Midnight Surrender: A Paranormal Romance Anthology by Alyssa Rose Ivy, Airicka Phoenix, Shannon Dermott, Charlotte Abel, Kelly D. Cooper, Laura A. H. Elliott, Amy M. Jones, Kris Kendall Page A

say squat. Instead, I focused on taking a few glances here and there over where the girls were practicing. A few times, I caught Mercy looking back at me. I wasn’t vain, but it didn’t hurt my ego to think that maybe she was into me like I was into her.
    “ So, why do you always wear a baseball hat?” Mercy asked, sitting in the passenger seat of my monster mobile. We were headed to the county library because the school library closed before practice was over.
    “ It’s a long story,” I said, hoping she’d leave it at that.
    Glancing over because we were at a stop light, I could see she wanted to press me more. However, she didn’t and I was grateful.
    It was a personal story. One that ran deep and wasn’t something I liked to talk about. In time I may share, but I was just getting to know her. When the light changed to green, I hit the gas a little too hard and glanced over at her to mutter an apology.
    Nodding her head slightly to acknowledge me, she continued as if that hadn’t happened. “I guess it helps that you look really cute wearing it,” she said, boldly.
    That had my eyebrow arching. She smiled and looked away. Was I moving too slow? I would have never guessed her to speak so freely. Tugging the hat off my head, I hooked it on her. “Not as cute as it looks on you,” I said, giving her my best grin before focusing my attention back on the road.
    Thinking my hair was packed down on my head from the cap, I ruffled a hand through it. When the library came into view, I wasn’t sure if I was happy or sad. She’d clearly given me an opening, but what the hell was I supposed to do with it.
    Not normally a patron of the place, I was shocked by how full it was. Not quite standing room only, but most of the tables had people sitting at them. We managed to find one towards the back, which in a way was good.
    “ So, what are you having problems with?”she asked, getting straight to business. She still wore my hat, and I wanted to kiss her for looking so cute in it.
    My mouth opened to answer her question and I stopped myself. I didn’t want to lie to her. I wasn’t clueless in the class but to admit to using it as a way to get her out with me might not go over well. So I found truths in the statements I made. “I wasn’t sure the best approach to the question. I mean there are clearly two ways to look at it,” I began and launched into my two theories. Studiously, she listened and clearly got what I was talking about. It then became easy between us as we worked through both approaches talking about the pros and cons. But working with her, we were able to come up with the best solution and a good attack on how I should approach the paper. I, along with the rest of the class, didn’t understand why we had to write a paper in a Math class, but go figure.
    We decided to do the library thing again in a few days to see how things were going. She was also planning to share her project too. It was hard to believe that a beautiful girl like herself was so approachable and down to earth. She didn’t seem to have one vain bone in her body.
    “ Ready to go?” I asked, reluctantly. We’d outlasted many of the other people who had been there or come after we showed up. I was afraid they’d start turning off the lights.
    “ Sure,” she said.
    After she told me where she lived, I had a couple of options on how to get there. One would take a little longer than the others. Let’s call it the scenic route. Being that I wanted to extend our time together, I drove that way.
    When we passed the last of the town and deep into suburbia, my monster coughed and died. Rolling to a stop, I was grateful we weren’t on a major road stuck in the middle of traffic. Where we were, no one had yet to pass.
    Closing my eyes, embarrassed that we maybe be forced to walk, I put the car in park for no other reason than habit and got out.
    Cursing, I said, “I’m sorry about this,” before I closed the door. Lifting the hood,