Dexter returned to the table to present Lina with the most poorly made latte ever to come out of a coffee shop.

“Ugh!” She spat the drink back into the mug. “O’Shea, this is all foam.”

“There’s some coffee in there,” he protested. “At the bottom.”

Lina pretended to kick Dexter out of the shop, and he made a show of acting wounded as he left. I waited at the front door for him to pull up the Jeep, and Lina hovered at my shoulder.

“You sure?” she asked.

“I’m sure.”

And I was.

So why did I feel sick to my stomach?

Twenty-Six

Hayrides & History

Reg was asleep when I got home, so I had to wait until the next morning to unload all the details of my date. He was still bleary-eyed and snuggling under his blankets when I got to the part where Dex walked me to the front door.

“So, he just kept standing there on the porch, saying good night but not leaving, and it was so obvious that he wanted to kiss me, but when he finally leaned in to do it, Sal turned on the porch light! On purpose!” I stood to demonstrate the next part. “So Dex, like, dodged left and gave me this half-hug, half-ear-kiss thing that was honestly just kind of gross, and I swear when I’m vampire again, I am coming back to drain that old guy. If I don’t murder him with my own human hands first.”

Reg finally sat up, propping himself against a pile of pillows. “That was . . . utterly exhausting.”

I collapsed back onto Reg’s bed in a fit of laughter. I was annoyed with Sal (but also kind of impressed by his timing) and mostly just giddy from a great date. So giddy, in fact, that I realized with a start that I’d forgotten to tell Reg the most important part of the night.

As I shared with him that our appeal would be heard, and the hearing was only a week away, I got that same sick sensation I’d experienced at All Hours.

“It’s a good thing,” I said, as much to Reg as to myself. “It’s just so soon.”

Reg seemed surprised but otherwise unflustered by the speed of the hearing. He said he was “far more distressed” about the outcome of his debate tournament the day before, which he proceeded to tell me about in great detail. And even though debating was way less interesting than dating, I listened to Reg for nearly as long as he’d listened to me.

“The judges don’t know an argument from their armpits,” he complained. “They’re so plebeian.”

“They probably just don’t understand old-timey terms like ‘plebeian,’” I said.

I expected a laugh, but Reg only grumbled, “Poe made a similar observation. Right after he told me to stop torturing the teachers.”

“Uh-oh. Trouble in Poe-radise?”