other room made him wonder if Mandi could make do with an apology and a late dinner after her show. The room's hallway door opened and Mandi said, "Thanks for remembering to tell the desk to give me a room card." Moving to join her in the main room, Cade asked, "After last night, how could I forget?" Indicating the covered tray, he said, "I saved you some dinner, as requested. Are you going to tell me what you've done to me?" Trying to look shocked and hurt, Mandi asked, "What? No hello kiss? Don't you want to hear about my day?" Cade took her in his arms for a kiss, then said, "Of course, milady. Tell me all about your day, but tell me later. Right now I want to know what's happening to me." Mandi shrugged and said, "You're changing. It's nothing to worry about, but the conversion takes a lot of energy and mass. That's why you were so hungry." "I'm still hungry. Your dinner almost disappeared." Smiling, she said, "But now the hunger's more manageable and you can get by until after the show. Right?" She stood by the cart as she sliced the steak and vegetables into bite sized chunks and sprinkled salt and pepper here and there to her liking. Unable to remember ever having read or heard anything about people changing due to association with Mandi, Cade asked, "Just what kind of change are we talking about?" Without looking up from her efforts, Mandi said, "You're going to become sort of like me." With a deliberately noisy sigh at her seeming inability to release any details, Cade replied, "Not blonde and stacked, I hope. That could take a helluva lot of getting used to at this point in my life, you know. Could you be maybe just a little more specific, Mandi?" Glancing up with another chuckle and smile, Mandi said, "Nothing quite that outrageous. You're being upgraded, that's all. You'll be bulletproof or close to it. Stronger. Faster. Like that. Don't worry, you won't need a new wardrobe, as much as that may actually be a good idea." Her grinning gaze traveled from his boots to his shirt as he said, "I'm going to let your sartorial commentary pass. What did you do to me to make this -- change --happen?" Chuckling around some potato, Mandi said, "I didn't do anything to you. You did it to me." Sticking her tongue out at him and waggling it, she pulled it back in and said, "Like that." Sitting on the end of the bed, Cade watched her fork up another bit of steak as he tried to figure out what the hell she was telling him. Like what? Was she saying she'd given him some kind of disease? All he'd done was lick her silly in the shower. How could doing that..? He felt like checking his tongue in the bathroom mirror. "Are you about ready to go?" asked Mandi. Looking up, Cade saw the food was gone. Mandi stood up and pushed the cart toward the door. Cade slipped into his shoulder rig, grabbed his cellphone, and put on his jacket. "Yeah, ready," he said.