Darkest Powers Bonus Pack 2

That was a lie. I knew the date when Chloe first kissed me. Hell, I knew the hour. But is that whatyou use to mark the start of a relationship? Or was it our second kiss, when we knew we were reallystarting something. Or was it our first actual date, a week later. Which one did she consider the rightone? That was the important thing. I wanted to ask, but it seemed like I should know.I bent to check a footprint. The neighbor walking his dog. I straightened. “What I mean is, why isthree months important? Why not one month?”“Because you missed the one-month anniversary.”I scowled at him. “I didn’t miss it. You’re the one who mentioned it when it was already too late,and Chloe never said anything.”“She wouldn’t. It’s up to you to remember and since you missed one month, and one week, too—”“One week? We’re supposed to celebrate—?”“You celebrate everything. That’s the rule.”Rules. I hated them. Well, no. In general, I was good with rules. I understood them and they madelife easier. But with dating, there’s no book to study. No pattern to follow. It’s just an endlessminefield of places to screw up. At least it is according to Simon. Which may explain why he’s nevereven gotten to three months with a girl.“But I’ve gotten close a lot of times,” he said when I pointed this out.“I don’t think that counts.”“I could have gotten to three months if I wanted. I didn’t want to. You do. And I’m guessing youwant to make it to six months?”“Course.” I paused. “So that’s the next milestone? We skip four and five?”“Yes. You can’t celebrate too many anniversaries or you seem clingy. Remember Brandi in ninthgrade? She expected me to remember the anniversary of the minute I asked her out—every single day.Sulked if I forgot. We didn’t even make it to two weeks.”A scent wafted past. I paused to catch it. Just a deer. “Okay, so on anniversaries, I need to give hersomething. An incentive.”Simon almost walked into a tree. “What?”“An incentive. Like in third grade, when Mrs. Nestor gave me a cookie every day that I didn’t readduring class and promised me a candy bar if I didn’t read all week.”“You never got that candy bar.”“Because it wasn’t worth listening to her yammer about stuff I already knew. But this anniversarygift thing is like that, right? An incentive for Chloe to keep going out with me.”He sighed. “No . . . It’s just a gift.”“To thank her for going out with me?”A deeper sigh. I kinda liked the incentive idea. It might be the only thing that got me to six months.Not that anything was going wrong between Chloe and me. It was great actually. Which was theproblem. For every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. It applies in physics and inlife. Any day now, I expected Chloe to tell me it wasn’t working out, that she’d made a mistake, that Iwas just too cranky, too protective, too overbearing, too . . . not what she wanted in a boyfriend. Notlong-term anyway.“You okay, bro?”“Yeah.”I shook it off and stopped walking. I took a good look around. Inhaled deeply. Listened. Remindedmyself that this was what I was supposed to be doing—scouting.As usual, there was nothing. Dad was right—the St. Clouds were lying low and regrouping. Givingus time to get comfortable. Then we’d pop up like prairie dogs for a peek around and they’d swoopdown and snatch us up. As long as we stayed in our hole, we’d be fine.