Ask Luke who his human companion was. He will tell you grudgingly.

Thinking about it, he added:

He won't really kill you.

Sure, it sounded harmless as a joke, but with Luke, you just never know.

Gentlemen get mortified quiet quickly.

Kerry looked at the second part of his statement, and her eyes grew wide. She looked at him, giving him an are-you-serious look.

He nodded, smiling a wolfish smile, daring her to take it.

"Where are we going?" she asked nonchalantly. He took that as a yes.

"My…no…I'm renting it to your friends. My apartment? Luke," he said a little louder, "You'll join us, right?"

He heard the quiet laugh, pictured Luke smiling, and smiled himself.

"By the park, near the curb," he said, yet again, a little louder than necessary…about conversation level.

"Race ya?" Luke asked.

"Want to beat Luke to my apartment?" Michel asked Kerry.

She thought about it for a little, still high on the adrenaline of what she was about to do.

"We'll be waiting," she said, when she rolled down the window, to find Luke driving next to them.

Luke looked at her, and smiled his signature smile.

She sat back down like normal people, but shuddered as anyone sane would if they had the full impact of Luke's smile.

"Floor it," Kerry politely suggested. She seemed to have forgotten they were driving her dad's old car.

"What was it that Luke did to the car, specifically?" So she did not forget.

"I believe he did something with the cold air intake, fixed the exhaust, a set of header, an underpully gear, and a large throttle body," he said, vacantly. Then, just to make sure, "Of course, don't take what I told you for granted. I don't know much about cars."

Kerry looked at him skeptically. "And yet, you know more than my mechanic. Huh. How ironic." She seemed in her own thoughts, and Michel let her have her personal space.

After they reached his apartment (In the end, Luke won by cutting on front of other racers), Michel told Kerry, "Well, it would be best if you switch mechanics then?"

Luke looked up, offended. "Was there something wrong?" he asked, almost looking like he would just go to checking the car himself.

Kerry saw this, and she immediately wanted to deny such claims, but Michel just smiled at Luke.

"It ran beautifully," he told Luke. Luke visibly relaxed, but looked at Michel, knowing more would come.

"It would help Kerry and her neighborhood, as well as her father, if the car was quieter," and then changing the subject, he invited everyone in.

"Now Mike, when you said 'small,' I expected small, not a small-large."

"It is small! A small large. I was not lying."

"You were holding back information," Luke said, smiling a real smile, one that was not made to intimidate people, or to show his love of violence.

"Kerry," Michel turned to her, to get a "second" opinion. He didn't know which way she would go. She was looking around the small-large apartment, her eyebrows raised as if saying what else should we expect.

"Hmm?" she asked absentmindedly.

"Would you say I was lying here?"

"Uhmm…hard to say. You just told me you had an apartment…not a suite. Or whatever these things are called."

Luke looked satisfied. "See? I am telling ya the truth."

Michel looked at him, shaking his head. "You always tell the truth Luke. Well then. Juice? Coffee? Water? Tea? Something else?"

"I'll have a decaff," Luke said, checking out Michel's new painting, though smiling his smile, knowing what Michel meant.

"Uhmm…I don't care," Kerry said, before catching the annotation Michel meant. "Actually, do you have bottled water? Or soda?"

Michel devilishly smiled at Kerry. "I'll get you a Coke."

Kerry nodded, and started to look around the apartment once more.

She seemed very engrossed on a particular part, but Michel could not quiet place what it was.

The piano maybe? Or maybe his music collection? If she were as modern-thinking as many of the people he came across, she would not really like his collection.

Sure, it contained some rock, metal, and even rap, but the bulk of the music was classics.

Joplin, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Chopin, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Gershwin, Brahms…just to name a few.

"Ethan?" Kerry asked, a laugh hinted in her voice. "Are you Christian?"

Of all the questions…?

"Roman Catholic, if you want to get down and dirty," he told her.

"What is your stand point on gays?" she still sounds on the verge of laughing…why?

"It is sin," he joked, "But to every man and woman his or her preference, as long as they don't shove it in my and the rest of normal society's face," could she possibly be referring to…?

"Didn't T-chai-kov-sky—" she said the name slowly, "Dedicate his first concerto to a man? And wasn't he homosexual?" I knew it.

"Yes, but either way, he is a good musician," he told her, as he arrived with her cold Coke.

She smiled at him, mocking him, and he admitted to himself that maybe he likes all her smiles, and that he does not want to see just one for all eternity…but that would only leave a few years.

God. Life is hard.

He smiled back at her quickly, and while Luke was still observing a painting, he gives Kerry is look.

That the smile made her heart flutter a little made Luke look back, as if waiting for a sign from Michel to tell him to leave…or something.

Kerry figured out what it was he was implying. The situation would be tricky…how could she find a reason to talk to Luke…and in a way that he won't kill her?

Michel kept looking at Kerry. Yea, he wanted Luke to tell someone (ahem, Kerry), so he can get it out (and ahem, have Kerry tell him) and get his silent but growing pain out of him.

"I think I should go home," she said, not having even taken a drink from her Coke, which was on the table, cold and forgotten. "My friends know I left with you, and I don't think they'll just accept it as such. They'll interrogate me like I have done something wrong."

"But ya have," Luke said, playing along. "Ya were close to becomin' an assistant in murder." He smiled, waiting for her reaction.

It came quickly, but it also calmed down quicker than Luke anticipated. "You really did help Mike, didn't you?" he asked, serious, curious, intently. He looked at her appraisingly, as if trying to see where she could have gotten the courage to help Michel through and through.

"Well, yes," Kerry told him, at ease with him now. He was violent, but obviously in control, just like Michel. Of course, they fed regularly…she shuddered, and they both knew why.

They smiled apologetically, and she waved it off with her hand.

"I have to go. Nelle…oh God…what do I tell Nelle?" she looked at Michel, and implored him to make up an excuse.

"Tell her I asked you to pick up a friend that will also be renting with you guys," he turned to Luke. "You wouldn't mind living with a bunch of kids, right?"

He looked at Michel, smiled, and said seriously, "Only if there are more girls."

Kerry looked shocked, but snorted in the end. "Of course there will be more girls. Let's see… Me, Nelle, Mary, Jessica, and some other chick I don't know. Of course, there's guys too, and they think they're hot shit."

Luke looked at Kerry, this time it was his turn to be shocked. "I thought ladies generally had clean mouths."

"That's what they call themselves. I don't generally say inappropriate things," she said defensively.

Michel stepped, up, amused, but seeing where this brilliant, beautiful woman was going. "It's true. Well, tell Nelle we drove to Buffalo to pick up a friend of mine that needs housing, and I offered the last empty room. It'll be easy to believe," he said, shrugging.

It was close to six o'clock, and the sun would come up in about an hour.

"In the meanwhile, Luke," he said, "Do you wanna share my only room, or have your own privacy?" He knew Luke was coming, and he knew Kerry would have accompanied him. Michel was one of those opportunistic geniuses.

"I think I'd rather appreciate my own room, if ya don't mind Mike," Luke told Michel somewhat seriously. Maybe it was the joke Kerry made from the musician…

"Alright then. I'll see you two tomorrow."

"Uhmm…Kerry…would you mind giving me a lift?" he asked, uncertainly.

"Of course, Luke," she told him amiably enough. He smiled appreciatively and walked outside, giving them a private moment for a good bye.

"You know, your apartment really is sma—"

Michel walked up to her, and gave her a hug, kissing giving her a gentle kiss, smiling the whole time. Luke was now out of sight, out of mind.

She looked up at him, smiled, and mouthed the words I love you.

"I love you too," he said, aloud.

It was the first time.

Yay! My ideas did not want to leave me hanging at word 942 or something. Uneventful, but a teaser (if you want to call it that) for the next chapter is that it will be in Luke's point of view.

And...I don't know. Should he have a woman he once loved too? Or should it be that he had a mate, and she betrayed him? Or...he...

I think I just made my mind up. He falls in love with a young teacher in the...what era? Civil War? O.o