And speaking of hotness . . . Jason looked at Michael and Scout. “Can you give us a minute?”

Scout and Michael looked at each other, then made goofy kissing noises.

“You’re both five years old,” Jason said. But they did walk down the tunnel, giving us some privacy. Not that anything was going to happen; it wasn’t exactly romantic down here. On the other hand, we didn’t have a lot of free time, and moments in the tunnels were sometimes the only “dates” we got.

“Some days,” Jason whispered, his eyes on the couple, “I feel like the only adult in the room.”

“But if you need someone to cheer you up, you can’t do much better than Michael. He is always on.”

Jason looked back at me, a glint in his eye, and my stomach went hot.

“Okay, so you can do a little better,” I cheekily said. “I’m a pretty great girlfriend.”

He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he took my hand and began to kiss the edges of my fingertips. I practically melted right then and there.

Jason sighed, then wrapped his arms around me. I buried my head in his chest. I felt safe in his arms. Secure. Like even if monsters in the dark popped out at me, he could handle them. He might be furry when he did that handling, but still . . . He suddenly tensed up, and I knew he was thinking about the curse.

“You okay?”

He just sighed. “Yeah. Things are just . . . unsettled at home, and now I’m, like, the only Adept in town who has any kind of power. That’s a lot of pressure.”

“What’s going on at home?” He’d hinted before that because of the curse, werewolves saw the world differently and tended to live apart from humans. At some point, his parents would even choose a bride for him from some other werewolf family. And here he was, far from home, hanging out in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the country. I bet that didn’t sit well with the parentals.

“Things are . . . moving along,” he said. “I’ve got cousins who are causing trouble, being more public about their fur than they should be, and that ends up putting more pressure on me.”

He’d told me his family would pull him back at some point. I just hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.

“I thought you’d have more time?”

“I might have,” he said darkly, “if my cousins weren’t acting like hoodlums. That changes the math. I have to step up earlier than before. When it’s all said and done, my cousins may not listen to me, but at least I can be a good example.”

Okay, I silently thought, but a good example of what?

He brushed a lock of hair back from my face. “You’re important to me. I wanted you to know that.”

I appreciated the thought, but I still moved back a little bit, giving myself some space and distance. I knew there was a risk—a really good risk—that I’d end up being hurt if we kept dating. I just didn’t think it would be right now. So soon.

“I know,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t worry.”

“Fair enough,” he said. He chuckled lightly, and before I could tweak him for laughing at me, his lips were on mine. He pulled me closer and kissed me like he was desperate to do it, like he might never get another chance. And as much as I wanted to just sink into the kiss and forget about the world for a little while, the world continued to spin around us. He was still a werewolf with a family that believed in curses, and I was still a girl who didn’t want a broken heart.

My hesitation didn’t seem to scare him. He held me even tighter, his arms enclosing me like he meant to protect me from the rest of the world. If only he could. If only it were that easy.

Eventually he pulled back and kissed my forehead. “We should get back to school. Tomorrow morning awaits. And it’s a Monday.”

“Yeah,” I quietly said. There was no pretending I was excited about that. I mean, being an Adept was hard. But being a junior in high school was a completely different animal.

Jason called out Michael’s name, and after a moment he came jogging down the tunnel, water splashing at his feet, crimson on his cheeks. It wasn’t hard to guess what he and Scout had been doing a couple of passages away.

“You ready?” Jason asked.

Michael nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”

“Then let’s hit the road. It’s waffle day in the cafeteria tomorrow, and I don’t want to sleep through it again.”

Michael rubbed his hands together. “And that, my friend, is why I love Mondays.”

That was the only reason to like a Monday, if you asked me.

“I’ll text you tomorrow,” Jason told me. I squeezed his hand.

Michael gave me a little wave. “See you later, Lily.”

“ ’Bye, guys.” I watched as they moved down the tunnel, trying not to get panicky about my werewolf boyfriend returning to the family who wanted to pick a bride for him. Was it wrong that I totally wanted to lecture his cousins?

Fear heavy in my heart, I tucked my hands into my pockets and walked down the passageway until I found Scout.

It was good to have a best friend, even if neither one of us was in a chipper mood as we walked back to the dorms. Turns out Michael had asked Scout about her dress for Sneak. I’m sure he asked only because he was excited, but she didn’t have a dress and got panicky about “being a girly-girl.”

As we walked down one dark tunnel after another, I filled her in about Jason and his possible disappearance.