Opal

I pushed at Daemon’s chest, and he rolled off. I sat up and twisted around, keeping my head low so my hair could hide my burning cheeks. I caught sight of Dee and even though you’d think she’d caught us buck naked in the act, instead of making out, she was gri

“What do you want, Dee?” Daemon said.

She huffed, pressing her hands on her hips. “Well, I don’t want anything from you . I wanted to talk to Katy.”

My head jerked up, embarrassment be damned. “You do?”

“Ash and I were going to this new little shop in Moorefield Saturday afternoon. They sell vintage dresses. For prom,” she added as I continued to stare at her.

“Prom?” I didn’t get it.

“Yeah, prom’s at the end of the month.” She glanced at her brother, her cheeks turning rosy. “Most of the dresses are going to be gone. And I don’t know if the place has anything, but Ash heard about it and you know how she is with clothes, so she’s in the know. Like, a couple of days ago, she found this really cute cropped sweater that-”

“Dee,” Daemon said, a small grin tugging his lips.

“What? I’m not talking to you.” She faced me, exasperated. “Anyway, would you like to go with us? Or have you already gotten a dress? Because if you have gotten a dress, then I guess the trip is pointless, but you could still-”

“No. I haven’t gotten a dress.” I couldn’t believe she was asking me to do something with her. I was stu

“Good!” She gri

”

I had to be dreaming. She wanted to ask Lesa, too? What did I miss? I glanced at Daemon as his sister chattered on and he gri

“What?” Dee’s mouth dropped open. “It’s senior prom.”

“I know, but with everything going on

I haven’t really thought about it.” A lie, because you couldn’t step anywhere at school and not see flyers and ba

Dee’s incredulous expression grew. “It’s senior prom.”

“But

” I tucked my hair back and glanced at Daemon. “You haven’t even asked me to go.”

He smiled. “I didn’t think I needed to ask. I assumed we would go.”

“Well, you know what they say about people who assume,” Dee said, rocking back on the balls of her feet.

He ignored her, his grin fading. “What, Kitten?”

I blinked. “How can we go to prom with everything going on? We’re so close to having enough tolerance to go back to Mount Weather and-”

“And prom is on a Saturday,” he said, pulling my hand away from my hair. “So let’s say that in two weeks when we’re ready to go, it will be Sunday.”

Dee shot forward, hobbling from one foot to the other like her feet were playing hot potato. “And it’s only a few hours. You guys can halt the self-mutilation for a few hours.”

The problem wasn’t the time or really even the onyx. It didn’t seem right to go to prom after everything, after Carissa

Daemon slipped his arm around me as he leaned, his voice low as he spoke. “It’s not wrong, Kat. You deserve this.”

I closed my eyes. “Why should we get to celebrate when she can’t?”

He rested his cheek against mine. “We’re still here and we deserve to be, to do normal things every once in a while.”

Did we?

“It’s not your fault,” he whispered, and then kissed my temple. He pulled back, eyes searching mine. “Will you go to prom with me, Kat?”

Dee shifted some more. “You should really say yes, so we can go dress shopping and so I don’t have to witness a really awkward moment of you turning down my brother. Even though he deserves to be knocked down a peg or two.”

I laughed, glancing at her. Dee gave me a tentative smile, and that hope was springing back. “Okay.” I took a deep breath. “I’ll go to prom-only because I don’t want this conversation to get awkward.”

Daemon tweaked my nose. “I’ll take what I can get for as long as I can get it.”

A cloud passed over the sun and seemed to halt. The temperature dropped significantly.

My smile started to falter as a chill snaked down my spine. This was a happy momenta good moment. There was hope for Dee’s and my relationship. And prom was a big deal. Daemon in a tux and all would be a pretty awesome sight. We were going to be normal teenagers for the night, but the shadow over us had somehow slipped inside me.

“What is it?” Daemon asked, concerned.

“Nothing,” I said, but it was something. I just didn’t know what.

Armentrout, Je

Opal ( A Lux Novel)

Chapter 30

One of the first things I did the next day was invite Lesa. I was thrilled when she perked up and agreed. It made me feel a lot better about my decision to go. Like Carissa’s best friend approved and that went a long way.

Like me, she was a tad wary of going shopping with Ash, and a glimmer of her old personality shone through when she started making cracks.

“I bet she’ll get something ridiculously tight and short and make the rest of us feel like unattractive Oompa Loompas.” She sighed pitifully. “No. Scratch that. She’ll probably just go to the dress store and parade in front of the mirror naked.”

I laughed. “No doubt, but I’m happy Dee invited us.”

“Me, too,” she said seriously. “I miss her, especially after

Yeah, I just miss her.”

My smile was a bit wobbly. Whenever Carissa came up in conversation, I never knew how to handle it. Luckily, for today, we were interrupted by Daemon, who decided to tug on my ponytail like a six-year-old.

He sat behind me and then poked me in the back with his trusty pen.

I rolled my eyes at Lesa and then turned around. “You and that damn pen.”

“You love it.” He leaned over his desk, tapping it off my chin. “Anyway, I thought I could catch a ride home with you after school. That thing we’ve got to do later was delayed for about an hour. And your mom’s already at Winchester by then, right?”

A low hum of excitement thrummed through my veins. I knew where he was going with this. No Mom. An hour or so of time alone and without interruption-hopefully.

I couldn’t stop my dreamy sigh. “That would be perfect.”

“Thought so.” He took his pen and sat back, eyeing me. “Can’t wait.”

Oxygen fled my brain while blood rushed everywhere. Feeling a bit out of it, I nodded and turned around. The look on Lesa’s face told me she so overheard the conversation.

Her eyebrows waggled suggestively, and I felt my face burn. Oh, dear God

After trig, the rest of the morning crept by in a slow procession. The cosmos were against me. Like they knew I was bouncing with energy and excitement. A little part of me was nervous. Who wouldn’t be? If we actually had time alone and we weren’t interrupted and stuff fell into place

Stuff fell into place?

I smothered a giggle.

Blake looked up from his bio text and frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.” I gri

He arched a brow. “Did Daemon tell you that Matthew has some afterschool meeting with a kid’s parents?”

I giggled again, earning a weird look from him. “Yeah, he did.”

Blake stared at me a second and then placed his pen down. Without any warning, he reached over and picked a piece of lint out of my hair. I jerked back at the same time he pulled his arm away, which put my nose right at the perfect angle to get a sniff of his wrist.

The clean, citrusy scent sparked a muggy, uncomfortable feeling inside me. Like when you’ve done something stupid and you were about to face public humiliation. Pins and needles spread across my flesh.

A memory was wiggling loose. That smell

I’d smelled it before.

“You okay?” he asked.

I tilted my head to the side, like that helped my smelling abilities. Where did I know that scent? Obviously I’d smelled it on Blake before. No doubt it was one of those expensive colognes, but it was more than that.