I mashed my lips together.
Connor stopped at the stairs and motioned for me to go up first. “So, you’ll be taking it in to work?”
“Yeah.” I started up the stairs, initially going fast like I did for exercising until I remembered I was with someone and slowed my pace. “I’ll just have to make sure I leave it where no one recognizes me,” I said.
“Are your cooking skills so poor that you’re infamous not only in your own apartment complex, but in the Cloisters—an immense building that has hundreds of visitors every day?” Connor asked.
“Uhhh,” I tensed up. “Maybe?”
Really, I was just pretty sure that no one would want anything I’d cooked. I could agree with Sunshine that my coworkers had a weird kind of respect for me and that made things occasionally awkward… like bringing in food and then seeing no one eat it. （The vampires I could understand given what I was. But Brody wasn’t that picky, and he’d refused to eat the cookies I’d bought from a store and brought in for my birthday a couple of months ago.）
I couldn’t tell Connor that, so instead I jumped for a new topic of discussion. “Why didn’t you laugh when Mrs. Weston suggested we were dating?”
“Why would I laugh?” Connor asked as we passed an apartment floor and kept heading up.
“Because you laughed so hard you nearly cracked a rib in September when Ms. Booker made the same assumption.”
“Oh. You are correct,” Connor said. He sounded genuinely surprised, so I peered back at him over my shoulder. He had a hand carelessly resting on the banister as we climbed, and his forehead was wrinkled in thought. When he noticed my attention he gave me a roguish grin. “You never know, Hors d’ oeuvre. Maybe I’ve fallen for you.”
“Never gonna happen,” I said with absolute conviction.
Connor took two steps at a time, so he was shoulder to shoulder with me instead of behind. “You said that so fast, like you didn’t even have to think about it.”
“Because I didn’t.”
“And you spoke with such certainty.”
“Because I am certain,” I said.
Connor wrapped an arm around my shoulder. My protective instincts stayed dormant—it was Connor after all—but I knew better than to take his touchy-feely-ness seriously. “Please. You cannot know my heart—I am the mysterious night!” Connor declared. “What if I’ve fallen madly in love with you for your cute quirks like…your bad cooking skills and odd obsession of running with a weighted backpack?”
“I know you haven’t because you hold back.” I shrugged. “I mean, I do to a certain extent too.”
Connor let his arm slide off my shoulders. “You’re no fun—you could just play along with me for the humor of it.”
So, he doesn’t deny holding back? That must mean he’s satisfied with our current level of friendship despite his joke.
That was fine. Connor had always been clear with his boundaries. There was a greedy part of me that was disappointed, but that was hardly surprising considering how much I enjoyed hanging out with him.
Either way, it didn’t matter. I had a few months before I could tell Connor I was a slayer. This was an easier, more comfortable level of friendship to maintain.
It was.
“What if another supernatural came in and swept you off your feet?” Connor asked as we cleared the last few stairs, reaching the landing to our floor.
I snorted. “No supernatural is ever going to do any sort of sweeping with me, romantic or otherwise.”
“Don’t say that, Meal. That’s a terrible attitude to have.” Connor slipped the backpack off and offered it to me.
I glumly took it. “It doesn’t matter because it won’t happen.”
Everyone is way too scared of me since I’m a slayer. Not that I can blame them.
“I’m… too much,” I concluded. “I’ve told you before—I can’t even make new friends; do you really think I could launch a successful romantic relationship?”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit.” He playfully tugged on one of my red curls, but the teasing lilt had left his voice. “You’re entertaining—which can mean a lot to the right individual.”
For a second—for a moment that passed so fast I almost didn’t catch it myself—I felt sad that Connor—handsome, charismatic and playful—could see me, could see the value in me, and he didn’t want anything more than our easy friendship.