Author's Note:

Song for this chapter:  Basement  by More Giraffes

https://open.spotify.com/track/7yWuaKkVDK2CYG2bVMt58k?si=L5IelqA-RueiCYO0U0-a6A

I love the flirty vibe to this song. I'm sure it's playing in the coffee house during this chapter...it's probably what pushes Sean to send Dru the naughty text. What text!?!?!? Read on:

Dru's worries returned with a vengeance the next morning when her phone pinged. It was Sean.

It was a picture of three white and green paper cups of coffee, wrapped in hand keepers and nestled in a coffee carrier, and the message:

Good morning! Your coffee is getting cold. I've got your muffin, too. Tell Lana to hurry the hell up.

Dru blinked. All last semester, they had met Sean at the coffee house on Friday mornings—a kickstart to the weekend. It wasn't unusual for Sean to get there first, to let them know he had ordered, and it was also usual for him to hurry Lana along, as he always did.

But he had always texted Lana, not Dru.

"Who's that?" Lana asked as she grabbed her bag and pulled her own phone off her charger.

Dru held up her phone to show Lana, who laughed as her dark eyes squinted across the distance to see the screen. "He's really thrown me over for you, hasn't he?"

"Lana —"

"Jesus, Dru, I'm kidding. It's fine. It's more than fine, it's good!" Dru thought her voice sounded a little too bright, though. "Better text him back or he'll start walking this way to make sure we aren't sleeping in and blowing off class."

As they jogged down the stairs, Dru dutifully texted back.

On our way. Be there in 5.

Her phone pinged immediately, another picture. This one of Sean's left hand, giving the thumb's up sign.

Dru laughed, but Lana said, "He's so dorky. There's an emoji for that."

Dru was still laughing. "I think that's kind of the point, Lana. He was trying to be...funny."

"He needs to try harder," Lana rolled her eyes. "What are you doing?"

Dru had stepped off the sidewalk, behind a parked car and was snapping a picture of a smiley face bumper sticker and sending it to Sean.

"You guys are disgusting already, you know that, right?" Lana said smugly.

Dru slid her phone into the back pocket of her jeans. "Shut-up. It's not like that. I told you, we left things tense yesterday. He's just trying to put things back to normal, that's all. Which is good, because I don't want us to be weird."

Lana swept her eyes around Dru and said nothing. Dru stopped dead, putting her hands on her hips and staring Lana down. "Are you checking my aura to see if I'm telling the truth?" Dru hissed.

"More like to see if you are lying to yourself. But I can't see it. It's only once in awhile, in dim light, that I see one," Lana admitted begrudgingly.

Dru's phone pinged again. Lana rolled her eyes, but when Dru's eye's went wide, she grabbed the phone from Dru.

Stop playing in the street, while you make me wait. Don't you know I'm starving for your...

"Holy shit, this is a new side of Sean," Lana muttered, surprised. Then another ping, and Lana burst out laughing—so exuberantly and so long that people started to give them a wide berth on the street as Dru grabbed for the phone.

"What did he say now?"

"Nothing," Lana laughed, tears rolling down her cheeks. "It's a picture...oh my god, I can't fucking breathe!"

"Let me see!" Dru hissed and successfully snatched the phone. Her face became a mask. She put the phone in her back pocket.

"Your muffin looks scrumptious." Lana giggled. "No wonder he's starving for it."

"Don't you dare give him a hard time," she threatened Lana. "I'm sure he didn't even realize..."

********************************************

Sean stared at the blueberry muffin, feeling like a complete idiot.

What in the hell had made him send that last text?

Classy, Faraday. Real fucking classy, he chided himself.

He had never sent a girl he liked something like that—okay he and Gina had a few dirty text exchanges, but she had started it, and that was after they had were going out. And when they said good-bye at the end of the summer before college, she'd asked him to delete the threads, and he had.

And anyway the whole thing with Gina was way different than Dru. He and Gina were casual. They always knew they were going to different colleges. Gina had been a fun girl to hang out with, but she was only looking for a summer romance. There had been no drama, nothing more than friendly good-byes at the end of last summer. Hell, he probably felt a little more regretful than she had...

But Dru was different. Cautious. Earnest. Not the kind to mess around with. He had known that even before she had told him about her past and trying to start over. What if she thought he was only flirting because she confessed she had a wild past?

A sudden thought gave him some hope...maybe Dru hadn't even caught on. Maybe he could just play the whole thing off...he looked at his phone again...and groaned.

Dru would have to be a complete innocent to overlook his meaning. Not likely, given her insinuations about her past.

He cursed himself again for his behavior. The last thing he wanted to do was treat Dru like Finn treated her, or like the guys she might have dated in the past.

But these last few days, it was like...something in the air, driving him to recklessness. He couldn't stop thinking about Dru, not since Groundhog's day, when he'd put his arm around her to warm her up, and then that damn Braided Bastard had shown up and immediately started moving in on her. Even before the witch had told him the truth, he knew that Hearne was interested in Dru. Hearne had casually touched her at every opportunity—all three times he'd come into contact with her. Professors didn't do that—only creeps.

Sean realized with a sudden start...he was no better himself, sending her that text and picture. It was beyond flirtatious, it was crude.

Seriously, he asked himself again, what the fuck possessed him to do that?

A flash of red-hair at the very back of the coffee shop caught his eye, and suddenly he knew the answer to his internal question.

Carrie was hiding in the back of the coffee house, where she sat with Hearne, who was wearing headphones and absorbed in his phone. For two people that were broken up, they seemed to spend alot of time together. But right now the witch was paying Hearne no attention. She was peaking at Sean from behind the book—was she grinning at him? She picked up an identical muffin to the one he had gotten for Dru, bit into it suggestively, and winked at Sean.

Now it made sense. He leapt up from the table, weaving through the crowded room.

"Stop," he hissed at the witch.

She chewed her bite of muffin and took a drink of coffee. Hearne didn't even look up from his phone.

"I'm just eating a muffin, Sean. Want a bite?" She held it up to him.

"No thank you," he said automatically, and then cursed under his own breath. "I mean, no, and you know what I'm talking about. Stop..." he looked around, to make sure no one was listening, "putting stuff in my head. Stuff about Dru. I just did something really stupid, and I don't know how, but I know you made me do it."

Carrie's eyes lit with mischief and she put her hands in front of her mouth to muffle her laughter. He glared at her.

"Sean, if you're thinking naughty thoughts about Dru, that's not me. I can't control what you think, or what you do..." she said innocently.

"Look, witch—" He leaned down to...he wasn't sure what he intended to do—berate the witch? ask her politely to stop putting on spells on him?—but Hearne suddenly was there between them, pulling his earbuds from his ears and looking at him with a cool green stare.

"Faraday, I think you should back up. I might mistake your enthusiasm to speak to Carrie for hostility. And then we might have a problem."

"Hearne, please...I don't need you to defend me," Carrie waved a hand, "he's a boy, and I like him, and this is none of your concern."

Hearne's braids fell forward as whipped around to look at her with disbelief. "Are you serious, woman? Just because we no longer share a bed, you think I can tolerate letting another man growl at you in anger? It's not going to happen, even though you deserve his displeasure."

Hearne and Carrie glared at each other, and Sean felt the struggle between them like a physical thing, like what was between them was magnetic, and he was the same kind of polarity, being pushed away.

He stepped back in confusion, but Hearne broke his stare-down with Carrie and turned his attention back to Sean.

"Look, you're right. She slipped something in your coffee order, before I could stop her. It's nothing serious, a tincture of herbs no more potent than meade...it just lowers inhibition. Whatever you did that you are blaming her for, you would have done yourself after a few strong drinks. Go to class, you'll be fine in a couple of hours."

Sean rose to his full height, stepping back, trying to gauge internal sensation. "I don't feel drunk."

"That's the real trick of it." Hearne smiled. "She's a talented witch, to mix the tincture to perfection...strong enough for it to work, not so potent that you notice."

Carrie crumbled her muffin in irritation. "Now that you've told him, it was pointless. He'll use extra self-control."

Hearne winked at her. "Then the round goes to me, doesn't it?"

Sean stepped back from them in disgust. "What the hell kind of game are you people playing?"

Hearne crossed his arms. "It's not a game, it's a hunt." Hearne's green gaze penetrated him. "And I know enough about you, Sean Faraday, to think that maybe you realize...we aren't your average people."

"Whatever you are, you need to stay away from Dru," Sean said quietly.

"No son, I don't think I will." Hearne said, looking past them. "But I will give you a head start. The hunt is more fun to win, that way. Speaking of Dru... wow. What the hell did you do, Faraday?" Hearne laughed, gesturing to the door.

One look at Dru's flaming cheeks, and her normally soft brown eyes inflamed to near amber, Sean knew she read the suggestion of his text perfectly.

Was she angry about the text...or excited? Dammit, hard to tell.

Sean turned instinctively toward her. Hearne grabbed his arm. "You're not going to mention our little misunderstanding to anyone are you? Because as far as I'm concerned we are cool, but if you go casting wild accusations around about Carrie doping you, well, it might become a conflict to have you in my class. And I'm sure you want to be there...after all, Dru can't drop if she wants to keep her scholarship."

They both looked at Dru, who was staring at them, turning more pink by the second.

Sean shirked Hearne's grasp. "No one would believe me if I told them anyway."

"You're a smart guy, Faraday," Hearne grinned. "But you haven't got what it takes to best me."

Sean ran a hand through his perfect hair. "We'll see about that, Hearne."

A/N: Ha-ha! It's going to be a LOOOONGGGG walk to class for Sean and Dru, coming up in the next chapter---out Friday! Why dontcha vote, if you like blueberry muffins, 'k?