again. "But not you, Mr. McStabby."
"Oh, man, Eve's not letting that go, is she?"
"Not remotely." She felt herself smiling, too. Shane always brought out some crazy streak in her she didn't think she had--that was probably what worried her parents so much about the two of them. But Claire liked it. When she was with Shane, she could feel--feel the blood pounding in her veins, feel every nerve awake and alive and hungry to be touched. Everything was brighter, clearer, cleaner. A little crazy was a good thing. "Want to make out?"
"Maybe I should take a shower. I smell like sweat and barbecue." "You smell great," she said. "I love the way you smell."
"You're getting sappy, you know that? And maybe a little creepy."
"Oh, shut up, you like it."
He did, she could tell, especially when they were under the blanket, curled together on the couch, and Amelie's refuge was their own, their private, sweet, warm heaven where nothing could intrude.
Well, except for Claire's cell phone alarm, which was set for seven a.m.
That sucked.
Morning was hard, partly because neither one of them had slept much, and partly because Claire just didn't want to ever leave the room, but she finally managed to kiss her way free and get down the stairs to the closed door.
It didn't open. "Shane!" she yelled. "I have to go!"
His evil laugh drifted down to her, movie-campy, but he pushed the button and let her out. She beat Eve to the shower, of course; Eve was not voluntarily an early riser, and it was her day off, so Claire could take her time in the hot water, and get herself pulled together without knocks rushing her along. When she opened the bathroom door and stepped out, she found Shane sitting on the floor next to it, blocking the hallway with his legs. He had on his rumpled jeans, but he'd left off the shirt.
So not fair. She loved looking at his chest, and he knew it.
"We have got to get a second bathroom in this monster," he said, and kissed her on his way through the doorway. "You take way too long."
"Do not!" she said, outraged, but the wood had already closed between them. "I take half the time Eve does!"
"Still too long!" he called from inside. "Girls."
She banged on the door, then winced and hoped it wasn't loud enough to wake Eve or Michael, and went down the hall to her room. Shane had been right: she had never made the bed yesterday, but she did it today, putting the pillows right and everything. Then she pulled out old, ratty clothes and her worst high-tops.
There was no sense in wearing good clothes to Myrnin's lab. They were just going to get splashed with icky stuff, or stuff that burned holes, or stuff that never came out, no matter how creative you got with laundry add-ins. Claire gulped a bowl of cereal in the kitchen, standing over the sink, and started to wash the bowl--but it was Shane's kitchen day, and with a grin, she put the dirties down unscrubbed.