Oh. Chin lowered, she would have been blushing with shame had Spike's body allowed it. Get a game, she thought. Everyone'll have a good time. But she was too late and she had the vampire to blame for it and now she felt dead in the water as well as just plain-jane-actually-dead.

It might have been a perfectly manageable failure except she was already having one of those weeks. And without her moral-support-pirate around to help her. Who could blame him? Why would he ever want to be around her right now?

"It's late," she started -- drawing her hand away from the second gift. She could just leave it there. "Well. For you. Maybe not for me. Creature of the night, now. But I should really be back on the beat."