The whole time I’m talking, Shepard looks like he’s getting ready to tell me no. And then he does. “I can’t stay,” he says, his forehead all wrinkled and his eyebrows pulled up in the middle. “I didn’t bring any money. I only have two pairs of pants.”
“So you could get a job,” I say.
“Not legally.”
“Or you could go to uni.”
“How would that work?”
“You’re getting hung up on technicalities, Shepard. If you don’t want to stay, just say so!”
He frowns. He’s holding on to the pole with both hands, too. He slides one hand down, and catches my thumb with his pinkie. “I do want to stay.”
I hook my thumb around his finger. “I like you so much,” I say. It comes out resentful.
Shepard smiles. But his brow is still furrowed. “I like you, too, Penelope.”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
He bends closer. “Come back with me.”
“What?”
“Come back to Omaha with me. I’ll get a passport, a real one—it only takes a few weeks. You can meet my mom, I can get my truck back…”
“Maybe you shouldn’t try to get your truck back.”
“Come home with me. Or just wait for me. Let me come back to you on my own two feet.”
“Shepard, the last time I was in America, things didn’t go so well.”
“Are you kidding me? The last time you were in America, you kicked ass.”
Could I do that? Go back to Nebraska with Shepard? As what, his girlfriend? His dread companion? “I suppose you could introduce me to Ken…”
Shepard is smiling at me.
“Come,” he says.
“Are you going to tell me that Nebraska is beautiful in June?”
“Nebraska is miserable in June; you’ve already been there. But it is tornado season…”
91
BAZ
Simon has finally found someone to talk to about sandwiches.
“It’s like your apartment is a Pret a Manger,” Shepard marvels.
Lady Salisbury sent us home with all the leftovers from lunch. It took two giant hampers. （The woman has top-level picnicking gear.） And now Snow has everything spread out all over the kitchen and living room. “It’s way better than that,” Simon says. “Have you tried the cake?”
“Not yet.”
“You have to try the cake—all of it.”
“What about you?” Bunce says. She’s sitting next to me on the sofa.
“Me?” I say. “I’ve tried the cake. I’ve eaten more cake than Mary Berry today.”
She laughs. Bunce is in an uncharacteristically laid-back mood. I suppose she’s had a pretty successful week: She bested a demon, won the heart of a handsome Normal, and helped keep Simon Snow alive and kicking through another harrowing adventure.
She doesn’t know his latest news. He asked me not to tell her.
“I thought you and Bunce didn’t keep secrets,” I said.
“This isn’t a secret,” Snow said. “I just need to sit with it for a while.”
Penelope cast a spell on him the minute she walked in the door. “A horse
of a different colour!”
“Still nothing,” Simon said.
“We’ll keep trying,” she replied.
“I’d rather we didn’t.”
Penny scoots closer to me now to make room for Shepard. It’s a three-person sofa. Snow plops down at my feet. “I got enough to share,” he says, holding up his plate.
I groan. “I’m still so full … I’m too full to hunt.”
“That’s how you’re going to kill your vampire boyfriend, Simon,”
Penelope says. “Sandwiches.”
Snow barks a laugh. “He’ll be fine. He’s always got room for four to six rats.”
She pushes his knee with her socked foot. “How’d Baz spell that shirt around your wings, if you’re immune to magic?”
I cock an eyebrow at her. “The spell is on the shirt, Bunce.”
“Oh,” Penny says. She really is in a mood. “Well, it looks nice.”
“Until I have to tear it off,” Snow says.
“Just let Baz reverse the spell.”
“I don’t like being dependent on him.”
I kick him. “Magic forbid you rely on me.”
“That’s not what I meant—and everyone needs to stop kicking me. I’m injured.”
“You could have some shirts made,” Shepard offers.