Eternally Blue (Sunset Cliffs Vampire #1) (Paranormal Teen Romance) by Katie Aleo Page A

out”.
     
    “ O.K well, I” He blows air out of his mouth and starts tapping his foot against the ground nervously in thought. “Well, I can’t make any promises since we don’t have any I.D for you, but hopefully they won’t card you, I mean they pierce 13 year olds these days, but let’s try it and see”.
     
    That was how we end up at Claire’s in the mall, conveniently located near the bookstore we would be going to immediately following my piercing, barring any unforeseen ear piercing deaths or hospitalizations. The piercer was pretty pierced herself, though the sign on the piercing station said they only pierce ears. She had exactly 13 piercings that I could see, and two of them were connected together by a bar. It was however, in her ear so I wasn’t sure if that was something Claire’s offered. She seemed rather sluggish and considering it was only 10 A.M, (we got there right as they opened) I wasn’t sure if she should be piercing me in her sleepy state. She confirmed my fear by saying “We don’t usually get people wanting piercings this early” as she swapped my ears with a cold cleaning solution.
     
    I looked wide eyed in terror at Noah, who returned my look. He looked just as scared as I was. I quickly checked his ears for holes and saw none, so maybe he was just hypothetically scared for me, or reasonably scared of our lackluster piercing specialist.
     
    Using a rather wicked looking gun, yes it was actually called a gun what she put up to my ear to poke a hole in it with, she quickly poked, or shot really, a hole in either ear. It was over in a pinch and in seconds I was holding a mirror up to myself admiring my red and tender ears with their tiny gold studs. They weren’t exactly what I was imagining but they were free with ear piercing and even if I was willing to pay for fancier ones, they wouldn’t be too grand because you have to select from a special few for the first 6 weeks to make sure your ears don’t puss and scab all over them and kill you from cheap metals or something like that according to my piercer.
     
    The holes looked relatively straight so I tore my eyes away from my mirror to look at Noah for approval. “Well?”
     
    He looked pretty sick. He was covering his mouth and nose with his hands and he was bent over at the waist and standing apart from the piercing station. I looked in alarm at my piercer and glanced at him and only shrugged while continuing to clean up the tabletop of the piercing station. “Lots of guys, or people in general can’t handle the sight of being pierced, he should be ok in a minute”.
     
    I hopped off my high stool and walked over, putting my hand on his back, and bent over to get eye level with him, letting blood rush to my ears, making them throb. “You ok?” I asked, rubbing his back.
     
    He pulled away from me, and stood. He took his hand away from his face and sniffed the air. His brow furrowed and that is when I got alarmed. Do I stink? Do I not smell like other human’s? Do I not bleed red? I rushed over to the mirror to check my ears for any sign of blood. It looked ok and if my red ears were any indication, if any blood were to be spilled, it would probably be red.
     
    I looked back to him but he seemed to have recovered himself, smiling at me. “Are you pleased with them?”
     
    I grinned; relieved he was ok and nodded. “Oh yes! Thank you so much for bringing me! I love them!”
     
    “ I think you would look great in some diamonds” he said with a teasing look in his eyes, “Maybe when you can get your training ears off I can bring you to a different type of jewelry store in the mall for an upgrade”.
     
    I flushed, embarrassed and looked at my feet, mumbling “you don’t have to do that”.
     
    “ How do these things work? Let me see the backs, does it hurt when I touch your ear?”
     
    I stood very still and whispered that no it didn’t hurt, and let him check out the backs of my earrings. He sucked in his