"Farewel ," he said.
And then he was gone.
I slowly drew my hand back to my chest, frowning, and became aware that I was cradling it, rubbing the spot where his lips had pressed as if they had burned me. Farewell. He'd thrown tantrums many times, threatened to leave, but this-this seemed different.
It was a calm, ordered, and above allsad departure.
"Myrnin?" I said softly into the silence, but it was too late.
Far too late.
Chapter NINE
CLAIRE
Shane preceded Claire into the house by a couple of steps as she shut and locked the door behind them; apparently that was a lucky thing, because as she was turning the dead bolt, she heard him say, "Oh, crap," in a voice that was choked with laughter, and then a startled yelp from Eve, followed by the sound of scrambling and flailing. Shane backed up next to Claire and held her back when she would have moved forward.
"Trust me," he said. "Wait a second."
Michael and Eve were in the parlor, the front living area that was so rarely used, except for dropping coats and bags and miscel aneous stuff, and from the hasty whispers and rustles of clothes, Claire quickly figured out exactly why Shane was holding her back.
Oh.
"I guess I should have said, Put your pants on," Shane said, loudly enough that they could hear. "Alert, there's a barely legal girl out here."
"Hey!" Claire swiped a hand at him, which he easily avoided. "What were they doing?"
"What do you think?"
Pink-faced, Eve leaned around the frame of the doorway and said, "Um...hi. You're early."
"Nope," Shane said with merciless good cheer. "It's sundown. Not a bit early. You got clothes on?"
"Yes!" Eve said. Her cheeks burned brighter. "Of course! And you didn't see anything anyway." There was a bit of worry to her voice, though, and Shane made it worse with a big, utterly unsympathetic smile.
"Married people," he said to Claire. "They're a menace."
Eve eased out of the door, zipping up her blouse-it was one of those with a front zip-and cleared her throat. "Right," she said. "We really need to talk, you guys."
"You know, my dad sucked at most things, but he did give me the birds and bees Q&A when I was ten, so I'm good," Shane said. Man, he was enjoying this way too much. "Claire?"
She nodded soberly. "I think I understand the basics."
Eve, still blushing, rolled her eyes. "I'm serious!"
Michael finally appeared behind her. He was dressed, kind of; his shirt was unbuttoned, though he was doing it up as quickly as he could. "Eve's right," he said, and he wasn't kidding at all. "We need to talk, guys."
"No, we don't," Shane said. "Just text me or something next time. We could go grab a burger or a movie or-"
Michael shook his head and walked inside the parlor. Eve followed him. Shane sent Claire a look that had a little bit of alarm in it, and finally shrugged. "Guess we're talking," he said. "Whether we want to or not."
Michael and Eve hadn't taken seats, when the two of them came in; they were standing with their hands clasped, for solidarity, apparently. "Uh-oh," Shane murmured, and then put on a cheerful smile. "So, Mikey, what up? Because this looks like more than just a 'how was your day' kind of discussion."
"We needed to talk about something," Eve said. She looked nervous, and-for Eve-she'd dressed super plainly, just a black shirt and jeans, not a single skul or shiny thing in evidence, except for the subtle glimmer of her wedding ring. "Sorry, guys. Sit down."
"You first," Shane said as Claire dumped her backpack with a heavy clunk by the wal . Michael exchanged a look with Eve, and then sat beside her on the old velvet sofa, while Claire settled in the armchair and Shane leaned on the top of it, his hand on her shoulder. "If we're playing guessing games, I'm going to go with-you're pregnant. Wait, can you be? I mean, can the two of you...?"
Eve flinched and avoided looking at the two of them. "That's not it," she said, and bit her lip. She twisted her wedding ring in agitation, and then finally said, "We've been talking about getting our own place, guys. Not because we don't love you, we do, but-"
"But we need our own space," Michael said. "I know it seems weird, but for us to feel really together, married, we need to get some time to ourselves, and you know how it is here; we're allin one another's business here."
"And there's only one bathroom," Eve said mournfully. "I really need a bathroom."
Claire had suspected it was coming, but that didn't make it feel any better. She instinctively reached up for Shane's hand, and his fingers closing over hers made her feel a little steadier. She'd gotten so used to the idea of the four of them together, always together, that hearing Michael talk about moving stirred up feelings she'd thought she'd outgrown...feelings that hadn't been on her radar since she'd first walked in the door of the Glass House.
She suddenly felt vulnerable, alone, and rejected. She felt homesick, even though she was home, because home wasn't the way she'd left it this morning.
"We want you to be happy," Claire managed to say. Her voice sounded smal and a little hurt, and she didn't mean it that way, not at all. "But you can't move out-it's your house, Michael. I mean, it's the Glass House. And you two are...Glass. We're not."
"Screw that," Shane said immediately. "Sure, I want you two crazy kids to be happy, but you're talking about busting up something that's good, really good, and I don't like it, and I'm not going to be allnoble and pretend I do. Together, we're strong-you've said that yourself, Michael. Now allof a sudden you want more privacy? Dude, that's about as logical as Let's split up in a horror movie!"
Michael gave him a look as he finished buttoning his shirt. "I think it's pretty obvious privacy's an issue."
"Not if you don't decide to get crazy in a room without a locking door. Or, you know, a door."
"It's just that we were waiting on you guys, and we were nervous, and...it just happened," Eve said. "And we're married. We have the right to get crazy if we want to. Anywhere. At any time."
"Okay, I get that," Shane said. "Hel , I'd like a little spontaneous sexytime, too, but is it worth putting us allin danger? Because Morganville ain't safe, guys. You know that. You go out of this house, or make us leave it, and something is going to happen. Something bad."
"Have you taken up Miranda's fortune-tel ing?" Eve asked. "I could say something about crystal bal s...."
"Don't need a psychic friend to tel me it's nasty out there and bound to get worse. Michael, you're on Team Vampire. Are you saying you don't think it's going toxic with Amelie and Oliver in charge?"
Michael didn't try to answer that one, because he couldn't; they'd allagreed on it already.
Eve jumped in, instead. "We could get a house in the vampire quarter," she said. "Free. It's part of Michael's citizenship in town. It wouldn't be a problem except-"
"Except that you'd be living in Vamp Central, and the only thing with a pulse in a couple of square blocks, surrounded by people who think of you as an attractively shaped plasma container?" Shane asked. "Problem. Oh, another problem: Mikey, you said yourself that being around us, meaning all of us, helped you cope with your instincts. Now you're talking about isolating yourselves with a bunch of also-deads. Not smart, man. It'l make you more vamp, and it'l put Eve in more danger, too."
"I never said we were moving to the vampire quarter," Michael said. "Eve was just pointing out we could, not that we would. We could find something else, something close. The old Profit place is still for sale down the street. Amelie gave me a bequest, so I've got money to put down."
"Michael...We are not moving into that pit," Eve said. It sounded like an old argument. "It smel s like cat urine and old-man clothes, and it's so ancient, it makes this place look like the house of the future. I don't think it has phone lines, never mind Internet. Might as well live in a cardboard box."
"Always an option," Shane said cheerfully. "And you'd have a huge bathroom. Like, the entire world."
"Ugh, gross."
"It's what you pay me for."
"Remind me to give you a negative raise."