"Oh, yeah. The bathroom. Over there." He pointed to a door near the stairs.
Coming out of the bathroom, Vivian heard voices upstairs from the direction of the kitchen.
"She seems rather sophisticated for Aiden, don't you think?" said Mrs. Teague.
"She does seem mature." Vivian could hear the innuendo in Mr. Teague's voice. It made her skin crawl.
"You watch yourself." Mrs. Teague didn't sound amused. "You'd better have a talk with that boy."
Vivian heard the sound of a screen door closing. Have a talk with him about what? she wondered. What had she done wrong? Why did Mrs. Teague not want a mate for her son?
The rest of the visit was ruined for Vivian.
"Your parents don't like me," she said on the way home.
"That's a good sign," Aiden said. "They don't like any of the people I care for."
But it wasn't only his parents.
Vivian took a deep breath. "People weren't friendly at school, either," she said. "Is there something wrong with me?"
"God, no!"
Aiden didn't say anything else for a while, but just when she thought he had nothing to add to the topic, he spoke. "You're, like, so beautiful and cool and sure of yourself, I think the kids at school were frightened of you."
"Frightened of me?" Vivian laughed with surprise. These people didn't have enough sense to know what to be frightened of. She could show them frightening.
"Well, you know," Aiden continued. "Afraid that maybe you wouldn't tolerate lesser mortals, so why bother."
They pulled up in front of her house. "So, are you afraid of me?" she asked, trying to keep the amusement from her voice.
"Terrified," he said as he reached for her.
Vivian stopped him with a gentle touch. "Why weren't you like the others? Why didn't you freeze me out when I talked to you the first time?"
He studied her while he thought. "Well, apart from the fact that you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, curiosity, I suppose."
"Curiosity?"
He looked down into his lap as if shy of telling her. "Until you drew that pentagram in my palm, then I knew we could be friends. That you might be . .." He bit his lip and flung his head back, eyes closed. "Oh, man. This sounds dumb."
He was so endearing. She leaned over and touched the tip of her tongue to his cheek. "What does?"
"That you could be my soul mate." He said it fast, looking everywhere but at her. "That I could bare everything to you and you would understand."
Vivian was stunned. He was exposing his belly to her. A rush of warmth filled her. "Sweet puppy," she said. "Bare everything and you would certainly have my undivided attention." Her tongue touched his ear.
"You're making fun," he said, his anxious eyes finally meeting hers.
She sat up straight. "No, I'm not. I'm honored," she answered seriously. She didn't want to hurt his feelings.
He relaxed and the smile came back to his eyes. "See you tomorrow?" he asked.
"Yeah."
Was she Aiden's soul mate? Vivian wondered up in her room. Wouldn't she know if she were? Maybe if she made him the mate of her flesh first, then she would know.
Chapter 9