It was more like . . . joy?

In the hallway, their roommate Eve was having a total fit—screaming, bouncing in hoppy little circles like a demented Goth bunny. It was made especially strange by her outfit: flouncy black sheer skirt, black tights with neon pink skulls, a complicated-looking corset with buckles, and her clunky Doc Martens boots. She’d worn her hair in pigtails today, and they whipped wildly around as she jumped and spun and did a wiggling victory dance.

Claire and Shane stood without saying a word, and then exchanged a look. Shane silently raised a finger and made a slow circle at his temple.

Claire, eyes wide, nodded.

The screaming dissolved into excited little yips, and Eve stopped randomly bouncing around. Instead, she bounced directly at them, waving a piece of paper with so much enthusiasm that Claire was lucky to be able to tell it was a piece of paper.

“You know,” Shane said in an entirely too-calm voice, “I kind of miss the old Morganville, when it was all scary monsters and dodging death. This would never have happened in the old Morganville. Too silly.”

Claire snorted, reached out, and grabbed Eve’s flailing wrists. “Eve! What?”

Eve stopped bouncing and grabbed Claire’s hands, crushing the paper in the process. From the jittery pulse of her muscles, she still wanted to jump, but she was making a great effort not to. She tried to say something, but she just couldn’t. It came out as a squeal that only a dolphin would have been able to interpret.

Claire sighed and took the paper from Eve’s hand, smoothed it out, and read it aloud. “Dear Eve,” she began. “Thank you for auditioning for our production of A Streetcar Named Desire. We are very pleased to offer you the role of Blanche DuBois—”

She was interrupted by more bouncing and screaming. Defeated, Claire read the rest silently and handed it on to Shane.

“Wow,” he said. “So, that’s the town production, right? The annual?”

“I’ve been auditioning forever,” Eve blurted out, dark eyes as wide as an animé character’s. “I mean, forever. Since I was twelve. Best I ever got was one of the Russian dancers for the Christmas performance of The Nutcracker.”

“You?” Shane said. “You dance?”

Eve looked offended. “You’ve been to parties with me. You know I dance, jackass.”

“Hey, there’s a difference between shaking your ass at a rave and ballet.”

Eve leveled a black-nailed finger in his direction. “I’ll have you know I was good on pointe, and, anyway, that isn’t the issue. I got the part of Blanche. In Streetcar. Do you know how wicked huge that is?”