UnFamiliar

Chapter 11

The weirdest part about having Val as a familiar was the amount of girls that seemed to appear at odd times throughout our day. I knew it was Val too, because up until then the girls and I had somewhat of an understanding.

Actually, that was probably overstating it. Any girl who was looking for more than a friend got bored of me pretty quickly, as I was very clear about having no interest in them. As a result, most girls never went out of their way to talk to me unless it was about homework. Even then, my lack of aptitude for magic was common knowledge.

Val, despite dressing like a toddler who'd been allowed to pick his own clothes, attracted the girls in hoards. It was annoying.

In Physical Education, we were running laps. Val could clearly run faster if he wanted to but kept pace with me. I wasn't sure if it's because the other familiars were stuck to the sides of their witches or if he like my company. I was usually in the last few of the group during this particular torture, but this time there was a group of about five girls with their familiars directly behind us, giggling.

How did they even have breath to giggle? I felt like I was dying. My breath was nothing more than gasping for air as I tried to take another step because the P.E. teacher once told me I'd fail if I kept walking my laps.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Val turn his head to look back at the girls, then he leaned over to whisper, "What's their deal?"

All I could do was wave a dismissive hand; I'd tell him later. If I had to. It wasn't lost on me that Val was hot if you didn't care that he wasn't human. Despite having glowing eyes and horns, his smirks could make anyone's stomach have butterflies. More pertinent to our current predicament was the fact that Val insisted on not wearing his shirt when exercising.

Our school had a rule against this, but when the teach approached Val about it, he pointed out that all the other familiars weren't wearing any clothes. He'd then insisted that either clothes were required for all familiars or he could wear no clothes should he choose.

The teacher seemed to understand that the next step to this line of reasoning was for Val to strip altogether and decided to not kick that particular hornets' nest. He hadn't said another word about Val's lack of shirt in the five classes we'd had since.

I was on lap six of ten with a demon sporting an eight-pack next to me and a hoard of girls following us. It was kind of stupid on their part, I got a better view of all his assets being beside him than they every did from behind.

"Ambrose," Val said, and I jerked my gaze to his face, "I'm pretty sure you're supposed to look ahead of you when you run."

My face was already flushed from the running, thankfully. Otherwise, I would've blushed at being caught staring. To be fair to Val, I had definitely been staring. I wondered if demon anatomy was different, if they all were as ripped as him. As far as I could tell, he didn't do nearly as much upkeep as I would've expected and he ate almost anything I gave him. Maybe their metabolism was just different.

In reply to Val, I just shrugged as best I could while continuing my agonizingly slow run.

Val laughed.

Once we were done with the laps, one of the girls approached, which was a first. She was tall and had bangs that ran straight across her forehead. Her familiar was a little dog that stayed on her heels. I'd seen her around, but I didn't know her name as she didn't really hang out with Nina's friends who were the only girls I sometimes did stuff with.

She gave me an awkward smile and then turned to Val. "So, you're a demon?"

Val raised his eyebrows. "I thought that much was obvious."

"Right. Well. Do demons," her eyes were wandering down his body, "like to go on dates?"

Val cocked his head and looked to me. "What are dates?"

I was fairly certain he was just messing with her. True, there were some things that were clearly a human-realm only thing but I didn't think dates were one of those things. Besides, I'd caught Val reading a romance novel in the library once when we were supposed to be doing research on how to break our bond.

The girl faltered. "You know, going somewhere, doing an activity with someone you like."

My suspicions about Val faking his ignorance were all but confirmed when he mad his mouth into a comical "O" shape, and he said, "Like when Ambrose and I went and got ice cream?"

My face, which had been cooling down from running flushed again. If there weren't already rumors about me having that sort of relationship with Val, there would be after this.

"I, um, guess?" The girl looked to me.

"Usually," I said trying to keep my expression from showing my embarrassment, though with the heat in my cheeks it was probably a wasted effort, "you'd only be with one person on a date. Nina came with us then, so no, not a date."

Val's lips curved and I wanted to smack him. "Oh, my apologies. I misunderstood the definition this kind lady gave me."

The girl was fidgeting, and probably regretting ever approaching in the first place. "Anyway, I was wondering if you'd go on a date. With me. Tomorrow." She blushed.

Val eyed me and was facing me when he responded. "I'm not sure I'm allowed to go on dates as a familiar, what do you think, Ambrose?"

I thought he just wanted to make me the bad guy. "You can do what you want."

"That is the one thing I can't do," Val said, then he turned back to the girl, "I'm afraid I will be spending tomorrow in the library with Ambrose, we've got some research to do."

The girl nodded, and then practically ran away.

That night I was finishing writing a report that was due the following Monday when Val leaned over my shoulder. I thought he was reading what I'd been writing, trying to figure out what I'd been doing while he'd been looking through yet more books on familiars that we'd checked out of the library.

He said, "So, you were just going to let me go off with that girl after all that staring you did."

I froze. I couldn't get myself to breath. I turned my head to look at him, to see his face. Was he simply trying to make fun of me?

When he met my eyes, he grabbed the arms of the swivel chair I was sitting on and spun me to face him. He was taller than me, but he towered over me when I was sitting. He was leaning over me, his head tilted down. His hands were still on the arms of my chair. I was looking up at him, though I couldn't quite read his expression.

"Well?" He asked.

"I..." I couldn't concentrate on making an excuse when his face was so close to my own.

He sneered, and then, before I understood his intentions, he dropped his lips to mine.

For a moment, I was frozen. For a moment, I didn't understand what was happening, and then it was like I finally noticed the light had turned green after waiting at a stop light.