I might be half Derek's size, but I was the one who sounded like a two-hundred-pound beast plowing through the woods.

We have Kenjii. We have my cell phone. Since we aren't officially dating, I'm sure you'll agree that's all the protection we need.

Antonio- "Just in time, Pete. Five more minutes of reading this and she'd have been in a coma." Peter- "Are we such bad company that you'd rather hide out in here reading that old thing?

The upshot of her tirade was that I was the devil's spawn and should be locked up in a tower before I unleashed hordes of the living dead to slaughter them all in their sleep. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but not by much.

I slid closer, feeling his arms close around me, tightening. Our lips touched-- "Derek?" his dad called. "Chloe?" Derek let out a growl. I laughed and backed up. "We seem to get a lot of that, don't we?" I said. "Too much. After we eat, we're going for a walk. A long walk. Far from every possible interruption." I grinned up at him. "Sounds like a plan

You know children, always playing with the forces of darkness.

Kids who don't eavesdrop on adult conversations are doomed to a childhood of ignorance.