I step into Leona's apartment and drop Demon on the ground.

"Where did Leona get a dog?" Cor asks.

I point to the parking lot. "A box in the parking lot."

He looks up at me, still petting Demon, and his dark eyes hold a little bit of sadness in them. "Really? Who would do that to such sweet dogs?" But at the same moment, Demon gets a little to playful and scratches his hand.

Instead of getting to upset, Cor just laughs. "Aren't you a little demon."

I laugh. "That's his name. Demon."

Cor nods, and stands up. "Fitting name. Alright, you ready?"

Nodding, I head out the door.

Cor's eyes linger on Demon for a second before he leaves.

"Actually, Cor, there is something else." I point up to my bedroom. "Can we go to my room, real quick?"

He nodded and followed me to my dorm.

As soon as I entered, Halo bounded into the room and jumped on Cor.

"How many dogs do you have?" He asked.

Ghost came into the room and lazily slumped onto the floor. Lazy.

"Just one." I say.

"But I can count. There are two dogs, right?" He asks.

I nod. "There are two dogs. You see, Halo, is mine," I point to Ghost. "Ghost, is yours."

Cor smiles at me and I think I found my new favorite thing in the world.

"Really? Why?" He asks that a lot, doesn't he?

"Because you need a dog. Plus, if you don't take him... I'll be forced to send him to a shelter. And after a day of not being—"

"I'll take him!" He yells, scooping Ghost into his arms. He sees how enthusiastic he was and calms down. "Yeah, I'll take him."

I give him a small smirk, something I can say I'm glad to have perfected the art of, and leave my room.

"Shouldn't you feed your dog?" Cor asks.

I widen my eyes. "Yes! I was going to... I just Umm... Forgot."

I scratch the back of my neck as Cor looks down and chuckles quietly to himself.

"Give me one second." I hold up my finger and unlock my dorm.
***
Liah sets down a root beer in front of me in a tall mug.

"Thank you, Liah." I say.

Her blue eyes shine with admiration.Any time, Gem."

After she leaves I look back to Cor.

"Earlier you said that the only people who can over ride a doctoral report are the Elders. Right?" I take a large drink of my root beer and let out a relaxing breath.

Nothing is better than root beer.

Cor nods. "Yeah. As a Scorpio, one of my job choices as an adult is a doctor. It's quite easy to shadow people at a hospital,"

I try to visualize Cor following a doctor around, asking him random questions.

It looks pretty funny.

I'm laughing my butt off and Cor gives me an odd look.

One eyebrow is raised and his head is cocked to the side.

Ghost shifts in his lap, and begins licking his face.

Instantly, my fit of laughter becomes deadly as it cuts off my breathing.

It isn't that funny, but just being here with him makes it that much better.

Everything is better with your crush.

And like a lot of crushes, this one will never go anywhere.

The irony of life. The ones we like always seem to get away.

But if I could do this everyday, I would.

My laugh is infectious. Cor follows my lead and soon we're both laughing for no reason.

We're just happy,

After several long seconds of laughing, Cor looks too me with his pretty and mischievous dark eyes. "You do that a lot."

"Do what?" I'm confused and lost at this point in our conversation.

"Laugh and smile. It's nice." Cor bites his lower lip and I look at my drink to avoid eye contact.

I don't want him to see me blush.

He shakes his head and takes a drink of his ice tea. "Back on track, an Elder must have told the doctor to lie about his reports."

I must admit, Car's research and detective skills are amazing.

"So, my idea is to get a certain friends of his too give us any piece of information." Cor had already thought of everything.

"Speaking of Arius's friends, what's wrong with you and Aris?" And he better not say nothing, because something is obviously wrong.

I can tell from the way his eyebrows scrunch together and how his lip twitches at the corner, that even thinking about him makes him mad.

"I'm just done with him. He treats all of us like we're nothing but dirt and I'm sick of it. It wasn't what he said in your car on the way to drop off Arius at the hospital, but the way he said it." Cor takes a couple of calming breaths and flexes his hand. "I hate people who belittle me and he got on my last nerve earlier that night.

Did you know it's his fault Virginia fell down the stairs? He walked into her and she fell because she didn't have good stability. Then he just walked away.

Virginia is my friend. And nobody treats my friends like that."

And that right there is one of my many reasons why I find him attractive.

He cares so deeply. He gives his all.

"Oh." Is all I can say back.

"Yeah." Cor shakes his head but looks calmed down. But I can tell he's still not okay with Aris and probably never will be.

Who knew that Aris would do that to someone as kind as Virginia.

She has never done any of us wrong.

The door to the bar opens up and I widen my eyes so see who comes on.

Chancler.

He sees us and gives us each a nod.

He turns to walk out but looks at war with himself about it. What a weird thing to do. Walk in just to walk back out.

In two point five seconds he slides into a chair across from us.

That's probably even weirder. He's. It in our class, why is he trying to be so friendly?

"We need to talk." He looks at Cor then to me, then back at Cor. "Is that a dog?"

"Yes. Yes it is." Cor runs his hand down Ghost's back.

"Anyways... You remember what happened at the party, right?" He asks, and I nod. "Well I was going through texts when I found this..."

He showed me a text message from an unknown number.

"You got paid eight hundred dollars to mess with Gem?" Cor asks, completely as lost as me.

Chancler nods. "It's in my bank account. Normally, I'm pretty rational and I wouldn't have done it. But I was so drunk and I'm so sorry, Gem."

His face has mostly healed over, only the remains of bruises still cover his face.

I nod. "I understand."

No. I did not understand.

But I did not want to ruin a perfectly good night with Cor.

"I didn't know where you were so I got a hold of Aria and asked if she knew. So she called one of your friends... Lana? Loana—"

"Leona?" I offer.

"Yeah. And she told me. She told me to tell you to check your texts too." Chancler tips and imaginary hat. "Bye, Gem."

I wave my hand like that situation wasn't at all awkward and disturbing.

Cor grabs my hand and offers me a smile. "You look like you need a break. Do you remember that Beach I showed you?"

How could I forget?

"Meet me there at eight tonight. Go hang out with Leona. You haven't noticed, but your phone has been blowing up." Just as he speaks, my phone blows up again.

"I think she's mad I left her at the dealership." I shudder at the thought, bad nostalgia coming.

It always has.

But I hate dwelling on the past.

We all have demons, and we all have ghosts.

"Sounds like a plan." I wink at Cor, gathering my back pack and check the time.

We only hung out for an hour?

"Good. Sounds like a good plan." Cor nods and walks into the back of the kitchen.