The ‘whoa’ motion Brian made caused a slight frown. Valerie wasn’t flying off the handle, she hadn’t even raised her voice. It made her wonder if her aura or something just made people assume she held anger when she didn’t. Distance had been needed to try and process it all without feeling like drowning, which on top of the whole love confession, wasn’t easy. Back pressed against the building as she listened to him and resisted the urge to cut in until he’d finished.

“I’m not clairvoyant, unless you talk to me I don’t know what’s going through your head. And you’re right, I did say you should practice. I just didn’t realise I had to state that public places like bus stops weren’t the best choices.”

Personally it seemed like common sense, given the way he’d reacted when she’d witnessed him move the chair in the diner.

"I'm not mad." Valerie stated calmly as her stomach turned to knots. It would take a lot more than that to make her angry. She wasn’t about to start screaming at him in the middle of the street. "I'm disappointed that you either felt like you couldn't tell me, or just didn't feel like it was important enough to mention when I've been nothing but open with you. Would you have said anything at all if I hadn’t unloaded on you after you shared your feelings?”

Valerie needed to clear her mind. She needed to work out who knew what. If Julianna knew she’d spoken with Rhiannon. Did she know that she was dating Brian? Did the girl? She knew at least one vampire, that kind of information rarely slipped down a grapevine and if Brian had learned it from her then it was safe to assume so had the vampire. The carefully compartmentalised boxes she locked up within herself were blurring together and she wasn’t sure how to handle that.