Brayden was too focused on the play to notice. "Ooh," he whispered to me. "This is a good part - where her handmaidens kill themselves."

The two of us had plenty to debate and analyze on the way back to Amberwood. I was almost disappointed when his car pulled up to my dorm. As we sat there, I realized we'd come to another critical dating milestone. What was the correct procedure here? Was he supposed to kiss me? Was I supposed to let him? Had that been the real price of my salad?

Brayden seemed nervous too, and I braced myself for the worst. When I looked down at my hands in my lap, I noticed they were shaking. You can do this, I told myself. It's a rite of passage. I started to close my eyes, but when Brayden spoke, I opened them quickly.

As it turned out, Brayden's buildup of courage wasn't for a kiss, so much as a question.

"Would you... would you like to go out again?" he asked, giving me a shy smile.

I was surprised at the mix of emotions this triggered. Relief was foremost, of course. I'd now have time to research books on kissing too. At the same time, I was kind of disappointed that the swagger and confidence he'd shown in dramatic analysis didn't carry through here.

Some part of me thought his line should've been more like, "Well, after that night of perfection, I guess we have no choice but to go out again." Immediately, I felt stupid for such a sentiment.

I had no business expecting him to be more at ease with this when I was sitting there with my hands shaking.

"Sure," I blurted out.

He breathed a sigh of relief. "Cool," he said. "I'll e-mail you."

"That'd be great." I smiled. More awkward silence fell, and suddenly, I wondered if the kiss might be coming after all.

"Do you... do you want me to walk you to the door?" he asked.

"What? Oh, no. Thank you. It's right there. I'll be fine. Thank you." I realized I was on the verge of sounding like Jill.

"Well, then," said Brayden. "I had a really nice night. Looking forward to next time."

"Me too."

He held out his hand. I shook it. Then I left the car and went inside.

I shook his hand? I replayed the moment in my head, feeling dumber and dumber. What is wrong with me?

As I walked through the lobby, kind of dazed, I took out my cell phone to see if I had any messages. I'd turned it off tonight, figuring if ever there was a time I'd earned peace, this was it. To my astonishment, no one had needed anything in my absence, though there was one text message from Jill, sent about fifteen minutes ago: How was your date with Brandon?

What's he like?

I unlocked my dorm door and stepped inside. His name is Brayden, I texted back. I pondered the rest of her question and took a long time in trying to decide how to respond.

He's just like me.

Chapter 6

"YOU SHOOK HIS HAND?" Adrian asked incredulously.

I shot an accusing look at Eddie and Angeline. "Is nothing private around here?"

"No," said Angeline, as bluntly honest as ever. Eddie actually chuckled. It was a rare moment of camaraderie between them.

"Was it supposed to be a secret?" he asked. We were over at Clarence Donahue's house for Jill and Adrian's biweekly blood feedings. Jill was off right now with Clarence's human housekeeper, Dorothy, who doubled as his feeder. I could take a lot of Moroi things in stride now, but drinking blood - human blood - made me shudder every time. My best coping mechanism was trying to forget why we were here.

"No," I admitted. Julia and Kristin had grilled me for date details a couple of days ago, so I'd given them some. I supposed I had to accept that once I told them anything, it would inevitably get back to everyone in the world. No doubt my Amberwood family had then passed it on to Adrian.

"Really?" Adrian was still hung up on the end of my date. "His hand?" I sighed and sank back into a sleek leather sofa. Clarence's house always reminded me of some stereotypical haunted manor from the outside - but inside it was modern and well furnished.

"Look, it just happened - okay, you know what? Never mind. This is none of your business. Just let it go." But something in Adrian's expression told me he would not, in fact, be letting it go anytime soon.

"With all that red-hot passion, it's a wonder you guys can stay away from each other," said Adrian, deadpan. "Is there going to be a second date?" Eddie and Angeline looked at me expectantly. I hesitated. This was information I hadn't given up to Julia and Kristin, largely because it had only just been arranged. "Yes," I said at last. "We're going on a, um, windmill tour later this week." If I'd wanted to shut them all up, I'd definitely succeeded. They all looked stunned.

Adrian spoke first. "I'm going to assume that means he's flying you to Amsterdam on his private jet. If so, I'd like to come along. But not for the windmills."

"There's a huge windmill farm north of Palm Springs," I explained. "It's one of the only ones in the world that does public tours."

More blank looks.

"Wind energy is a powerful renewable resource that could have a huge impact on our country's future!" I said in exasperation. "This is a cool thing."

"'Cool,'" said Adrian. "'Wind.' I see what you did there, Sage. Pretty clever."

"It wasn't meant to be a - "

The sitting room's stained glass French doors opened, and Dimitri and Sonya entered with our host Clarence in tow. I hadn't seen him since I arrived and gave him a polite smile, glad for the distraction from my so-called love life.

"Hello, Mr. Donahue," I said. "It's nice to see you again."

"Eh?" The elderly Moroi man squinted in my direction, and after a few moments, recognition lit his features. He had white hair and always dressed as though he were at a formal dinner party from about fifty years ago. "There you are. Glad you could stop by, my dear. What brings you over?"

"Jill's feeding, sir." We did this two times every week, but Clarence's mind wasn't quite what it used to be. He'd been pretty scattered since we first met, but the death of his son, Lee, had seemed to push the old man even farther over the edge - particularly since he didn't seem to believe it. We'd told him gently - a number of times - that Lee had died, leaving out the Strigoi part. Each time we did, Clarence insisted Lee was just "away right now" and would be back. Scattered or not, Clarence was always kind and relatively harmless - for a vampire, of course.

"Ah, yes, naturally." He settled into his massive armchair and then glanced back toward Dimitri and Sonya. "So you'll be able to fix the window locks?" There had apparently been some other discussion going on before they joined us.