After we sadly had to remove the work Anya and Ria had done on us, I went back downstairs to go and collect the bags that Claire and Anya had taken with them. I brought the bags to the guest room, where Anya had already dived underneath the blankets. Claire had been waiting on me before heading to bed herself.

“Thanks.” She smiled as she took the bags off my hands.

“No problem, is the room to your liking?”

“Very much so.” Claire nodded.

“If it gets too warm, you just turn the knob on the heating unit.”

“Yeah, I know how it works. It’s the same kind of units that our school uses.”

“Fair enough.” I nodded. “I’ll be going now and leave you two to your well-deserved rest.”

Before I could leave the room, Claire stopped me. “Hey Aurora, I know we’ve said this plenty of times already this evening, but thanks again for letting us stay over.”

“Yeah, thank you so much.” Anya said, she had turned to her side to speak directly at me.

“Absolutely no problem. Stay for as long as you like. I doubt trains and stuff will be running tomorrow. Over here, you are safe and warm. There’s plenty of food and plenty of space too. Please don’t ever feel like you are a nuisance in my home.”

“Aurora, you have a heart of gold, you know that?” Claire chuckled.

“I’m sure you would do the same for me if our situations were turned around.”

Claire smiled and nodded. “Without a doubt. Good night.”

“Good night.” Anya echoed her girlfriend.

“Have a good night, you two.” I repeated and closed the door behind me, and then continued to make my way upstairs. When I entered our bedroom, Em had put on her pajama pants and a warm looking sweater and was leaning against the front of the bed. Ria was already tucked in and had gone back to snooze town.

“Aren’t you going to bed yet?” I whispered.

“You are going downstairs to drink something, aren’t you? I’m going with you because I want to drink some hot chocolate before bed too.”

“Was it that obvious that I was thirsty?”

“You didn’t drink anything yet today. I figured you were waiting for everyone else to go to bed first.”

I nodded. Em knows me very well. “Won’t Ria get lonely?”

“No, she’s taken Shima hostage. She will be fine.”

I looked back over to Ria, what I didn’t see before was that there was a tiger striped tail whipping back and forth from underneath the blanket. It looked like Ria had taken Shima into a big hug. Shima, the fluffy cuddle cat that she is, didn’t mind that at all, obviously.

I giggled softly. “Okay, fair enough.” I took out my phone to snap a picture of this cute happenstance, but Em stopped me.

“I’ve already taken a couple of pictures from a better angle. I’ll send them to you later.” She then walked towards the door and beckoned me over. “Come, before your eyes start lighting up like a christmas tree.

“I’m not that thirsty…”

Em walked back over to me and forcibly pulled me out of the room.

We went all the way down to the kitchen on the ground floor. Em got to work on her chocolate milk while I poured myself a good old glass of vintage red.

I gave my glass a whiff before I put my lips to it, and I don’t know why, but for some reason it smelt way better now than it has ever done. Maybe because of the festivities? Or maybe my tastes are still developing. I didn’t really think about it too much before taking my first sip.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Em had turned on the stove and was heating up some milk in a small sauce pan as she looked at me for a bit. “Did you get any messages from our friends?” She asked.

“Oh… I actually didn’t check.” I took my phone out of my pants.

“Auro…”

“Sorry, I wasn’t really thinking about it.” I shook my head as I looked down at my screen. I actually got quite a few messages. As I wasn’t going to go to bed soon, I might as well answer them now.

“And?”

“Quite a few.” I nodded as I browsed through the messages. I immediately replied to the message Pres had sent me and to the message from Karin and Em’s mom. I saw I had also received messages from Alessia, Aileen, Epiphania, Viktor and Alex. They were all directed to both me as my girlfriends so I showed Em my phone, so she could read them too before I replied.

“That’s nice.” She smiled. “Viktor really must be hitting it off with Alex. Sending a combined message like that.”

“I know right.” I chuckled. “Well, it’s not like we didn’t know they were an item.”

“True.” Em nodded and added some chocolate to the pan. “About the Vampires, though. You never got any messages from the others?”

“Not really.” I shook my head. “We have not really talked with them much.”

“Maybe you should work on that, as you are pretty much going to become the leader of their club, shouldn’t you?”

“I know… That’s easier said than done, though.” I started to write a couple of messages back to our vampiric friends that had sent some to us.

“Especially since they weren’t really too enthusiastic about becoming the heir apparent of Alessia.”

“Em… I know, trust me.” I sighed.

“As the wife apparent of the soon to be leader, I’m only here to remind you of your duties.” She smirked.

“Wife apparent, hey?” I winked as I took another swig of my drink. The thirst that had been rising up the entire evening was finally starting to get quenched.

“One of two, indeed.” Em continued. “It’s our job to share any burden with you, after all.”

“That’s quite the romantic view of marriage.”

“Isn’t it literally in people’s vows?”

“Doesn’t mean that if it’s in it, that people actually follow them.”

“Yeah I know… But that means that the people who don’t follow them should be ‘deviant’ rather than the people who do, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. But I still find the way you said it rather romantic.”

The sound of someone descending the stairs instinctively made me hide my glass away just in case it was Anya. But instead we were met by Claire.

“I’m sorry. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” She apologizes.

I unhid my glass and took another drink, shaking my head while I did so. “You are not. We just wanted to drink something and were talking about marriage.”

“Marriage of all things?” Claire looked at Em.

Em nodded. “Is Anya asleep already?”

“Yeah.” Claire nodded in return. “I wanted to come and ask you something, but I heard voices coming from downstairs. So here I am.”

“What did you want to ask? I take it it’s something Anya shouldn’t know as you didn’t ask it before?” I tilted my head a little.

Claire nodded once more. “It’s about the stuff you are drinking right now.”

“Ah yeah… That makes sense.” I put my glass on the counter for a couple of seconds. “Shoot.”

“Is there any fridge we should be avoiding? Or maybe your dishwasher?”

“Hmmm.” I scratched my cheek. “You don’t really need to avoid the fridges, but I mainly keep my stuff in this one. Just make sure that she doesn’t want to drink any grape juice. As for the dishwasher…”

“Auro will do the dishwashing of her glasses by hand. Don’t worry about that.”

I chuckled softly. “Well, you heard my ‘wife apparent’.”

Claire chuckled in return. “Alright then. It’s just to make sure no accidents happen.”

“It’s fine. It wasn’t a bad question.” I smiled. “I probably should’ve let you know before by a text message or something.”

Claire shook her head. “Nah, this is better. If the preview of my phone shows what you are talking about, Anya might get suspicious.”

“Does she look at your phone that intently?” Em asked.

“Not really, but Aurora tends to word some things rather directly.”

“Hey… Not when it comes to this.” I take my glass back in hand.

“It’s true that she tends to twirl around that subject a bit. But I get your point, Claire.” Em giggled into her closed fist.

“Better be safe than sorry.” Claire smiled in return. “But thanks, that’s what I wanted to know. Then I will wish you a good night once again.”

“You don’t want to have anything to drink before you go to bed, Claire?” Em asked before Claire managed to leave. “I’m making some hot chocolate.”

“Nah, I’m fine.” Claire smiled. “Thanks for the offer though.”

“Alright, then I’ll wish you a good night too.”

“Good night, Claire.”

Claire smiled and made her way up the stairs again.

“Good rules make good neighbors or something like that.” I said as I put my glass back to my lips.

“I’m so happy nobody has had that accident yet with your grape juice.”

“Em… please don’t jinx it…”

“Whoops.” She grinned and got back to work on her chocolate milk.

-Please don’t be jinxed, please don’t be jinxed, please don’t be jinxed…-