A Shade of Blood (A Shade of Vampire #2)(41)

I reached her table and extended my hand toward her.

“One last dance, Sofia?”

She covered her sketch with her palm, crumpled the paper napkin and stuffed it in the small purse she was carrying. She took my hand and I led her to the dance floor. She rested her hands over my shoulders and my hands found their way to her waist. I never could quite get over how small her waist was. My hands came nearly fully around it.

“Having a good time?”

“Yes.” She nodded.

“Right…” I rolled my eyes. “You’re lying.”

She laughed. “Okay, fine… I never even imagined myself attending prom. You know me. This isn’t exactly my scene. Too many people, too much noise…”

“Then why’d you come?”

The rosy pink glow returned to her pale freckled cheeks. “Because you wanted to be here…” She then looked down at her outfit and gave me a pout. “And this dress is too pretty to waste.”

“Wanna get out of here?” I suggested.

Her brows furrowed at me in question. “You sure you want to go home this early?”

“Who said anything about going home?” I held her hand. “Come on. I have a surprise for you.”

We left the hall and made our way to the parking lot where my black pick-up was waiting. I asked one of the sophomores on the football team to drive it there after we left the house to go to prom.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“You’ll see.” It took about half an hour to reach Los Angeles. From there, we drove another few miles up the Angeles Crest Highway to a spot overlooking the Los Angeles basin. “This place would actually be better if we came before sunset, but I guess the starry night will have to do.”

She chuckled. “I just hope we can still see stars past the smog.”

I parked the pick-up so that the tail was facing the view of the city. I removed the canopy covering the back and switched on a flashlight to reveal a blanket, a bunch of pillows and a picnic basket. Just seeing that radiant smile on her face made all the effort worth it.

She began fixing the pillows over the edge of the truck so that we could both find a comfortable position. “We’re so overdressed for something like this,” she commented.

“Who cares? We both look incredible.”

“I’ll never get used to how modest you are, Ben.”

“People who look like me have no need of modesty.” I opened the picnic basket and brought out the candles, spreading them along the edge of the truck. I tossed her the matches. “Light them up, beautiful.”

By the time she was done lighting the candles, I had already taken out the champagne, the bowl of strawberries and the melted chocolate. She started giggling about something.

When I gave her a questioning look, she explained, “Look at all these candles. I’m just wondering when fire hazards like this started to become romantic.”

“So you find this romantic?” I raised a brow at her.

“Yeah, but don’t let that go to your head. I’m pretty easy to please.”

“Easy? You think it was easy to set all this up? Do you have any idea how difficult it was to put this together and keep it secret from you and mom?”

The delight on her face faded at the mention of my mother.

“Sofia, you do understand why we can’t tell my mom yet, right? I don’t think we’re ready to deal with all the drama that it would cause, and…”

“Yeah, I understand, Ben,” she cut me off. “Don’t worry about it.”

I opened up the champagne and we drank and ate dessert. We then eased into a comfortable silence, our focus being the view.

When she finally broke the silence, I wish she hadn’t.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you a question, Ben…”

I could immediately sense her hesitation.

“While you were setting up the food, I tapped you on the back to get your attention. You didn’t respond. That’s happened so many times already. When you got beat up, I kept on accidentally brushing my hand or arm or whatever against your bruises and against your gash and you never once flinched…” Her voice was laced with concern that made me ache. “Why is that?”

I didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to admit to it, but it was out there. “I think Claudia messed up my nervous system or something… I’m not sure what she did. All I know is that my sense of touch has been dulled.”

“Ben… I…”

I didn’t want her pity. I’d had enough of feeling sorry for myself. “It’s why I want to join the hunters, Sofia. I don’t want to go through life pretending that I can go back to normal. Claudia took that away from me.”

Her silence was enough of an answer. I doubted anything I could say would convince her that she ought to join the hunters. One mention of Claudia was enough to ruin my mood. My using my story as leverage to convince Sofia to join the hunters was enough to ruin hers.

“Let’s get out of here.” I suggested. “I have one surprise left.”

“Let’s.” She agreed.

We drove back to the city. I had hotel reservations. Without Sofia’s knowledge, I already told my parents that we were going to go to a big slumber party with our friends, so they weren’t expecting us home that night.