Ria was already enthusiastically discussing what she would order from the WcRonald’s while Claire and I just stared out of the window into the street.

“You wouldn’t mind me visiting occasionally, right?” Claire asked

“Why would I? You’ve seen the amount of rooms this house has, plenty of guest rooms for you if you want to sleep over as well.”

“Nice. Just wanted to make sure.”

“I mean, I’ll have to see if you don’t start pushing your theatrics to 200%, otherwise it’ll be just fine.” I joked and patted her on the back.

My friend smiled and put her right hand on her chest. “What? Me? Theatrics? I’d never.”

The two of us started laughing, and that’s right about when Madeleine walked back into the room, followed by Alessia.

“I have called the owner and he has agreed upon a starting sum of 900.000 euros. That price also includes the furniture.” Madeleine opened her briefcase to show me the contract. I was expecting a sum that high, but that was still a lot of money we were talking about.

“Pfff…” I blew out a bit of air.

“That should be well within your budget, Aurora.” Alessia reassured me.

“I know… But a couple of months ago, I could not even imagine having that much money, like, ever.” I replied. “So excuse me if I look a bit shocked.” I chuckled nervously.

“The owner actually agreed to lower the price by 10% after I told her a young woman who was interested in history was looking to buy.” Madeleine added.

“The house was going for a million then?” Em raised her hand slightly.

Madeleine nodded “Yes. That was indeed the case.”

“Is he sure about that?” Alessia asked. “We don’t want him to completely go out of business and we can definitely pay for it.”

“He was absolutely adamant about it.” Madeleine explained. “So much so that he’d no longer employ me if I’d have gone for the original.”

“Oh wow.” I scratched my cheek. “So 900k…”

“Yes. The only thing you need to do is sign here, and at the bottom of the next page.” Madeleine offered me a pen and held the briefcase out for me so I could have a stable writing platform to sign on.

I nervously took the pen out of her hand and looked around. Em and Ria both gave me a smile, and Alessia gave me thumbs up. I don’t know what Claire was doing but it looked like she was about to compose a poem, so I decided to get it over with and put the pen to the paper. “Here?”

“Yes.” Madeleine nodded.

I signed and then flipped the paper, on the other side it was quite obvious where I had to sign so I did. Afterwards I handed the pen over to Madeleine who put it away, closed her briefcase and extended her hand.

“Congratulations on buying your first home.”

I took her hand and shook it. “Thank you… I don’t really know how to feel right now.” I looked around the empty room. “I think it still needs to sink in that I’ll be living in this house from now on…”

“Don’t celebrate too early, Auro.” Em chuckled. “You still need to move, do all the utility contracts… the internet as well.”

“Oh yeah, shit… I forgot about that.”

“I’ll help you with that as well, of course.” Alessia said calmly.

“Thanks… because that’s going to be a pain in the ass.”

“I don’t know how you survived without us before, Auro.” Em shook her head.

“I am not sure either.” I chuckled. “Going from part-time job to part-time job, I suppose.”

“Awh.” Ria gave me a big hug.

“You don’t need to feel sorry. It has made me who I am today.” I patted my girlfriend on her head.

Madeleine walked away silently and halted at the door leading into this room.

“I guess it’s about time to leave so Maddy can go do her paperwork.” Alessia said, hinting that we should probably not stall our realtor for too long.

“And we can go and eat some WcRonald’s.” Claire smiled.

“I’d like to have a hamburger or two…” Maddy lamented with a sigh. “But before you offer, I already have plans for this evening.”

“You can always take one for on the road.” Alessia said, walking past Madeleine.

“I could, but then my partner would probably get a bit miffed if I didn't take a burger with me for them.”

“Seems like an easy problem to solve, doesn’t it?” I followed Alessia with my girlfriends and Claire close behind me.

“If only… they are trying to lose weight, so even if I do I’ll be kinda blowing up a bomb. So I’d rather avoid that situation.” Madeleine followed us while we headed downstairs.

“Very thoughtful of you.” Alessia replied.

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t need to have food like you vampires do.”

“Believe me when I say that it definitely involves some other challenges.” I chuckled. “And having to relearn how to eat food when you are not hungry is also not that easy.”

“I don’t doubt that for a second.” Madeleine smiled.

When we all finally reached the front door again, Madeleine locked up behind us. “I will deliver the keys to the house at your address on a later date.”

“Thank you. I’ll keep an eye out for it.” I shook her hand one last time before we said our goodbyes.

“We are walking to the WcRonald’s right? Since it’s just around the corner?” Claire asked.

“I’m pretty sure that we couldn’t have parked any closer than that even if we wanted to.” I laughed. “I’ve not been in the heart of the city that much, but I do know that finding a parking spot is still a nightmare.”

We crossed the street and started to make our way to our fast-food. Alessia had a very big smile on her face.

“Are you happy about the sale?” I asked.

“Ah?” It looked as if she wasn’t really expecting a question. “No, believe it or not, I’m pretty happy we are going to a WcRonald’s.”

“You don’t go to often?”

“Not by myself, and our other vampiric friends don’t really like hamburgers too much.”

“Not even Aileen?” Emma asked. “She looks like someone who might enjoy one occasionally.”

Alessia scratched her cheek. “Aileen does like hamburgers, but I think she’d rather visit real hamburger restaurants.”

“So… you’ve never really asked her along, have you?” I looked at Alessia with a minor smirk.

“I… I suppose not, no.” Alessia looked at me, her face pulling into a bit of a pout. “I’m still a rather shy person, you know. When I don’t need to do conclave business. I just learned to hide it pretty well.”

“You should never feel shy to ask us out!” Ria exclaimed. “We’d definitely not mind going places with you.”

“Ria, the way you said that made it sound like you were asking her out.” Em shook her head with a smile on her face.

“Oh! Oops.”

Alessia started laughing. “Thank you, I really appreciate it.” Alessia put her hand on her chest and bowed just ever so slightly to Ria.

“Wow, so graceful.” I could hear Claire whisper to herself.

“That’s what you get for hanging around nobility for centuries, I suppose.” I replied.

Claire looked a bit shocked that I’d heard, but then turned herself to Alessia. “If you do not mind, could you give me some tips later onhow to move in a more noble way? I’m doing a role in a play where I play a noblewoman and I’d like to make it as authentic as possible.”

As I’d expected, that sudden request overwhelmed Alessia a little, however she managed to recover rather quickly and gave a calm nod in response. “I’d definitely not mind.”

We entered a small shopping street in which the WcRonald’s was situated. For a pretty cold day, the shopping street was remarkably full. The city had already placed some Christmas decorations which made the entire street look really really cozy.

“These people must be doing some holiday shopping already.” Em commented while looking around. “Auro, you better make sure you buy something for my mom, okay?”

“Of course, she invited us after all. I wouldn’t dare to show up empty-handed.”

“I already bought my present!” Ria replied.

“Oh? Did you buy something for me too?” I poked my girlfriend in her side.

“Maybe. You’ll have to wait and see.” She giggled.

That’s when we entered a very busy patch in the shopping street, a lot of people were trying to get into one of those pop-up stores you see more often these days, this one apparently sold kitchen stuff. Nothing really that I was interested in.

A bit in front of us I spotted a rather shady looking guy, moving through the crowd in our direction, while others tried to keep as much distance from each other as possible, it looked like this guy was taking the opportunity presented by the crowd to get closer to the people, and their bags, instead.

My intuition was on point as when we were about to cross paths, he faked to be pushed by someone else and bumped into Claire, slipping his hand into Claire’s bag.

“Sorry, ma’am.” He apologized himself to Claire and tried to pull away, but he didn’t count on my iron grip around his forearm, stopping him dead in his tracks and with Claire’s wallet in his hands.

His eyes went wide in shock as he looked up at the person who’d taken him by the arm.

I smirked. “What do you think you are doing, buddy?”