“No. Just don’t elaborate on your parental role.” She gave me a light kiss, but I craftily pulled her closer and made it a much, much longer one. When we finally broke away, we were both breathless.

“Good night, Adrian,” she said pointedly.

I took the hint, and the dream faded around us.

Back at my apartment, I indulged in my one daily drink, hoping it would send me to a quick slumber. No such luck. In the old days, it usually took at least three before I’d pass out in drunken oblivion. Now, my fingers lingered on the vodka bottle as I teetered on the edge of getting a refill. I missed it. Badly. Aside from the bliss of the buzz, alcohol could numb out spirit for a little while, and although the magic was a pleasant addiction, a reprieve from it was nice. Self‑medicating had fended off a lot of spirit’s negative effects for years, but this new deal was letting it start to gain ground.

A few more moments passed, and I pulled my hand back, clenching it into a fist. I retired to my bed, throwing myself onto it and burying my face in the pillow. It smelled faintly of jasmine and carnation from a perfume oil I’d recently gotten Sydney. She wasn’t a perfume fan in general, claiming the chemicals and alcohol weren’t healthy. But she couldn’t argue against the pure, all‑natural blend I’d found, especially when she’d heard the price. She was too pragmatic to let something like that go to waste.

I closed my eyes and wished she was with me–not even for sex, but just for the comfort of her presence. Considering the danger in our brief afternoons, a night together probably wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, which was a damned shame. Surely I’d sleep better if I had her with me. It was frustrating because I really was exhausted in body, but my spinning mind refused to settle down.

I finally fell asleep an hour and a half later, only to be awakened by my alarm four hours after that. I stayed in bed, staring bleary‑eyed at the ceiling, wondering if I could possibly cancel the meeting I’d set up with a classmate to work on a project. Seriously, what had I been thinking? Eight on a Saturday? Maybe I was closer to madness than I feared.

At least we were meeting in a coffee shop. Unlike my lovely soul mate, I had no restrictions on caffeine and ordered the biggest cup of drip they could manage. The barista assured me there was more where that came from. Across the room, my partner watched with amusement as I approached her table.

“Well, hey there, sunshine. Nice to see you all bright eyed and ready to start the day.”

I held up a warning hand as I sat down. “Stop right there. It’s going to take at least another cup of this before you become charming and witty.”

She grinned. “Nah, I always am, day or night.”

Rowena Clark and I had met on the first day of our mixed media class. I’d sat down at her table and said, “Mind if I join you? Figure the best way to learn about art is to sit with a masterpiece.” Maybe I was in love, but I was still Adrian Ivashkov.

Rowena had fixed me with a flat look. “Let’s get one thing straight. I can see through bullshit a mile away, and I like girls, not guys, so if you can’t handle me telling you what’s what, then you’d better take your one‑liners and hair gel somewhere else. I don’t go to this school to put up with pretty boys like you. I’m here to face dubious employment options with a painting degree and then go get a Guinness after class.”

I’d scooted my chair closer to the table. “You and I are going to get along just fine.”

And we had, enough so that we’d partnered up for a project on outdoor sculpture. We’d have to head over to campus to work on it soon but first needed to finalize the sketch we’d started in a pub after class earlier this week. I’d given up my bedtime drink to have a beer with her, and while it hadn’t had much effect on me, Rowena had proven to be a total lightweight. Our sketch hadn’t gotten very far.

“Up late partying?” she asked me now.

I took a long drink of the coffee, feeling only slightly guilty that Sydney would be salivating if she could see me. “Just up late.” I yawned. “Where are we at?”

She pulled out our sketch, which was on a bar napkin and read, Insert sketch here.

“Hmm,” I said. “Promising start.”

After an hour of hashing out ideas, we decided to do a model of the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey  and then cover it with advertising slogans and internet lingo. I’d actually gotten bored during that movie, but Rowena was going off about how it was a symbol of advanced evolution and how our designs would be an ironic statement of where our society had ended up. Mostly I was on board because I thought it wouldn’t involve too much effort. I was serious about my painting, but this was just a general required class.

A good chunk of our day was spent just getting the supplies. Rowena had borrowed a friend’s pickup truck, and we went to a building‑supply store in hopes of finding a large concrete rectangle for our monolith. We lucked out and even found some smaller blocks to put at the base of it.

“We can make a ring,” Rowena explained. She’d recently dyed her hair lavender and absentmindedly tucked wayward locks behind her ears as she spoke. “And then paint the various stages of evolution. Monkey, caveman, all the way up to some hipster texting on his cell phone.”

“We didn’t evolve from monkeys,” I told her as we wrestled the rectangle onto a pallet. “The earliest human ancestor is called Australopithecus.” I wasn’t entirely sure where vampire evolution fit in, but I certainly wasn’t bringing that up.

Rowena released the block and stared in amazement. “How the hell do you know that?”

“Because I mentioned the monkey thing the other day, and my girlfriend had a, uh, few things to say about that.” A “few” things had actually turned into a one‑hour lesson on anthropology.

Rowena laughed and lifted one of the smaller blocks. They were still pretty heavy but didn’t require both of us. “I’d really like to meet this mythical girlfriend of yours, if only to see who in the world could put up with you. I could get Cassie, and we could all go out for a drink together.”

“She doesn’t drink,” I said quickly. “And she’s eighteen anyway. Well, almost nineteen.” With a start, I realized Sydney’s birthday was fast approaching at the beginning of next month, February, and I didn’t have anything for her. In fact, after my investment in vinyl, I didn’t have much money at all until my dad’s next deposit came in mid‑month.

Rowena smirked. “Younger woman, huh?”

“Hey, it’s legal.”

“I don’t want to know about your sordid sex life.” She hoisted another block. “We’ll go to Denny’s or something. If you don’t bring her around soon, I’ll think you made her up.”

“I couldn’t make her up if I tried,” I declared grandly. But inside, I couldn’t help but feel a little wistful. I would’ve loved to go out on a double date with Rowena and her girlfriend. I was pretty sure Sydney would hit it off with her, if only to gang up and tease me mercilessly. But public appearances weren’t an option, not unless we went for a night on the town with the Keepers.

We took our concrete haul back to Carlton College’s campus and began the arduous task of transporting the blocks to a large quadrangle that our class had gotten permission to use. A few of our classmates were working as well, and they helped us carry the centerpiece, which made things a lot easier. Even if it wasn’t up to scale with the movie’s monolith, it was still a bitch to lift. That left us to bring in the small blocks, and our conversation quieted as we worked. We were both tired and glad to be nearly done for the afternoon. The actual painting would happen tomorrow. It was Rowena’s specialty too, and we wanted to be ready and fresh to make the most of our strengths in this project. It was cool out, but the sky was clear, leaving nothing between the sun and me. That was why I’d consented to the early time, sparing me from the worst of the light. I’d be able to rescue Hopper from that witch soon and then go home in the hopes that Sydney could get away.