About three hours later, I sat in a booth with Luna on my right, Michelle, and our newest recruit Ceres opposite us.  I had my hands wrapped around a large, icy vessel of caffeinated carbonated goodness with 23 flavors. 

                “I can’t believe he went full exposure,” Michelle said, rolling her eyes as she looked over the menu.

                “I can’t believe you picked up another psychic,” Luna added.

                “I can’t believe no one but Ceres here wanted to join us for a midnight snack,” I protested with a grin.  “Think it was something I said?”

                “You threatened to burn a baby out of someone, that’ll have a fucking impact,” Luna grumbled with a shudder.  “I never want to be pregnant, but damn, Psy.”

                “Sounds like one hell of a LARP session,” our waiter said as he came to stand by our booth.  “Let me guess, Masquerade?”

                “More like Call of Cthulhu,” Ceres told him, making me laugh.  “What’s good tonight?”

                He rattled off a list of specials before each of us ordered and promised to have them out to us in a jiffy along with refills.  I could read in his mind he really wanted to ask for Luna’s number but wasn’t sure he should.

                “Luna, if you think he’s cute, leave him your insta-pic number or something,” I said after he was safely in the kitchen. 

                “Why?  Does he think I’m cute?”

                “Oh yeah, dude’s talking you up to the cook,” Ceres told her with a grin. 

                It was odd not being the only psychic in a group for once.

                “What’s your range,” I asked, curious.

                “So we’re going to ignore that Zoth O-friggin’mog went full slimy boy this evening,” Michelle protested before Ceres could answer.

                “I kinda thought he might,” I said with a shrug.  “He does have a temper.”

                “I’ve never seen it before,” she protested.

                “Because you do what he says,” Luna pointed out.  “He doesn’t need to show you his angry side.”

                “I- but-“ she sputtered.  “Did you know he had that form?”

                “Yup, we went swimming in the Pacific after I escaped,” I informed her. 

                “Wasn’t it cold as hell,” Luna asked.

                “I guess,” I said with a shrug.  “I don’t feel temperatures the same way humans do.”

                “We don’t feel water chill much either,” Ceres added.  “Can’t be a Deep One if you can’t take the cold.  Oh, do you want more company?  I’ve got a request from my third cousin.”

                “Who- oh him, yeah, tell him to come over,” Michelle said, leaning over Ceres’ shoulder.  “Is he close?”

                “He’s friends with the night manager so was heading over here anyway,” she said with a shrug.  “He saw my check in on Insta-pic and asked if he could join me.  Should I tell him its ok?”

                “Him who?” I asked pointedly.  Yes, I could have read her mind but it would have been rude. 

                “Him him,” Ceres said pointing to the door at the front of the restaurant. 

                Irritated, I turned to look before grinning.  “Well, him him can certainly join us if he wants to.”

                “Scooch over, Michelle,” Luna said, hopping up to leave the seat next to me open.

                “Way to be subtle,” I said, rolling my eyes. 

                “Griff!  Over here!”  Ceres said loudly, waving her arms like a lunatic.  Ah my people, I’m so proud. 

                He walked over, focusing on her initially, “Hey Ceres, surprised your parents let you out after all that.  Who’re your friends?”

                I’d thrown a hoodie over my dress, which yes, was a crime against fashion, but let me relax my tendrils in the booth so I didn’t have to keep them so tightly coiled.  I raised an eyebrow at Ceres.

                “Well, we both know Michelle,” she said, and the assistant nodded a hello.  “And past her is Luna.  And that’s the-“

                “Cassandra Elder,” I cut her off.  “Call me Cass.”

                “Like the angel in Supernatural,” he asked before doing a double take.  “You!  How?  With her?”

                “I am the head of the family, technically speaking,” I pointed out.  “I can take my newest junior priestess out to dinner if I want.  We’ve got the limo till dawn; it can drop her off at her dorm when we’re done.”

                “Take a seat,” Michelle urged, aware that we were drawing attention.  “We just ordered- oh and there’s the waiter now.”     

                “Good evening sir, what can I get you to drink?”

                “Coke, please,” Griff said as he slid into the booth next to me. 

                “Pepsi ok?”

                “Not really,” he said, opening the menu.  I felt a flash of frustration through him over the format but couldn’t parse exactly what.  “I keep forgetting you switched brands.”

                “They have Dr Pepper,” I told him, picking up my own.

                “That’ll work,” he told the server.  As the server bounced off to grab it, he looked to me.  “Thanks, Cass.”

                “No problem,” I shrugged as he looked over the menu, brow furrowed as he read.  “Is the menu difficult to read?”

                “Cass!”  Ceres snapped like I was one of her friends.  “You can’t ask that.”

                “What,” I snapped back, wondering what the fuck I’d done wrong now.  I was trying to keep that uncertainty from shifting to the anger that had sustained me for so many years, but it was difficult.  To be kind and not tell her to go flush her mouth out in a toilet. 

                “I’m dyslexic,” Griff said softly.  “It runs in the family.”

                “No one likes their difficulties being pointed out,” Ceres said, glaring at me. 

                “Can the glare, you’re scaring the saltshaker,” I growled at her with a diamond-sparked glare of my own.  She paled before looking at me sheepishly.  “Yes, I forgive you, it’s ok to tell me I messed up but don’t yell at me, ok?  I don’t react well to it.”

                “Given how you grew up, I can’t blame you,” Luna said before pulling out her phone.  She was almost out of social spoons for the night, I could see it in her thoughts.

                “Well, ya know, being a lab rat that can’t block out the mental voices of my tormentors will do funny things to your coping skills,” I agreed with a shrug.  “That aside, Griff, they’ve got their burger on sale with bacon and BBQ sauce on some kind of bun I can’t remember how to pronounce.”

                “Brioche,” Luna supplied without looking up from her phone.  She was tapping across the surface with a sly grin. 

                “That sounds good,” Griff said.  “I can get through the menu but the font they use is difficult for me to separate the letters.”

                “You’d think they’d pick one that was more accessible,” I noted.  “So, did you really come here to see the manager or did Ceres over there tell you to come?”

                “Bit of both,” Griff said with a smile. 

                I liked his smile and instantly disliked how much I liked it.  Never said I made sense.  I pushed my weird social issues aside and after floundering for a moment asked, “So how’d you get to be a DJ?  Isn’t most of the Family STEM fields?”

                “I can read and write music but words, that’s more difficult,” he said.

                “What about writing lyrics?”

                “I use a voice to text function then have my editor clean it up,” he informed me.  “He’s also in a band that performs a lot of my songs, so it benefits him, too.”

                “You also play in the band,” Ceres pointed out.  “Though how you manage to work a violin and a cello into industrial music is beyond me?”

                “Industrial,” I asked, perking up.  Classical music was not my jam but industrial, well, now they’re talking my language.  We talked about music, and I could almost hear the melodies and rhythms playing across his mind as he spoke.

                It was… enchanting to say the least.  I was just getting into heavy music with a thrumming rhythm that could make me feel truly alive and it was one of his favorite mediums of art.  I caught a stray thought from Michelle that I looked twitterpated. 

                What the fuck was that?

                I looked to her and asked, “What’s that mean?”

                “Eves dropping on thoughts is rude,” Michelle pointed out with a smirk.  She obviously had no intention of explaining at the table. 

                “It’s difficult when people think loudly,” Ceres told her.  “I don’t catch a lot from you unless I focus heavily but if you’ve been around th- Cass a lot, it makes sense she’d pick up more from you.  I can hear my mom from miles away due to familiarity.”

                “What about your dad?”

                She rolled her eyes.  “He only wants me when I’m useful to him.”

                “I know that feeling,” I said with a scowl to match hers. 

                “Oh, that’s not good,” Luna said, still on her phone.

                “What isn’t’ good,” I asked with a sense of forbidding. 

                “You probably weren’t out when the last SARS virus hit but they’re tracking something like it,” she said and I could see her memories enough to know it was a bad respiratory virus.

                “Strange coincidence,” I said, the skin between my tendrils itching.  A prickle of pain sparked behind my eyes, making me wince. 

                “Are you ok,” Griff asked at the same time Michelle asked, “Cass- you good?”

                “Headache,” I said, trying to downplay it while I thought to Michelle, “I think I’m getting a premonition or some shit.  How do I extract us gracefully?  I don’t want to be rude.”

                “That’s a first,” she said aloud with a grin and looked at her phone.  “And I’m sorry to bear bad news, but Cass, we need to get home soon.  We’ve got two appointments yesterday, one about that self defense class you want to get started and with that high school guidance counselor.”

                Both appointments were after five PM but I could have hugged her for giving us a way out that wasn’t rude.  “I totally forgot, thanks Michelle.   Ceres, Luna, you two about done?”

                “We finished a while ago,” Luna said, “You just weren’t paying attention.”

                A blush tried to stain my cheeks but I knew from listening to others it was hard to see even if it did.  “You like industrial music too.”

                “Anyway,” Michelle cut in.  “I need to get the girls back to their homes to get some sleep.”

                “Sorry,” I said to Griff.  It was getting hard to mask my pain as I pulled out cash to leave on the table for the meal and added a generous tip.  

                “It’s ok,” he said, sliding from the booth.  He offered his hand to me and I stared at for a few seconds before realizing he wanted me to take it so he could help me up. 

                “This is that chivalry thing, right,” I asked, taking his hand. 

                The question startled a chuckle out of him.  “I guess?  Yeah, I wouldn’t help a guy up out of a booth.”

                I let him help me out of the booth, sliding my fingers reluctantly against his hand as I stepped away.  My tendrils twitched with the urge to pull him back to me but I ordered them to calm down.  Wouldn’t want to scare the normies.