“Hey, boss. Where are you?” she asked.“I just picked up something to eat. What about professional belly dancers?”“Um, I don’t know, maybe with horseradish.”

“God, I am freaking out. Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe I just look guilty of something and he’s picking up on that.”

“Maybe I don't need a relationship after all, she thought. Maybe thinking about these conversations was just as good as having them. She could sit in her Honda in the dark and experience whatever kind of life she wanted. Sometimes you think, Hey, maybe there's something else out there. But there really isn't. This is what being alive feels like, you know? The place doesn't matter. You just live.”

“I – talked to her. She understands. She won’t do anything stupid.” He didn’t look at Claire when he said that, and she wondered what kind of talking that might have been.Her mother had always said, when in doubt, ask.“Was it the kind of talk where you gave her something to live for? Like maybe, um, you?”“Did I – what the hell are you talking about?”“I just thought maybe you and her–”“Claire, Jesus!” Michael said. She’d actually made him flinch. Wow. That was new. “You think banging me is going to make her forget about charging out to commit cold-blooded vampire slaying? I don’t know what kind of standards you have on sex, but those are pretty high. Besides, whatever’s between me and Eve – well, it’s between me and Eve.” Until she tells me about it later, Claire thought.”

“You know, the world is all about balance. You lose something here... maybe somebody else picks it up over there.”

“It’s not something I can control, damn it. Every man I know wakes up with a hard-on.”“Maybe so, but they do not – repeat, do not - rub it on me.”“‘Every man I know’ wasn’t rubbing it on you! It was just me!”“And it was just your hair that I pulled, wasn’t it?” she asked sweetly.”