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“Actually, I will be soon. I’ve skipped tons of classes since, well, since I met you guys. Mindy is even harassing me about ditching so much class, and she’s not exactly the studious type.”
Kat smiled. “I wouldn’t worry about that. Take a little more time off. You deserve it.”
“Are you kidding?” I asked a bit sarcastically. “Go home and lie in bed where I can be alone with my thoughts all day? I don’t think so.”
She nodded. “Touché, my friend. Well, you can’t go without a bodyguard.”
“Yeah, I know but—”
“Jude!” she yelled up toward the house.
The man being summoned popped into existence before us, sifting in a snap. Ripped jeans, stained T-shirt, flexed arms, and hammer in hand, he looked like a walking advertisement for Studs-R-Us.
“Down, boy,” protested Kat with her hands up. “I didn’t do it, whatever it is.”
The corner of one side of his mouth twitched. His eyes fell on me, totally unreadable. He seemed to be having difficulty dragging his gaze from me as Kat informed him she was taking me to class.
“I can take her,” he said, dark eyes still fixed.
“I’d rather Kat took me,” I said, adding quickly, “I need to go by the dojo after class, and it’ll be easier to introduce Kat to my dad rather than have to explain, well, you.”
I gestured my hand up and down the length of him. Again, his lips almost pulled into a smile but didn’t quite make it.
“Why would I be difficult to explain?”
“Well, I don’t bring boys, I mean, men, home or to work, and Dad’s really protective, so it would just be easier to bring my new friend Kat along so I won’t get the third degree.”
Kat looped her arm through mine, giving me a cheesy grin with her new title as friend. I wondered if she had many, or any, for that matter. Then I realized that she probably didn’t, besides other demon hunters, who were most probably all men. Men like this stubborn slab of steel in front of me. But Jude nodded, finally agreeing, proving me wrong for once.
“Your father has some sense. I like him,” he grumbled. I rolled my eyes. “But, Kat, I want check-ins every hour on the hour. And if you so much as think there is company in the vicinity—”
“I know, I know. Sift out ASAP. No problem. I got this.”
He gave a tight nod, moving forward as if to embrace me, then seemed to change his mind. He touched my cheek lightly with the back of his knuckles and withdrew.
“I’ll see you this afternoon,” he said, then sifted back upstairs.
After drivingto my apartment where Mindy was still passed out from the night before, I took a quick shower and changed into jeans and my Witcher sweatshirt. Glancing down at Geralt of Rivia looking badass as ever, it hit me that he bore a strong resemblance to Jude, if he had black hair instead of blond.
I took my time getting dressed, meandering around, fetching more Advil for Mindy and putting it by her bedside. Procrastinating.
“So,” Kat said as we backed out of the drive in her car, “why don’t you want to go to your Lit class again? I thought you were all into that ancient literature and stuff.”
I watched the joggers doing laps through City Park as we drove by.
“I’m not ready to deal with Malcolm.”
“Malcolm? Was that the guy with you on the Riverfront that night?”
“Yeah. He’s a friend. Well, he was. I don’t know. We were friends, then I went on a date with him, and now I’ve changed my mind. Ugh. Just so awkward.”
Kat laughed.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing. I’d forgotten about this kind of stuff, not that I ever actually dated in my youth. We more or less did the London Season, went to balls, and if you danced too many times with one gentleman, then I suppose that was construed as leading him on as you’ve done to poor Malcolm.”
“Thanks. That makes me feel so much better.”
