Oblivion

She brushed past me, quiet as we walked outside, and then, because she couldn’t let me down, she jumped in the puddle again.

I jumped to the side, but it was too late. From my knee down, my left leg was soaked. “Jesus.”

She gri

Then again, practically everything she did was a turn-on.

I groaned under my breath as she returned to situating the boxes like they held breakable family heirlooms. Closing my eyes briefly, I bit down on my lip when the image of Kat formed. She was on her couch, under me, wearing those damn elf pajama bottoms. Nothing else. My stomach shifted. I was hungry for food and for her.

“I need pancakes,” I a

Kat shut the door and faced me. “Are you staring at my butt?”

My lips curved into a smirk as I slowly dragged my gaze up to hers, letting my stare linger in certain areas. That blush was back, spreading down her throat, under the light blue sweater she wore, and her gray eyes had deepened.

There it was. What I felt was in her eyes. There was no hiding that.

“I would never do such a thing,” I said.

She snorted.

“Pancakes,” I said again.

“What is with you and pancakes? Why do you keep saying it?”

“Do you have pancake mix at home?” I asked, ignoring her question.

Kat frowned in confusion. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good.” I gri

She gaped at me. “I am not making you pancakes. There’s a Waffle House somewhere. You’re welcome to go get yourself some pancakes—”

I moved forward so quickly that she couldn’t track it. I was right in front of her, our bodies nearly touching, and I could see the moment her pupils expanded slightly. “I know there’s a Waffle House nearby, Kitten. But that’s not what I want.” Raising my hand, I tapped the tip of her nose with my finger. “I want you to make me pancakes.”

She jerked back, scowling at me. “I’m not making you pancakes.”

“You are.” I pivoted around and headed for my car. Once inside, I gri

Kat sat across from me, her lips pressed together as she watched me lift the fork to my mouth. My stomach rebelled at what I was doing. Something about these pancakes didn’t look right. First off, they were the size of a small moon. Secondly, when I cut into the lopsided stack, the middle was ru

Maybe demanding that Kat make pancakes was a bad idea.

I glanced over at the messy counter. The griddle was covered with batter, as was most of the counter and the front of Kat’s sweater. My gaze fell back to the pancakes. If I were human, I’d be afraid of doing what I was about to do.

I shoved the piece in my mouth and almost spit it right back up. My throat closed off as I forced myself to chew. The maple syrup didn’t even cover up the dry yet wet, tasteless chunk of flour. I willed the mess to go down my throat and stay there as I smiled tightly at Kat. A moment passed.

A peal of giggles erupted from her. “I can’t believe you actually ate a piece.”

My mouth felt coated. I’d never get the taste out. “Why?”

“I’m pretty sure they don’t taste good.” She sat back in her chair, letting her hands fall to her lap. “They don’t look like the pancakes my mom makes.”

Nope.

These pancakes were a strange whitish yellow that was somehow nowhere near the color of normal pancakes. I willed my glass of milk closer and then picked it up, downing nearly half the tall glass.

Kat giggled again.

“Okay. These are terrible,” I admitted, placing the cup on the table. “How can you mess up pancakes?”

“I don’t know. I never made them.” She raised a shoulder. “I kind of eyeballed the whole ‘add water’ part.”

I stared at her, sort of dumbfounded. “All you have to do is add water. It’s not that hard.”

Her lips twitched as she ducked her chin. “Guess you should’ve gone with Waffle House then.”

My eyes narrowed as I pushed my plate back. “There’s a huge part of me that hopes you messed them up on purpose.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because if you can’t make pancakes then I’m not sure we can be friends.”

“Oh.” She placed her hand to her chest. “I’m so heartbroken.”

“You should be,” I told her, lowering my lashes. “I’m a good friend.”

Kat snorted, but what she didn’t say hung in the air between us. Kat and I had not gotten off on the right foot and spent the whole summer and most of autumn at war, mainly because of me. I fully admitted that, and if I could go back and change the way I treated her, I would. I’d realized that when I was fighting Baruck and had come close to losing not only my life, but also my sister’s and hers. The thing was, even I couldn’t go back in time. I could only move forward.

It was time to change the subject. “Has anyone said anything to you about the trace—Dee or Matthew?” I asked, knowing the Thompsons wouldn’t talk to her. Well, Adam would talk to her, but he wasn’t a problem.

“Dee said something in the begi

“Good,” I murmured.

She yawned loudly as she stood and picked up our plates. Her steps were slow as she walked the plates over to the trash. I glanced at the wall clock. It wasn’t even six in the evening. “Is your mom working tonight?”

“Of course,” she replied, dumping the pancakes into the trash. The line of her spine stiffened as she walked over to the dishwasher. “She’s always working.”

My head cocked to the side, and a moment passed. “You don’t like that, do you?”

She glanced over her shoulder at me as she opened the dishwasher’s door. “Mom has to work a lot.” She shoved the plates in and then went for the bowl, placing it in the sink. “The bills don’t pay themselves.”

“I get that.”

She looked away from me as she fiddled with the faucets. “Not all of us have the government dumping money on us because we’re aliens.”

I raised a brow at that.

Kat yawned again. “It does get kind of…lonely here.”

“I can imagine,” I murmured, not liking the idea of her being alone whenever she was home and she wasn’t with one of her friends or me.

She didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I get you feel like you have to do the babysitting thing, but I’m not going anywhere. I have a test to study for and biology homework. You don’t have to stay here.”

Pushing to my feet, I made my way to where she was standing. “You can—”

Kat gasped as she spun around. “God, Daemon! Do you constantly have to do that? Geez,” she said, leaning back against the counter. “You’re like a ninja stealth alien.”

One side of my lips tipped up. “I wasn’t even that quiet.”

“Yeah, you were. Like a ghost,” she said, lifting her chin so our eyes met. “A creepy ghost.”

I chuckled. “Why am I a creepy ghost?”

“I don’t know,” she murmured, her gaze dropping to my mouth and then lower, to my chest. “You’re all up in my personal space.”

I was totally up in her personal space. There wasn’t more than an inch or two between our bodies. When I forced my lungs to inhale, I caught the peachy scent that was all hers. “Sorry.”

“You’re not sorry at all.”

“True.” I tilted my head to the side and saw a tiny speck of pancake batter next to her ear. How in the world did she get it there? Reaching out, I pressed my thumb against her cheek. Her chest rose on a sharp inhale, causing my gaze to flicker back to hers. “You have pancake batter there.”