She veered away and walked fast. Jerome took about two long strides and put the umbrella over her again without comment. She glared at him.
He lifted an eyebrow. "I can play this game this all day."
"Fine," she said. "But I don't need favors from Monica."
"Girl, it's an umbrella, not a Lamborghini," he pointed out. Way too reasonably. "I'm not even lending it to you. It's not really that much of a favor."
She kept her mouth shut, head down, and walked fast. Jerome stopped at the foot of the Science Building's stairs, and she bounded up and darted under the concrete porch, which was already choked with other students hiding from the rain. She looked back down. Jerome smiled and waved, and a bronze or copper bracelet caught her eye.
He was Protected. Probably a native of Morganville.
"I'm not her friend. That was not my fault," she complained, defending herself to an Eve who wasn't even there.
And then she sneezed, sniffled, and dragged her soggy butt to class.
###
The rain kept up all day and all night, but the next day dawned bright and shiny, with a pale silver sun not quite as fierce as Claire expected. Kind of nice, actually. She'd already showered by the time Eve stumbled into the bathroom, looking more like the walking dead than most vampires, mumbled something, and ignored Claire as she started up the shower again. Claire finished at the sink and hurried down the stairs. She found Michael at the coffeepot, emptying the filter of cold grounds. Deeply weird that he was more of a morning person as a vampire. Maybe he was just enjoying having a morning again, instead of becoming a floaty ghost at dawn.
"Eve's up. You'd better make it so dark the spoon melts."
Michael shot her a half-smile, still almost lethal enough to stop a girl's heart. Luckily he knew just how much current to use on his charm. "That bad, huh?"
She thought about it for a second as she took down a bowl, the box of Rice Krispies, and found the milk behind the bottles of beer --contraband, from Shane -- in the fridge. "You've seen that movie where the zombies eat people's brains?"
"Night of the Living Dead?"
"The zombies would run if they got a look at her."
Michael spooned extra coffee into the fresh filter. He looked good, she thought. Strong, tall, confident. He had on a nice blue shirt and some not-so-ratty blue jeans, and he was wearing shoes. Running shoes, sure, but shoes. Claire stared at his feet. "You're going out," she said.
"Got a job," Michael said serenely. "Working at JT's Music over on Third Street, ten to close. Mostly I'll be demoing guitars and selling them, but JT said he'd let me do some private lessons if I wanted."
That was so ... normal. Really normal. Claire bit her lip and tried to organize the explosion of questions in her brain. "Ah -- what about the sun?" she asked. Because that seemed to be the first hurdle.
"They issued me a car," Michael said. "It's in the garage. Fully sunproofed. And there's underground parking at JT's. There is most places."
"Issued -- who issued you a car?" He shot her a you're not stupid look. "The town? Amelie?"
He didn't answer directly as he slid the filter compartment shut and turned on the brew switch. The machine began wheezing and peeing into the pot. "They tell me it's standard procedure," he said. "For new vampires."
"Not there have been any for fifty years, right?"
He shrugged. It was obvious that she was making him uncomfortable with the questions, but Claire couldn't help herself. "Michael --did they get you the job, too?"
"No. I know JT. I got the job all by myself. They offered -- " He stopped, clearly thinking he'd already said too much.
Claire finished it out, guessing. "They offered you some kind of job in the vampire community. Right? Or -- " Oh, God. "Or they offered to make you a Protector?"
"Not right off the bat," he said, still staring at the coffee maker. "You have to work up to that. So they say."
Michael. Owning people. Skimming off of their wages like some Mafia don. She tried not to let him see how sick that idea made her feel, that he'd ever really consider doing it.
His eyes suddenly cut toward her, as if he'd read her mind. "I didn't do it. I took the job at JT's, Claire," Michael said, and suddenly moved toward her. She flinched, and he took a deep breath and held out his hand in clear apology. "Sorry. I forget sometimes -- it's hard, okay, learning how to move around people when I can go so much faster. But I wouldn't hurt you, Claire. No way."
"Shane thinks -- "
Light caught and flared in Michael's eyes, eerie and frightening, and then he blinked and it was gone. He obviously made a real effort to keep his voice quiet. "Shane's wrong," he said. "I'm not changing, Claire. I'm still your friend. I'll look after you. All of you. Even Shane."
She didn't answer him. Truthfully, as much as she liked him -- and it verged on love -- she felt something different about him today. Something complicated and agitated and strange.
Was he ... hungry? He was staring at her. No, he was staring at the thin skin of her neck, wasn't he? Claire put her hand to it, involuntary but irresistible, and Michael got a very slight pink flush in his pale cheeks and looked away.
"I wouldn't," he said, in a far different tone than before. It almost sounded scared to her. "I wouldn't, Claire. You have to believe me. But -- this is hard. It's so hard."
She did believe him, mostly because she could hear all the heartbreak and sorrow in his voice. She took a breath, stepped forward, and hugged him. He was tall, the top of her head only brushed his chin. His arms felt strong and comforting, and she told herself that he wasn't warm because it was chilly in the kitchen. It wasn't really true, but that helped.