I sighed. “I guess.” He did seem to be the chattiest while he was smoking. I didn’t understand it, but I put up with it for my occasional answers.

I avoided the questioning stares from Piper and Tristan and silently got up and followed Jude out the door, tossing my trash on the way. I slipped out of the cafeteria hopefully unseen, as I didn’t really want to be connected with Jude. The entire student body knew why he was leaving early and I had a feeling the teachers were starting to catch on.

Sure, kids smoked at parties and on the weekends. But this was a school filled mostly with athletes. Jude’s chain-smoking habit was literally unheard of  in this environment.

He pushed the outside door open; we stepped into a beautiful spring day. The wind was strong and cool, but the sun was brazen and hot, standing unapologetically in the sky. I tilted my head up, basking in the warmth on my face, after enduring the chill that came with our nearly windowless school building. I wondered how Jude felt about the sun. Jupiter’s stories about Jude’s youth came back to me and I suddenly couldn’t get them out of my head. What kind of kid could survive a lifetime of Darkness?

What kind of child could live without ever knowing the Light?

Jude leaned back against his favorite oak tree, in full view of the school building and anyone walking by and pulled out a cigarette.

“Got a light?” He teased, waggling his eyebrows at me.

“I’m not supporting that habit,” I replied primly. I felt like a prude. And then I hated that I was embarrassed by that. What was wrong with following rules and having a quality of conduct standard? Nothing. And I had never felt bad about it until Jude showed up.

“Why?” he chuckled. “Afraid it will kill me?”

I rolled my eyes. No, it wouldn’t kill him. It probably wouldn’t even seriously bother him before his supernatural internal organs already started to heal from it.

So I crossed my arms showing off how uncomfortable I was to be around him alone and nodded. “Yes,” I agreed just to be contrary.

“You’re worried about me?” he asked again, only this time there was actual curiosity in his voice.

In response I let out an exasperated sigh and rolled my eyes. “Why do you think we’re both going to die before I’m eighteen?’ My voice was quiet and broken, completely giving away my fear. It was frustrating, but the questions were necessary.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” he shrugged and inhaled deeply. The smoke escaped his mouth in a long stream of white. He seemed casual, but his tone was callous.

“Then why did I come out here with you?” I demanded.

“To keep me company?”

I laughed before I could stop myself. “Who are you, Jude Michaels? How did you, of all people, get roped into this contract?”

He looked at me through the haze of smoke and let out a slow breath. “Obviously, I’m the right age for high school.” There were such strong tones of bitterness in his voice, I actually took a step back.

“Is that the only reason?”

He let out a dark chuckle, “You’re not seriously trying to psycho-analyze me are you?”

“Don’t be a bastard,” I shot back quickly. I was really annoyed by his deflection, more so than usual.

“Such a mouth,” he tsked. His eyes invariably fell to the subject in question, and lingered there. I shuddered from the vulnerable nakedness I felt when he looked at me like that. My stomach was queasy; I didn’t know whether to run away or slap him.

“You don’t know me, Jude,” I reminded him.

“And you don’t know me, Stella,” he countered with his cold eyes meeting mine again.

With that lovely conversation finisher, I turned around and stomped back inside. He was infuriating. He was constantly crowding me, but the minute I tried to make our situation anything but wretched, he turned into the evil overlord I knew he was.

Tristan was on the other side of the door, waiting for me. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I sighed.

“Everything alright?” His bright green eyes were pinched with concern.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Jude was just…. I don’t know, I thought he was going to give me some answers about Seth, but he was just playing games, I guess.”

“He’s kind of an asshole, right?”

I laughed. “Right.”

Tristan’s expression became more serious and I thought he was going to warn me about Jude- again; but he had something else entirely on his mind. “Hey, so I know we have practice after school, but I was wondering, if maybe, you wanted to have dinner with my family tonight? They haven’t seen you in a while.”

That was true, they hadn’t. And a night at Tristan’s house actually sounded amazing.

“That sounds great,” I agreed quickly.

“You don’t have training or anything?” his voice dropped to a whisper.

Matching his tone I explained, “No, the missions I’ve been going on with Nate and Serena have taken the place of training. And besides, I can always meet up with them after, if they need me.”

Tristan’s jaw tightened and his neck muscles were suddenly bulging, but he nodded. “Well, I’ll let my mom now you’re coming then.”

“K.”

And then we parted ways…. awkwardly. I decided I wanted to talk to him about that tonight. There was a time in my life, not that long ago, where Tristan was my epicenter, where my entire world revolved around him and our relationship.

It just wasn’t like that anymore. And I didn’t know why. Maybe it was as simple as we were growing apart. Maybe it was more complex and I’d somehow jilted him by falling accidentally in love with Seth- the boy I couldn’t have anymore.

Maybe it was all him.

I wasn’t sure, but I needed to find out.

----

“Stella!” Tristan’s mom, Allison, greeted me as soon as I walked in the door. “It has been too long! Where have you been?”

I smiled under her over the top affection and greeted her with a hug. She squeezed me tightly to her and then kept her arm around me as she walked me inside her house.

Tristan’s house was a huge farmhouse that was done completely in comfort and easiness. I loved it over here. It was basically my second home. It always smelled like baking or delicious homemade somethings. It was crazy loud- all the time. And it was consistently messy.

Allison was a stay at home mom. But even with two boys already off to college she had a hard time keeping up with everyone. Tristan was the third child with two older brothers and three siblings younger, two brothers, one sister. And their names all start with a t and an r: Trader, Trenton, Tristan, Trevor, Troy and Truman.

The crazy thing was that Allison kept talking about wanting another baby.

Being an only child, and coming from a culture that rarely had more than one child per family, that was insanity to me. But it somehow worked for the Shields. And even in the chaos of their rowdy household, there was such a feeling of peace and acceptance that it was hard not to fall in love with all of them.

Tristan’s dad stepped out of his office and offered me a huge, welcoming smile. He was exactly what Tristan would look like one day- tall, athletic, dark, almost black hair kept short and manageable, with piercing green eyes that seemed to see deeper than surface level.

Allison didn’t let me get waylaid with his greeting though, she kept pulling me toward the kitchen where she was determined she would teach me how to cook. I promised her there was a defect in my genetic code, but she kept dismissing that as an excuse.

Allison and Brian were high school sweethearts that actually graduated from Mead. They both went off to college at the University of Lincoln, got married right out of college, and then moved back home to farm and raise their family. They were the poster children for small town living and they had quiet expectations that their children would all follow a similar path. They weren’t pushy about it, but anyone who knew the Shields could tell.