Vivien slid into the chair across from me, also finished with her nocturnal duties. Though my vampire best friend had a better night than me, judging by the fact her fishnet stockings were still intact and her auburn hair maintained volume and style as if she’d just done it. While I felt like a limp, exhausted noodle. Stains from the trash bins and nasty alleyways marked up my dark tank top. I felt disgusting, but I needed a moment to decompress before I went home and woke up Jamal to get him ready for school.
“How’d it go?” Vivien asked.
“Y-yeah, how’d it go?” a second voice chimed in as Aaron sat down. He adjusted his black apron with the Perkatory logo as he sat in the last chair. The coffee line was low enough that he could let the other barista handle it and join us, completing our little trio of friends.
“Fine,” I said, sipping the dark brew.
Aaron and Vivien exchanged a glance.
“Did you f-fuck him?”
“...in a dumpster?” Vivien added, her nose wrinkling.
My jaw dropped as I turned to face Aaron. “Okay, I’d expect that from her,” I pointed at Vivien, “but from you? Et tu Aaron?”
He shrugged his muscular shoulders up into the tips of his wavy, sun-bleached hair. “I-it’s a v-valid question.” Aaron’s stutter had been getting slightly better from speech therapy, but ever since his surfing accident years ago, the stammer was his constant companion.
“No,” I said icily, my shoulders stiffening. “He has absolutely no effect on me anymore. And I have zero intention of ever letting him touch me again.”
Except for that moment when he almost kissed me… again.
A growl of frustration escaped me.
Aaron and Vivien leaned back from me a couple of inches.
“Yeah, no effect whatsoever,” Vivien said airily, giving Aaron a look.
I gave them a rundown of the hack magicians who ruined my chances of slaying Sheshem. “After that, I couldn’t get a bead on any gods or monsters the rest of the night.”
“So… it was just you and Xander hanging out until dawn?” Vivien poked and prodded like a nosy little kid. It was hilarious when she did it to others. Not so much when she did it to me.
“Yes. It was… fine.”
“Y-you said that,” Aaron pointed out.
Usually, my friends gave me a sense of peace and pleasure. Staring into my coffee, I considered chucking the rest of it at both of them.
“What happened to getting back in the dating game?” Vivien asked. “When Xander disappeared a month ago, after the… incident, you said you were going to.”
I did say that, didn’t I?
I’d said I was never really in love with Xander after all, that it was only infatuation. We’d been in an intense, stressful situation that was sexually charged, but after some reflection (unfortunately only after I brought him back and released havoc on the world) I had come to the conclusion I was only in lust with the god.
Determined to fall in lust with someone else—anyone else—to prove my point, I’d gone on a couple dates. Every time my stomach would lurch with nausea almost as soon as the meeting began, and it wouldn’t let up until I parted ways with whatever perfectly nice man I’d met. It was like I was repulsed by any man who wasn’t Xander.
God damn it.
And now that he was back, invading my space, teasing me, protecting me, my body hummed with that same intense satisfaction and need rolled into one big ball that lodged itself under my ribcage.
I’m not in love with him. I never was, I insisted to myself. That would be crazy.
“Have you heard anything about rogue gods or monsters wreaking havoc?” I asked Vivien, changing the subject. “I lost the trail of the one I was tracking last night and nothing else came up.” Which meant a full night of stalking the streets with a god who looked at me like he wanted to throw me against the nearest wall and ravish me until I died.
The kind of stress that inspired must have originated from the fourth or fifth level of hell. I’m usually adept at keeping my emotions under wrap, but Xander made it so damn hard, digging his hooks into me until I wanted to explode… one way or another.
The intensity in Vivien's green eyes let me know she was aware of my evasive tactics, but she let it slide. “Nothing concrete, but the gods are restless. Nervous.”
“Because of Aten,” I finished for her.
