Page 65 of Blade

“Alright, my mate.” His smile should’ve made me happy but it made me nervous. There was just a bit too much understanding in it. “One question first, though.”

This wasn’t going to be good.

“Of course.” Smile. Look excited. Innocent. I wasn’t guilty of anything.

“Do you have a time frame on how long it’ll be before I can ask logical questions about our future?” He was better at looking innocent than I was. “I think this falls under the limits category, but I need to understand the specifics.”

When in doubt claim it involved limits and ask to clarify.

He’d cheated.

“No.” I needed to learn to manipulate him better. “But I think traveling for a while will be a good way to bridge that gap.”

He should’ve sighed or rolled his eyes or given me the look he did when I refused to tell him what happened to Superman that was so offensive the internet kept screaming about it.

He smiled.

Ugh.

“Alright.” Focusing on the map again, he pointed to some of the northern areas we’d plotted out. “But I want to make sure we see snow somewhere pretty. I’ve only seen light dustings once in a while. I want to see enough snow to complain about it.”

“Deal.” I didn’t mind snow. “We might need to get a few things like snow chains but that won’t be hard.”

We couldn’t move the conventions around but we could easily shift the smaller towns and comic shops.

Horny Vapor Guy wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so he could wait too.

“What if we pick out someplace with lots of snow and pretty scenery for Christmas?” Hmm. “Do you celebrate that in any way? I mean, I know a lot of people who aren’t Christian skip the religious bits but enjoy the rest.”

Chuckling, Blaine nodded. “Yes, there are a lot of aspects of Christmas that I like. I think that’s a great idea.”

We had a plan.

“Great.” Relief rushing through me cleared out a few of the cobwebs in my head and I looked around the trailer. “Um, I can make the brownies.”

“Or we could do that later and go on a walk now?” Blaine was back to looking very innocent as he stretched his arms out like he was trying to subtly show he needed to move. “What do you think about going out to that state park near where you found me and we actually walk around it now that we both look human?”

It was a very nice way to point out how long we’d been holed up in the trailer, but the idea of leaving it made me nervous.

Irrationally so.

I had a hard enough time walking over to the park bathrooms.

“Sure.” Ignoring the pressure that was building in my chest, I started folding the map. “I’ll get this put away and then we’ll go.”

I really needed to work on sounding more relaxed because Blaine stood without saying anything and took my hand to lead me over to the bed. The trailer was so small it was the best place for us to sit together, but I was going to get a complex if he kept using it to have discussions with me.

“What?” Acting confused just had him raising one eyebrow before he lifted me up and put me on the bed. “Oh.”

He was stronger than I’d realized.

Magical muscles. Got it.

His smirk said he enjoyed whatever he saw on my face. “Don’t distract me.”

I was not going to agree to that, but I wiggled to the middle of the bed and did my best to look innocent and like I had no idea what he was doing. “Did you want a nap?”

His sigh said I should’ve gone with a movie.