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But so what?

From the moment I’d first spotted her working behind the bar, making me nearly overbalanced on the stupid swing that was part of the Spell On You routine, she’d had thispull.

I just… wanted to be around her. Get to know her.

Like fate.

Something way more important than knowing her dream vacation or what movies she watched when she was sad—not that I didn’t want to know that stuff. It just… didn’t impact my decision on whether or not I wanted to put my mouth all over her.

I wasn’t the only one that was feeling the draw either. I could already tell that Ren was on board—and she’d said as much, already planning on taking Vi out on a formal date to a baseball game.

My covenmate had major heart eyes every time she looked at Vi. The type of schoolyard crush that they usually associated with me.

Honestly, you got way too into tarot cards during a lover girl era one time and all of a sudden your view on relationships was ‘unrealistic’ and ‘too intense’.

But now? Maybe I’d hang up the title and retire as our polycule’s hopeless romantic. Even I couldn’t compete with the smitten heart-eyes Ren got every time she looked our new bartender’s way.

I even caught her using the novelty heart waffle iron I’d bought Dana for Valentine’s Day last year just this morning.

Heart. Waffles.Withfreshstrawberries.

She had it bad, all the signs were there. Somehow, it made me feel less insane that I was feeling the same pull.

“Whose favourite colour?” Ren asked, appearing in my mirror with her phone in hand like she’d been summoned by my thoughts alone. Her eyes stayed glued to the little glowing screen as she typed furiously. “Garrett is such a useless weasel dick. He’s trying to control how much I spend on the ordering like he knows fuck all about running a bar.”

Dana filled the rest of us in on his half-baked plan to try and take our home out from under us, and while I wouldn’t call someone a… weasel dick, it was hard not to agree with Ren’s assessment.

“Striker’s,” Juniper called in answer to her question. “And seconded regarding Garrett.”

“It’s yellow,” Ren replied with a slanted smile that showed off her fangs. Her warm gaze met mine in the mirror. “Like that jacket she wears.”

I took a second to pick my jaw up off the floor and twisted to look at her. Ren wasn’t exactly known for being the most perceptive out of the four of us. Too lost in her own inner world. “How do you know that?”

“Because it’s the same colour as her phone case and the hair tie thing she puts her hair up with at the end of the night.”

“Her scrunchie? Her freaking scrunchie is yellow, Ren?” I demanded, my tone accusing as much as it was disbelieving.

Who the heck was this new, attentive vampire filling my mirror?

“I suppose so,” she said with a shrug. “Why are you so worked up about it anyway? If there’s something you want to know, just ask her.”

“Take a breath,” Dana chuckled, patting my thigh.

Juniper snickered. “I think the words you’re looking for are,You were so right, Juniper.”

I stuffed down the urge to throttle her and opened my mouth to tell herexactlywhere she could shove her smug opinions when Dana spoke over me.

“Enough, June. Don’t you have panties to sew? Fan closures that need fixing?”

She rolled her eyes, flashing her fangs with an irritated grimace passed off as a smile. “Don’t you have a spreadsheet to jerk off over?”

“Ugh, June. Don’t be crass,” I complained, covering my ears.

Out of all of us, she had the filthiest mouth. Something that’d used to make Cherie laugh. English was her second language, the innuendo often going clear over her head.

The memory of the first time she’d heard scissoring referred to asarts and craftsflashed, her head tossed back in a laugh as ruby tears spilled down her cheeks.

My heart twinged, a feeling I’d become used to whenever I thought about my sire. We hadn’t been romantic—not like how I was with Ren and Dana—but that didn’t make her absence feel any less… grey. Like all the colour had been sucked clean off the memories, leaving behind a desaturated image tinted with the horrible beigey sepia of sadness.