Crave (Harlequin Teen)

past ten minutes waiting in my truck in the school’s main parking lot. The longer I waited, the more I wanted to slap myself.
    What had I been thinking, agreeing to this date? No way could this be a good idea! I must have gone temporarily insane at the game tonight. Did I have some secret wish to start a war between the Clann and the vampires? At the very least, I must have a death wish. Because if my family ever found out I’d even agreed to go out with Tristan…
    Panicking now, I reached for my duffel bag and dug for my phone, determined to send Tristan a text message calling the whole thing off. It was easier to think when he wasn’t around; text messaging was definitely the way to go.
    But a familiar black truck pulled up beside mine just as my hand closed around the phone. Crap. I’d have to tell him in person instead.
    He jumped out of his truck, carrying a pizza box and a plastic bag. My heart shot up into my throat. I got out of my truck on wobbly legs.
    “Hey,” he said with a broad grin. “Sorry it took so long. They got the order wrong, and I had to wait for them to make another pizza for us. Did you get my text message?”
    Us. The word sent a warm glow through my chest, replacing some of the panic and making it easier to breathe. “Um, no, it was in my duffel bag.” I glanced down at the phone in my hand. I’d grabbed it for…some reason. Oh, yeah, because I’d been planning to…
    He stepped closer to me, a foot away now, and I could smell the tiniest hint of his cologne. It slipped up my nose and down my throat. Oh, crap, I was losing it here. Maybe he’d put some sort of spell on me.
    Okay. One date with him. Then I would absolutely have to put a stop to this. As long as the Clann and the vampire council didn’t find out, one date would be no big deal, right?
    “Still got your keys?” he murmured, his grin making him look like a little kid about to do something naughty.
    Oh. The dance room. Perfect! No one would even know we’d been there.
    Stuffing the phone in my pocket, I grabbed the keys from my truck’s ignition then followed him across the dark campus up to the sports and art building’s foyer doors.
    “Déjà vu,” I murmured, unlocking the doors while he stood beside me, the warmth from his breath reaching out to caress my cheek in the cool night air.
    He chuckled then followed me inside. The moon lit the way across the foyer. The stairwell was another matter though. It was on the side of the building opposite the moon. Lighted by the sun through the windows during the day, the stairs usually had no need for artificial lights to guide the way. Halfway up, the moonlight from the foyer faded away.
    Strangely, I could still see. Weird.
    On the third floor, I unlocked the dance-room doors and reached inside for the light switch. But a warm hand over mine stopped me.
    “Maybe just the closet light?” he murmured.
    I left the overhead lights off, found the closet light switch around the corner, then pushed open the door so the smaller room’s light could shine into the dance room. He was right; the costume-closet light was equal to a lamp in the larger space beyond. And it shouldn’t light up the dance room enough to be visible from outside the building.
    “Sorry, I should have brought a blanket or something to sit on,” he said with a sheepish grin.
    “It’s fine.” Feeling suddenly shy, I sat down with him on the floor in the center of the dim room and tried to remember that this was the boy I’d spent countless hours with as a kid.
    “I brought music if you want to put some on.” He pulled out a stack of CDs from the plastic bag.
    I took them over to the stereo then picked one out with shaking hands. The CD’s label read Stressed Out #1. Smiling, I turned the volume all the way down before putting it in, then gradually turned the music up until it was at a good background level.
    I returned to sit near him. “ Stressed Out #1? Should I even ask how many volumes there are in that series?”
    He laughed. “A few. The Clann are control freaks. All their rules make life a little…stressful.”
    “I know what you mean. I’ve got a lot of people setting the rules for me, too.”
    “You live with your grandma, right?” He opened the pizza box, picked up a slice of cheese pizza and set it on a paper napkin for me. Thank goodness he’d gotten a medium; I was so hungry I could eat the whole thing by myself. “I saw your grandma once. Last year. She looked like