"For right now, I'm afraid so." Ignoring him, I closed my car's door. He stepped aside.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

The look in his eyes haunted me all the way home. If someone I loved, say my mom or my brother, was alone in the hospital, and I wasn't allowed to see them-but no. I'd done the right thing, and more important I'd done the legally correct thing, which was crucial for someone who wanted to keep her job.

I lost more theoretical sleep that morning hauling my new couch cover onto my couch. The directions were in Chinese, and Grandfather offered a few comments in German; both were equally unhelpful. Then I went back to my bedroom, switched into my flannel pajamas, and snuggled under the electric blanket. I didn't set my alarm-I figured my family could wake me up when they got there, and if they were late for some reason, then I'd be lucky enough to have slept in.

I was fast asleep until the doorbell rang.

"Oh, man." I looked at my alarm clock. Ten thirty A.M. A full half hour earlier than I'd expected them. Unfair.

I lurched out of bed and made it to the hallway. Usually I'd brush my teeth first, but it was cold outside, and I'd brushed them before going to bed, oh, two hours before. I looked out the peephole and saw Jake standing there, waddling back and forth like a penguin.

"What's the pa.s.sword?" I yelled through the door, just like we used to do when we were kids.

"It's f.u.c.king cold is the pa.s.sword." He stuck his tongue out at the peephole.

"Hey, don't lick the door, you'll get stuck." I opened it with a grin. "Come on in."

"Thanks." He came in and stamped around in my hallway. Every time I saw him he looked cleaner than the time before. Admittedly, today he was helped by the slightly newer coat he was wearing since the last time I'd seen him-it made him look more filled out, possibly a trick of the extra down.

"That's a nice coat."

"It's a gift from some kind soul."

I listened for the irony in his voice, or ruefulness, but didn't hear it. Maybe he was happy living on someone else's hand-me-downs. I'd gotten him some sweaters and new gloves. What else did you give a homeless person? I'd given him a couch to sleep on often enough.

"I thought Mom and Peter would be here already?" He took off his coat and put it in my hall closet.

"They said eleven." I went to the thermostat and turned the heat up. "How's things?"

"The usual." He sat down on my couch, and picked at the couch cover. "It's better than the bloodstains."

"About that-" I walked into my kitchen to preheat the oven-the faster we could get Xmas over with, the better for me, sleepwise. "They don't need to know, okay?"

I saw a familiar light in his eyes. "What's it worth to you?"

Oh, had we played this game before. I gestured to the empty s.p.a.ce where my dining room set had once been. "Me not telling Mom where my table and six chairs went."

Jake rocked back into the couch. "Deal."

I frowned. I shouldn't have to make deals with him. Or apologize to anyone about anything. But he'd seen me a bit ragged lately, and while I didn't owe him or anyone else answers, I didn't want this dinner to degrade into a he-said, she-said meal. We'd had enough of those in our past already.

There was a knock at the door. "I'll get it." Jake stood, and I went to go put on Christmas-morning-appropriate clothing that wasn't footie pajamas.

"Jakey!" I heard my mom crow from my bedroom. "Where's Edie?"

"Getting dressed-"

"Go help Peter, will you?"

I heard her coming down the hall, and of course she didn't knock. Doors were foreign concepts for my mother, which was perhaps why Jake and I played the pa.s.sword game, to prove that boundaries existed. She bl.u.s.tered into my room. "Edie!"

"Hey, Mom." My mother, Sh.e.l.ly-Rae Spence (now Grinder), was shorter than me and much more pet.i.te. She'd called me strapping, growing up-not because I actually was, but because I was compared with her. She'd meant it as a joke, but I'd been an emo teenager and always felt self-conscious about being a moose to her deer.

"Merry Christmas!" she said, arms flung wide. I barely made it into my shirt before she hugged me. I hugged her awkwardly back.

"Merry Christmas. I preheated the oven."

"Always thinking ahead! That's why you're my favorite!" she told me. Jake and I were always her favorite, often within earshot of each other. "Peter, put the turkey in!" she yelled back down my short hall. "We precooked it this morning, before we bought it over," she confessed to me in a quieter tone.

"Thanks, Mom."

She patted my arm. "I know how you like to sleep."

I inhaled to defend myself, but she left the room before I could. It wasn't that I liked to sleep so much as the fact that I'd gotten off work two freaking hours before. But my mother and I had had this conversation on multiple occasions, usually when she called me sometime during the day before three P.M. or from other time zones.

I counted to ten backward, then followed her back out.

Jake was wrestling with the card table my mother had brought in, while Peter was in the kitchen. I didn't think I'd ever had this many people in my tiny apartment simultaneously before.

"It's a shame about your dining room set, Edie." She was unfolding chairs and setting them in front of the couch.

Peter pointed out at me with a potato-covered spoon. "Did you look on the Internet? Was that gla.s.s breaking some sort of manufacturing flaw?"

"Uh-I didn't even think of that, to be honest."

"Well, at the very least you should write a letter."

Peter, my stepfather, was the letter-writing type. He was the type who, when the waiter asked how the meal was, was always honest instead of kind, like he thought the cooks behind the counter actually cared if his burger was a little dry. If you ever asked him if your a.s.s was fat, it usually was. He wasn't mean-he'd just missed out on some sort of filtering apparatus that most of the people who were more socially greased for life came with. Seeing as my biological father's social lubricant had been alcohol, I supposed I should be pleased.

I looked over at Jake-he of the original table's mishaps-who chose that moment to look away. "I'll think about writing a letter."

"Do." Peter smiled and nodded. He swept my counter contents aside to get to a plug, and there was the sound of potatoes being whipped.

My mother suggested we open gifts while things were reheating. I'd gotten her the usual, a sweater and a bottle of her favorite perfume. My brother earned socks and a new backpack from Peter. I could see the mild disappointment behind his smile. Nothing said New on the streets like nice things. He'd have to rough it up some, or trade it in for something else. Peter didn't have any idea what it was like to be mostly homeless, and I didn't really either, except what I'd gathered from watching my brother and County's clientele.

Peter gave me a belt with a huge abstractly shaped silver buckle. "It's sure to be fashionable soon," my mom said, patting my arm as I lifted it out of the box. I spotted a gift receipt below and grinned. Returned soon was more like it.

My mother saved her gift for last. It was big and fluffy in that way that was always disappointing as a kid: a pillow from your least favorite grandmother, or a stuffed animal from your aunt. I ripped into the wrapping paper with trepidation and found-a lovely new winter coat. It was teal with large gold b.u.t.tons.

"She got it last spring when they were on sale," Peter said, so I would know.

It was utilitarian, sure. But every single other coat I owned right now had someone else's blood on it. I clutched it to my chest and beamed at her. "It's perfect."

We were all together there, having some sort of cookie-cutter Christmas, only things were really nice for once. Peter was pa.s.sing the stuffing when Grandfather started up from his current location, in the kitchen next to the toaster.

"What's that?" Peter asked.

"A gift from a patient's family," I lied quickly, and raced over to the bar. "I didn't know any German."

"Well, that's very kind."

"Wasn't it, though?" Grandfather didn't talk unless-I patted his lid in what I hoped was a pacifying manner and started edging toward my door. There was a knock, and it nearly made me jump out of my skin.

"I'll get it, dear-" my mother began.

"No! No-no-I've got it." I raced around my kitchen's tiny bar and teetered up on my heels to look through the peephole. Someone I didn't know stood outside. He raised his hand to knock again. I opened the door just an inch, prepared to throw my entire weight behind it to close it again if I needed to.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

"And you are?" I whispered through the crack.

"You know who I am, silly." And for a second, his eyes flared brown.

"Asher! You were not invited."

"I just came to bring you a gift," he explained as I opened the door wider. "I didn't know-"

"You knew." I planted a finger into Asher's chest. "I told you last night."

Asher scratched his chin in contemplation. His current chin, one I hadn't seen before. He was normal looking, just a little on this side of average, clean-cut handsome sliding toward middle age. The Asher I was used to was chiseled-handsome with a fancy car; this version was more the man-next-door who probably knew how to use power tools. "Did you mention it?" he asked.

I gritted out in a low voice, "For a shapeshifter, you're a really miserable liar."

"Only when I want to be." He leaned in and pecked me on the cheek. It was unexpected-both from him and from this new form.

"Who is it, Edie?"

"It's-" My voice caught. I wasn't sure what to tell them.

"I'm Kevin. Nice to meet you all." He waved from outside while scanning around the room to include everyone in his wave.

"Well, come on in, Kevin!" my mother said.

"Oh, no, Mom-"

"It's Christmas, Edie-"

"I was really just here to drop this off." He handed me a box. It was tiny, but had a weight to it when I hefted. "To drop this off for my special girl."

My eyes widened at him-in anger and panic. "Ash-er," I said, under my breath.

"Really?" My mother's voice reached new heights. "Did you hear that, Peter?"

"Any friend of Edie's is a friend of ours. Come in, come in," he said, waving Asher in.

Jake was the only one who wasn't fooled. He'd spent a week with me recently, helping me out after I'd been stabbed. He'd had the wisdom not to ask questions-and to be honest, I'd been able to handle most of my own care-but he'd known I hadn't had any boyfriends calling, either on the phone or in person, during all of that time. He set his shoulders and gave Asher the once-over, subtly jerking up his chin in manly acknowledgment.

Jake being protective of me? Now, that was a change.

"We didn't bring enough chairs, I'm afraid-"

"That's fine, because Kevin was going-" I said, trying to close the door.

"Edie! Why didn't you ever tell us about him?" my mother pressed, unashamed to interrogate me in front of witnesses.

"We just started dating," Asher began, taking a step inside. "It was an office romance."

My mother's bearing straightened. "Are you a doctor?"

Asher laughed. "No. I do computer work for County. Someone downloaded a virus onto a computer on Edie's floor, and the rest was history."

"A very short history." I sighed and let him in. "Come in."

Asher grinned at me. "I thought you'd never ask."

What followed was fairly painless, as these things go. An extra folding chair was hauled from my hall closet. My mother's cooking was excellent, as always, Peter pontificated on random topics, and Jake kept his head down. Jake was off the drugs-one look at him and you could see it-but while he'd been using, he'd developed an almost vampire-like ability to deflect attention from himself. No one wanted to know anything about my job-and if they did, as a nurse, losing their interest was easy. Most people didn't want to talk about p.i.s.s, blood, or s.h.i.t. And besides, my mother was more interested in my nascent "relationship" with Kevin and the currently vacant status of my womb.

"She's always been concerned with her career, Kevin," my mother began, apologizing for me. "But I'm sure if she met a good man, she'd settle down. She could work a normal job-there are nursing jobs during the daytime, my friend Frances has one, and her hospital even provides day care, she told me a few months ago at church. Do you attend church, Kevin?"

Asher did a much better job of answering to a strange name than I would have-I wondered if the forms he took came complete with names imprinted, like those written on the back of T-shirts for summer camp-but it was nice to see that my mother's stream-of-consciousness way of speaking could derail even him. He swallowed slowly, looking a little pained, like the piece of mashed potatoes in his throat had corners. I grinned maliciously across the table at him.

"Well, Mrs. Spence," he began.

"Grinder," Peter corrected, not because he was mad, but because he couldn't help himself.

"Mrs. Grinder," Asher continued. "I haven't been to church in a long time. But I was raised-and this will sound odd, I admit-half Catholic, half Pentecostal."

"Really?"

"Really. I spent summers with my Catholic grandmother, but my father's family are foursquare all the way."