Page 113 of Road Trip with a Vampire

Zelda:What’s going on?

Another long pause.

Peter:You made it clear that you don’t want to hear from me. But I’ve beenworried about you, given that some members of The Collective are still at large.

Peter:More than worried about you. I’ve been driving myself crazy. I just wanted to know that you’re all right. And safe.

My heart twisted at the caring sentiment even though he should have known I could take care of myself. I pressed my phone against my forehead, letting the complicated feelings his words invoked ripple through me.

Zelda:My stake-tipped dagger lives on my bedside table within easy reach

Zelda:I’m fine

Peter:I am still concerned about you. But good. I’m glad.

Zelda:So you just used the hat as a pretext to check in?

Peter:Yes.

Peter:I’m sorry for reaching out under false pretenses.

Zelda:Why did you?

Peter:I was worried I wouldn’t otherwise get your attention. I couldn’t think of any other excuse.

Peter:I’m not good at this.

I couldn’t help but laugh at that understatement.

Zelda:I can tell.

He didn’t reply right away, and I struggled with how to end this conversation. Could I let him know it was good to hear from him? It was the truth. ButshouldI say it, given what had happened?

Zelda:You could have texted me anything at all and you would have had my full attention

Probably not the coyest thing I could have texted, but it wasn’t a lie. Hardly a day had gone by since we’d last seen each other when I hadn’t thought of him.

Regardless of what had happened between us in the past, I wanted him to know.

In the living room Lindsay and Becky were having a loud debate over whether they should barge into my room to find out what was going on. Lindsay seemed to be firmly on Team Break Down the Door. Fortunately for me and my poor door, hers seemed to be a team of one. A cooler head—Becky’s—seemed to be prevailing.

For now, anyway.

Telling them my mom texted had been dumb. Maybe I could explain that I’dmeantto say my college roommate texted. It had just been so long since we’d talked, so I’d gotten overexcited and had accidentally saidmom.

All right, it wasn’t a good cover story. It wasn’t even a mediocre one. But I was out of time. Someone—Lindsay, probably—was knocking on my door.

When I opened it, she was glaring at me with her eyes narrowed and her arms folded tightly across her chest.

“Peter texted, and you hid from us because you wanted to text him back and knew we wouldn’t approve,” she said. “Right?”

I blinked in the face of her one-hundred-percent-true accusation. The lame excuse I’d just come up with in my bedroom evaporated from my head like mist at dawn.

Becky put her arm around me and gave my shoulders a squeeze. She was so obviously playing the role of good cop it was almost funny. “You don’t need to lie to us just because you think it’s something we won’t want to hear.”

“That’s right,” Lindsay agreed. “If you’re doing something you think we wouldn’t approve of you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Becky glared at her. “Lindsay,” she warned.