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Ifshe ever wanted to sleep over again.

The twitch of Ren’s lips was more of an awkward grimace than a smile as she ran a hand through her short hair.

“Please don’t tell me to leave. Babydoll let me in.”

I stared at her, dumbfounded. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought we could have breakfast together,” she suggested hopefully, shifting awkwardly. “If you’d rather not, I can leave this for you. But I...” She straightened to her full height, peering down at me with concern in her dark gaze. “I’m sorry for showing up like this.”

I bit down on a smile. Despite my best effort to be annoyed that the pushy vampire had arrived uninvited on my doorstep, it was seriously cute.

“Um, let me go get cleaned up a bit.” I stepped away from the door to let her inside. “Why don’t you make yourself at home? The living room is through there.” I nodded in its direction, easily visible in the tiny open-concept one-bedroom.

She grinned, taking off her shoes carefully before heading toward the sofa in socked feet.

“Thank you.”

The sofa was still pulled out into a bed from Kaylee sleeping on it the night before. I watched her curious gaze hit the takeout containers on the counter, along with the dishes in the sink, and cringed internally.

Ren was in my apartment—Kaylee’sapartment, really—where I lived out of a couple of suitcases haphazardly stacked into the corner.

And I hadn’t even cleaned up the dishes from last night.

Fuck.

I escaped to Kaylee’s room to catch my breath, borrowing a pair of black leggings and shedding the tiny tank in favour of a fitted crop top that showed off my waist and, when I raised my arms above my head, a hint of underboob.

Was it basically as revealing as the last outfit?Yes.

Did it also feel far more reasonable?Yes, times two.

When I flicked on the en suite’s light, I groaned at my panda eyes.

A little makeup remover and one fistfight with a brush and another with a toothbrush that made my injured wrist throb, and I was ready to join Ren in the living room. I found her perched in the middle of the pullout, her jacket discarded over the back.

She was studying a painting that Kaylee had done back in college, hung now just beside the TV in a jumble of colours and textures that she’d told her professor represented her inner self. It was actually something we painted together with our fingers and a couple of palette knives while insanely drunk the night before.

Kaylee got an A minus.

Okay, fine, it was a B plus. But why ruin an otherwise epic story with semantics, right?

She kept the hideous thing because it made her laugh whenever she looked at it. And when I moved in, we hung it up together after one too many glasses of wine as a bit of apick-me-up.

Honestly? It kind of worked.

“Sorry, I wasn’t really expecting company,” I said, coming to sit at the edge of the lumpy mattress.I’d think about the damn thing murdering my back another time.

“No, no!” Ren answered quickly. “I should’ve called ahead. I just… Is it terrible to admit I was afraid you’d say no?”

I probably should, you pushy-ass vampire.

But... I was either stupid or smitten.Or both.

Absolutely both.

“It’s kind of cute. If it wasn’t slightly insane.”

“I’ll takeslightly, though I was really aiming forcharmingly dedicated.”