Fade Out

“All right,” she said. She felt as if pieces of herself were breaking off, and somehow, it was all Kim’s fault. I’m an adult, she told herself. Adults don’t get stressed out about ex-girlfriends or ex-hookups or whatever. Except she wanted to go find Kim and punch her out, which was not good, because she was pretty sure Kim would punch back, and harder. “Sure. It’s all good.”

Shane didn’t believe that for a second, but she saw him decide to fake it. “Right,” he said. “So. Barbecue. You in?”

“I can’t believe you eat barbecue after you serve it all day long. Doesn’t that get old?”

“It’s barbecue,” he said. “What’s your point? Come on, mopey. Come eat.”

He half dragged her off the couch, tickled her into giggles, and chased her into the kitchen.

He was right. Barbecue really was kind of a magic cure for the mopeys.

Claire dressed up for Michael’s show at TPU, but given the state of her sunburn, she wasn’t sure it was worth the effort—at least, until she got downstairs. Shane and Michael were standing together, talking, and wow. Claire lingered on the stairs, admiring.

“What?” Shane asked, catching her.

“Nothing. You guys look great.”

Michael shrugged, as if it were no big thing. So did Shane, even though he’d taken the time to put on his good black shirt and black leather jacket, and even sort of comb his hair.

Michael, though—rock star. Not in the glam hair-band sense, no, but he just looked . . . important. Claire wondered if Eve had picked his clothes for him; if she had, she really loved him, because they were completely perfect. Speaking of which—“Where’s Eve?”

“Ru

Eve passed up barbecue? That was odd. Claire came down the rest of the steps and did a little inspection twirl for Shane. “Okay?”

“Spectacular,” he said, and kissed her—carefully, because of the sunburn. “You know I love that skirt.”

She blushed under the burn. “Yes. I know.” It was a short, pleated skirt. Plaid. The shoes she had on with it were the ones that Eve had bought for her last Halloween—funky, but cool and kind of sexy. Claire still felt a little uncomfortable with her body in general, but there was something about the signals Shane was giving her that made her feel less awkward. More—confident.

“You guys going with me?” Michael asked, juggling his car keys. “If so, the bus is leaving.”

They were, of course; with Eve MIA, they had no other car, and walking in the dark was still not the best idea in the world, even in the new, calmer Morganville. It wasn’t a long trip, and Michael drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as if he were practicing fingerings for his guitar; nobody said much. Claire leaned against Shane in the back, her head on his shoulder, and his presence went a long way toward making her forget about how bad her day had been.

At least, until she remembered that he’d once sat like this with Kim, back in undefined olden times. “Hey,” she said. “About Kim—”

“Oh man, I knew it. You’re not letting it go, are you?”

“I just want to know—did you guys date, or—”

“No,” Shane said, and looked away. He’d have been staring out the window, except that the dark tinting prevented him from actually seeing anything out there. “Okay, I took her bowling once. She was pretty good at it. Does that count as a date?”

“It does if you hooked up after.”

He hesitated, and finally sighed. “Yes,” he said. “Guilty. Dated. Hooked up. She moved on to the next guy. Anything else?”

Claire was totally unprepared for how awful that made her feel. “Did you—did you really like her?”

“Do we need to have this talk now, with witnesses?” Michael held up his hand. “I want it on the record that I’m not paying attention.”

“And . . . yet.”

“Dude, you got yourself into this; don’t blame me.” Michael sounded definitely amused, which didn’t make Claire feel any better.

“I’m sorry,” Claire said miserably. “I guess—we can talk about it later. It doesn’t matter, anyway.” Except it did. A lot.

Shane turned back to look into her eyes. His pupils were huge in the faint glow of the dashboard. “I was looking for a girl,” he said. “Kim wasn’t it. You are, so stop worrying about that. But to answer the question, yeah, I liked her. Really liked her? Probably not. I wasn’t exactly brokenhearted when she moved on. More like relieved.”

Claire blinked. “Oh.” She didn’t know what to do with that. It made her feel better, and also, a little confused and childish and ashamed. Being jealous of a girl he’d been happy to let go? It seemed wrong, somehow.

“Hey,” he said, and carefully traced the line of her cheek, avoiding the burned spots. “I like that you care. I do.”

She pulled in a deep breath. “I just don’t want to share you,” she said. “Not ever. Even before I met you. I know that doesn’t make sense, but—”

“It does,” he said, and kissed her. “It really does.” Michael was smiling, she could see it in the rearview mirror. He caught her watching him, and shook his head.

“What?” she challenged.

“It’s a good thing I’ve got to live with the two of you,” he said, “or I’d be putting this on YouTube later. And mocking you.”

“Ass.”

“Don’t forget bloodsucking ass.”

“Also, undead bloodsucking ass,” Shane said. “That’s kind of critical, too.”

Michael stopped the car. “We’re here.” He grabbed his guitar case and got out, looked in on them, and flashed them a knowing grin. “Lock it when you leave. Oh, and remember—vampires can see through the tinting. I’m just saying.”

“Ugh,” Claire sighed. “And there goes the mood.”

Michael disappeared into the artists’ entrance, walking as if he owned the stage already; Claire and Shane walked, hand in hand, through the parking garage toward the front. There were a lot of other people parking, talking, walking in groups toward the entrance to the theater. Like most of TPU’s buildings, it wasn’t exactly pretty—a product of the blocky 1970s, glass and concrete, solid and plain and functional, at least on the outside.

The lobby was warmer, with dark red carpet and side drapes that looked only about ten years out of fashion. Claire saw people staring at her and wished she’d worn her cap, but since she hadn’t, she held her chin up and clasped Shane’s hand more tightly as he checked their tickets and led her up to the balcony. On the way, Claire spotted a lot of familiar faces—Father Joe, from the church, standing out in his black shirt, white collar, and red hair. People she recognized from classes, who probably had no idea they were coming to hear a vampire play guitar. Oh, and a ton of vamps, blending in except for the glitter in their eyes and the slightly hungry way they sca

She didn’t see Amelie anywhere, or Myrnin, or Oliver, and they were all pretty notable by their absence. She did see the unpleasant Mr. Pe

Ugh.

“Everything okay?” Shane asked her, and she realized that he wasn’t talking about the vampires or anything else like that. He quickly amended, “You know, between us?”

“Oh. Uh—yeah. I guess so.” She must not have seemed too confident, because he stopped climbing the stairs, looked around, and headed her toward a small group of chairs off to the side at the landing. Nobody near them. It was a darker corner, kind of intimate in the glow of the light on the wall. People moved past in a stream, but nobody seemed to look.