Free Bad Blood (Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter, Vol. 3) by Nikki Jefford Page A

still haven’t told me why spaghetti boy referred to me as your brother.”
    Spaghetti boy, really? One look at Dante’s face was enough to know now wasn’t the time to tease him. Now wasn’t the time to be having this conversation period. I had my first class to get to.
    “He helped me when I was in trouble and I didn’t want him to think I’d dumped him for another guy, so I told him the truth. At least part of it. That I’d lied about going out with you.”
    “Still doesn’t explain the brother comment.”
    I had to think back a moment before it came back to me. I stopped fiddling with my hair.
    “The day I first met you I was with him. We’d actually just started going out. Anyway, you zipped me off to Fairbanks with zero notice. Naturally my boyfriend wondered where I’d been and how I’d gotten there since I was only letting my mother drive me around at the time. I said I’d gone with a friend and he figured out I’d gone with a guy so to make him feel better I said you felt more like a big brother type.”
    “Ouch,” Dante said. His arms dropped to his sides as though he’d been hit in the chest.
    “I’d just met you.”
    Dante shook his head. “That was your first impression of me—as a brotherly type?” He grimaced before continuing. “The first time I met you I was like, wow, this chick is hot! When you opened your sassy mouth I was a complete goner.”
    My heart flipped. Dante made things so difficult for me when he said stuff like that.
    It’s not as if he had been available, either.
    “You were with Janine when we first met.”
    “Friends with benefits, may she rest in peace,” Dante added quickly looking upwards. “Anyway, that’s all in the past.”
    “Exactly,” I said.
    Water under the bridge to nowhere.
    Dante took a step toward me. “Except your past showed up at the doorstep and barged his way in.”
    “See why I don’t want to be roommates with Noel?”
    Dante veered over to the couch and sunk into a sofa cushion, eyes on mine. “I can’t picture you with that guy. You’re so sweet and he looks like riffraff.”
    “Riffraff?” I repeated and laughed. “I guess you could say that. We went out right after my accident. I suppose I was feeling dark at the time.”
    Dante nodded as though that made perfect sense. But it was more than that. Going out with Fane hadn’t been an act of rebellion so much as a grasp at sanity. He’d been my beacon of light during a dark time. Salvation came in the most unlikely guise.
    But Dante didn’t need to know that.
    “Did you two ever…”
    “No!” I exclaimed before Dante could finish his sentence. “We only went out for a couple weeks.”
    Dante grinned. “That’s my girl—make ’em wait. I almost forgot that you’re a virgin.”
    “I’m not a virgin.”
    “Oh, really,” Dante said, smiling wider.
    “No, now how about that ride to school?”
    Dante patted the cushion beside him. “Or we could play hooky.”
    “Not on my first day.” I frowned.
    Sometimes, I felt like Dante didn’t see me at all—like I was just a concept inside his head. I knew he cared about me, but it would be nice if he took life a little more seriously.
    Fane cared about me, too, and even when he screwed up, I did believe it was for some greater purpose—at least in his mind.
    Why did he have to show up at the doorstep now? Why did he have to show up at all?
    If he’d wanted to try and make amends he should have tried six months ago.
    Oh right, he had… before my mom sent him packing.
    Didn’t matter. I’d gone to boot camp to bury the past and reinvent myself. Life was an open road with only one direction. Forward.
     

    6
Extra Credit
     
     
    Most courses at UAA followed a Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday schedule, which left me with Fridays off and the house all to myself… in theory.
    That first Friday, I didn’t turn up the stereo and dance around the house, nor did I draw myself a nice warm bubble bath in the Jacuzzi, or