Not that I begrudged him his I'm-on-top-of-the-world attitude—okay, maybe a little—but when he found out about Bella and Nathan he would come crashing down from his high as quickly as if he'd fallen from the Ferris wheel.

Instead of arguing with me, he chuckled. "You're trying to pick a fight."

"Guilty as charged."

He inhaled deeply. The air smelled of the city—hot cement and traffic exhaust—and carnival food, the scents of humanity only a vampire could truly appreciate. "Try all you want, I ain't gonna bite. Nothing can ruin tonight for me. Nothing."

With a parody of his contented sigh, I leaned my head on his shoulder. "If I don't get a drink soon, I'm going to stake you."

As promised, when we escaped the Ferris wheel of doom, we headed for our nightly circuit of bars and blues clubs. At a few we were becoming regulars. At the rest, Max had already established himself as one.

We'd thrown back enough alcohol to kill a small rhino by the time our final stop on the booze tour announced last call. Squinting at his watch through heavy-lidded, red-rimmed eyes, Max frowned in drunker confusion. "What? It can't be last call yet."

"It is," I insisted with the knowing, superior tone of a complete inebriate. "And it sucks."

"It does." He looked around the bar, his mouth set in a grim line. "The band is going to leave."

"Yeah." I rested my forearms on the table and dropped my head onto them. I heard the scrape of his chair, and when I looked up he was swerving across the empty dance floor toward the musicians on the tiny stage. He spoke to them a minute, pointed at me, then returned with a confident, drunken swagger. The band started a slow blues ballad and he gestured for me to join him.

If I'd learned anything since coming to Chicago with Max, it was that he enjoyed any activity that required putting his hands on a woman. I stumbled toward him. It wouldn't be the first time we'd danced drunkenly in a bar at closing time. And that struck me as just a tad pathetic.

Not so pathetic I wouldn't do it again. I liked being close to Max, in a totally platonic way. He was the guy friend I'd never had. Actually, until I'd become a vampire, I'd never had any friends. It was nice being with someone who didn't expect anything from me short of just hanging around.

Unlike Nathan. I was supposed to stay at his side, waiting for him like a faithful dog, should he ever need me. The unfortunate comparison put me in mind of Werewolves, and I had to blink back cold tears.

Max's arms tightened around my waist and he leaned his head against mine as we shuffled clumsily to the music. "Can we just keep doing this forever?"