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Travis
I’m not talking to that psychopath.
Max
Too bad. Boss’s orders.
Travis sighed. He shut off the screen and threw his phone onto the dash.
His hellseher hearing picked up on the creak of the front door to the House of Souls swinging open, sounding every bit as haunted as that dark, towering mansion looked.
Travis leaned forward in his seat—and cursed under his breath at the sight of the Reaper storming through the gates.
The wrong Reaper.
It took Malakai Delaney exactly three seconds to reach the driver’s-side door. And then—
Pound. Pound. Pound. The window quivered as the Reaper’s heavily tattooed fist thudded against it.
Travis bit the inside of his cheek, stilling the words—none of them kind—that were clawing to come out as he flicked the button to lower the window.
As soon as the glass was down all the way, Malakai gave him a cold grin, silver canines gleaming in the street light. “Yeah, hi, it’s me. Bet you weren’t expecting to see me here.”
“Nope,” Travis lied, rolling his eyes again. He might not know Malakai very well, but he’d known of him long enough to suspect this might happen tonight. If his little sister Jewels went on a date, it didn’t matter who with, Malakai would be having words with the guy before they left. And Travis, until proven otherwise, was exactly that: just a guy.
Travis had never wanted to be more than ‘just a guy’ to any girl. He had always been eager to learn their bodies, never their minds or hearts, but Jewels was…he didn’t want to say different, considering he barely knew her. Maybe he had simply reached the age where getting to know someone’s heart didn’t make him cringe as much as it used to. And maybe, if he was willing to admit it, seeing Darien and Loren together had tempted Travis to find something like what they shared to call his own. Just a bit.
The fake smile on Malakai’s face had faded, leaving only rage in its wake. “Just because she agreed to go out with you doesn’t give you the green light for any first-date hanky-panky,” he warned.
“Right.”
“There are three things I need butt-heads like you to understand,” Malakai continued. He held up his thumb. “Thing number one: no sex on the first date.”
“Second’s good then?”
Malakai’s eyes flickered into black pits, his glare hotter than lava.
Travis held up his hands in a sarcastic show of innocence. “Third then, got it.”
Malakai’s pointer finger joined his thumb. “Thing number two: if you’re going out with my sister, you’re a listener, not a talker. The one thing I hate is a guy who can’t shut up about himself. You’ll show respect, you’ll listen to her when she’s talking, and you’ll be a gentleman in every regard. Which means you’ll hold doors open for her, you’ll—”
“That’s a lot more than two things.”
“Onto thing number three, smartass,” Malakai growled, his middle finger joining the pointer and thumb. “If she decides she likes you—emphasis on if—you will not, under any circumstances, break her heart. We clear?”
Travis couldn’t hold back any longer. First date be damned, he would not take this shit for another second.
The words came out in a rush—and damn were they a heavy weight off his chest. “You seem to know a lot about relationships for someone with a track record of commitment issues and threesomes.”
Malakai grabbed him by the collar and yanked him halfway out the goddamn window.
“Hey, guys!” a voice hollered. It was Jewels. She stood on her tiptoes on the front steps of the House of Souls, waving a pale hand in the air. “GUUUYYSSSSSS!”
“She sure has lungs on her for someone so small,” Travis said.
“All the better to yell at you when you piss her off,” Malakai growled.
“Get in here!” she shouted. “Both of you!”
