“I mean, I don’t get why we’re leaving halfway through the workday to play a game Gisele said belonged on cruise ships. Although she also didn’t explain cruise ships very well.”
“No one can explain cruise ships very well,” Morgan said, glaring at her screen. Fine. She’d try again tomorrow. Maybe Carter could explain. “But we’re playing shuffleboard because they think we’ll be a better team if we socialize together and because Hayley and Brad are too obsessed with being hipsters to be willing to do normal stuff like going to a bar.”
“But you kind of want to go,” Luke prompted.
“What? No,” Morgan said automatically. Luke raised his eyebrows. “OK, kind of.”
He shook his head. “You’re doing it again. I can tell you want to go, and I can tell you don’t want people to know you want to go.”
“It’s not cool,” she admitted. She shuddered to think of what her mother would say about a bunch of adults playing shuffleboard ironically.
“Didn’t you call it a hipster place?” Luke pointed out, packing his laptop and the ancient Android phone Gisele’s cousin had loaned them into the bag with the Adobe logo that she’d found for him at Goodwill.
“I mean,” she tried to explain. It was complicated. Until she thought about how to explain things to a demon from another plane and then she realized it was actually embarrassingly simple. “It’s not cool to want things.”
That gave him pause. “This plane is extremely uncool.”
“Extremely,” she agreed. When had she decided that desire was a weakness? Or, at least, that letting people know that she desired something was? Aloofness was the definition of cool, but she’d never been particularly good at being cool or even cared that much about it. How much was just her mother’s voice in the back of her head, reminding her of the triteness of mundane concerns? When she’d been on the Infernal Plane, she’d been upset at how little she wanted that she’d actually pursued.
“I want to play shuffleboard,” she announced.
“So we’ll play some shuffleboard!” Luke said encouragingly. She let herself feel encouraged. He smiled and she grinned back.
“And have a fruity drink. With an umbrella.” And to do work that felt vaguely meaningful and people respected her for, but that seemed like a lot to ask from shuffleboard. She very carefully didn’t think anything about the demon smiling next to her. She’d start with the drink.
“Let’s do it,” he said. He stuck out his hand. She shook it. He paused. “How will the fruit fit if there’s a whole umbrella in the drink?”
When they arrived in the pastel-painted cavern of a space, smelling of floor wax and coconut, she made a beeline for the bar while the others dithered over pusher-stick thingies. The menu was predictable in its unpredictable combinations of falernum and cold brew and fat-washed bourbon. She ordered a tiki drink that had six ingredients, two pieces of fruit, a cocktail umbrella, and an ironic tiny plastic flamingo. Sufficiently kitschy for Brooklyn without the sorority-girl overtones of Malibu rum. Coconut sweetness without having to admit it. Poor Luke’s head was probably spinning. She took a deep sip through the twisty straw, and the subtly fruity liquid slid down her throat without the warning burn it deserved. She took a deep breath and pasted on a smile.
“Work event?” the bartender asked with a sympathetic tilt to his eyebrows.
“How could you guess?” she said, ignoring the fact that their twentyish-person party was surely on the schedule and almost no one else was here on a Thursday afternoon. She added an extra dollar to the tip she left on the bar.
Then she turned and the smile nearly sloshed off her face. Brad was here.
He’d entered, arms raised aloft in victory. The team cheered as if he were a conquering hero. He certainly lookedthe part. Perfect wavy chestnut hair, his smile a tribute to the orthodontic arts. Fitted black tee with a company hoodie over the top, a stock image of a tech CEO hanging out with his team. White, of course. Fit and charming and unblemished in skin and public record.
“Here we go,” she said and turned back to the bar.
“No, I won’t put another shot in it,” the bartender replied without her asking. “It’ll upset the balance and also, that thing’s already strong enough. If you barf on the court, I get in trouble.”
“Sorry.”
“Looking for liquid courage or a numbing agent?”
She glanced over her shoulder. Hayley was introducing Luke, which meant she needed to get over there. Brad was around so infrequently, it hadn’t even occurred to her he’d be here. This was her chance to solve all her problems—impress him the right way and not only could she get one of the soul contracts they needed, but she could stay in the first job that didn’t make her feel like a useless nonentity. Everything she wanted, cool or not. If she could bring herself to damn someone she barely knew. Her stomach roiled. “Courage. Definitely courage.”
She took another sip.
Hayley was divvying up the teams as she walked up, counting out heads. Brad’s team was Team One, of course. People were mostly ignoring the Head of People, chatting in small groups until Hayley tapped them. Morgan bided her time. At the critical moment, she stepped up to Ronaldo, holding her glass aloft. “Bar’s open!”
“Oh, nice,” he said, heading over right as Hayley would have reached him.
The HR rep made an annoyed sound in the back of her throat. “Fine, then, Morgan, you’re on One.” She raised her voice to be heard over the music. “Ronaldo, you’re on Four!”
Ronaldo waved a hand, focused on ordering his over-hopped IPA.
“All right, team, who’ve we got?” Brad said, rubbing his hands together.
