“Ah,” I said hesitantly into the pixy-giggle-laden air, and Trent looked at me, green eyes interested. Someone in the rafters shrieked when he or she got shoved off the beam, and Trent’s eyelid twitched.

Feeling a smidgen of sympathy, I stood and clapped my hands at the ceiling. “Okay, you’ve all stared enough. Time to go. There’s waxed paper behind the microwave. Go polish the steeple.”

Quen started when Jenks’s kids dropped down in a swirling maelstrom of silk and high-pitched complaints. It was Jhan who took control, and with his hands on his hips in a painful reminder of Jenks, he browbeat them all into the hallway.

“Thanks, Jhan,” I said. “I heard blue jays earlier. Be sure to watch for them.”

“Yes, Ms. Morgan,” the pixy said seriously, then darted out, Rex trailing under him. There was a crash and a shriek from the kitchen, then nothing.

Wincing, I moved to lean against the back of Ivy’s couch. Quen looked at me expectantly, and Trent said, “Aren’t you going to see what they broke?”

My head shook. “I…uh, wanted to thank you again for interrupting Al yesterday,” I said, and my face warmed. God! Al had practically pulled me into an orgasm, right in front of everybody.

Trent’s attention flicked to the pixies in the side yard, blurs through the stained-glassed windows, and then his gaze came back to me. “No problem.”

Uncomfortable, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Really. You didn’t have to, and I appreciate it.”

Quen shifted his weight and settled in, and, seeing his relaxed posture, Trent found a less-stiff position. He still looked like a male model, sitting at Ivy’s baby grand. “I don’t like bullies,” he said simply, as if embarrassed.

I grimaced, wishing Ceri would hurry up. A beep came from the kitchen, and the whine of electronics hit my middle ear. The lights winked on, invisible in the bright sun, and from behind me the TV slowly blossomed into noise. Scrambling for the remote, I clicked it off.

Embarrassment sprang up from nowhere, and I got mad at myself. I could feel Trent evaluating me and my life—my little TV, Ivy’s living room set, my plant-strewn desk, the two-bedroom, two-bath church we lived in—and it ticked me off that I was coming in so much shorter than his huge living room, his big-screen TV, and his stereo system that filled a wall.

“Excuse me,” I muttered, hearing the washer start to fill. I bet Trent didn’t have to entertain with the chug chug of a Whirlpool in the background.

Flicking off the overhead lights as I went, I stopped in my bathroom to open the washer’s lid. It could soak. Then I did a quick check in Ivy’s bathroom in case Trent wanted to rifle through her medicine cabinet under the excuse of using the can. It was neat and tidy, the incense-and-ashes scent of vampire a dim hint under the orange-perfumed soap she used. Depressed now, I headed to the kitchen to see if the lights were on.