“He said he couldn’t offer me eternity,” I murmured, “but he could offer me the here and now.”

“Right!” Jen gestured with her shot glass, tequila slopping over the sides. “He’s not gonna sneak around on the down-low like Cody. He’s owning it.”

“He’s sexy and he knows it,” I said, paraphrasing the not exactly immortal lyrics of LMFAO.

For some reason—well, the obvious reason—this struck us both as hysterically funny, and we spent a solid minute laughing our fucking asses off. Which, under the circumstances, was appropriate.

“Oh, my God.” Jen wiped away tears of laughter. “You know what, though? He really is.”

“Mm-hmm.” That was undeniable.

“You know what else?” She fumbled for the saltshaker. “I think Stefan actually respects you, Daise. Unlike some werewolves.”

“Cody respects me!” I protested.

“Oh, fuck Cody!” Jen waved the saltshaker. “Because Cody . . . Cody . . . Look, it’s not like plenty of couples don’t struggle with fertility issues. He’s willing to write you off just because you can’t have his were-puppies. Who does that?”

“Members of a dwindling species fighting for their survival,” I said. “Plus, there’s that whole hunting-beneath-the-full-moon thing I could never share with him.”

Jen made a dismissive sound. “Yeah, and if I was dating a guy who ran marathons, that’s not something we’d ever share, no matter how much he went on about the endorphin high.”

Again, she had a point. I’d never thought about it that way.

“So call Stefan.” Seeing me weaken, Jen put down the saltshaker and looked around for my phone. “Here. Call him.”

“No.” I folded my arms. “I am not drunk-dialing a six-hundred-year-old immortal Bohemian knight.”

“Text him?”

I hesitated. “No.”

“You want to,” Jen said. “You so want to. Fine. I’ll do it for you.”

“Don’t you dare!”

Her thumbs danced over my phone’s screen. “Too late.”

“Jen!” I pleaded.

She put the phone out of my reach. “You’ll thank me in the morning, Daisy. Trust me on this one.”

After that, it gets a little blurry.

I’m pretty sure that Jen and I reached the maudlin stage of drunk, bawling along to a Kelly Clarkson song on our old playlist and declaring our undying friendship for the umpteenth time. I have a vague memory of the two of us digging into a carton of Breyers cookies and cream with a pair of spoons, talking about whether or not Lee Hastings would ever summon the courage to ask Jen out, and an even vaguer memory of ransacking the linen closet and dumping an armful of clean sheets and a blanket onto the futon for Jen before staggering to my own bed, where I collapsed in an unconscious heap.

All in all, a successful night.

      Three

I awoke with a hangover.

Not just any hangover, but an epic hangover—the kind of hangover they make movies about.

Unfortunately, I did remember the thing I’d rather have forgotten about last night, and it jolted me out of bed and in search of my phone. And when I found it, it was even worse than I’d feared.

“Jennifer Mary Cassopolis, what the fuck were you thinking?” I shouted at the figure buried beneath a pile of linens on my futon.

“Huh?” The pile stirred.

“The text,” I said grimly. “The text you sent Stefan!”

“What?” Jen’s head poked out of the covers. Her eyes were bleary and she looked as hungover as I felt. “Why?”

I showed her the message she’d sent on my phone’s screen. UR HAWTT!! LETS DO THIS!!!

“Oh, shit!” Jen made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a laugh. “Daise, I’m sorry. Is there any coffee?”

I glared at her. “Seriously?”

She sat upright, pushing the hair out of her face. “I’m sorry! It seemed funny at the time.”

“He’s a six-hundred-year-old immortal!” I said. “You sent him a text from my phone that sounded like it came from a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl!”

“Look, just explain it to him. If he’s got a sense of humor, he’ll understand,” Jen said. “And if he doesn’t, you might as well find out now and avoid wasting your time . . . Daisy, what are you doing?”

I’d disconnected her phone from my stereo and was composing a message on it. “I’m returning the favor.” Jen made a futile, blanket-encumbered lunge in my direction, which I dodged handily. “There.” I finished and handed her the phone.

“Want to get a cup of coffee sometime this week?” she read aloud, then made a face. “You sent that to Lee? I just texted Skeletor for a date?”

Back in the day, I would have been surprised to find myself considering Lee a friend. He’d been a tall, painfully thin—hence the nickname—geeky kid who’d spent all his time hanging with a couple of other geeky kids, playing World of Warcraft. But things change. Oh, Lee was still tall and too thin, but he’d parlayed his love of video games and genius with computers into a successful career out in Seattle. Now he was back in Pemkowet, doing consulting work and caring for his ailing mother. And since Jen had given him a makeover last month, he was actually looking halfway decent.

Plus, he’d developed an awesome database that would let me keep track of the eldritch population in town, and he was doing some research on the side into a matter that Hel had asked me to look into.