Page 14 of Hexes From Exes

“Damn. You can’t give me a hint?” she asked hopefully.

Rick shook his head. “No.” He waved for another mojito. “I am surprised at how good this is,” he said, nearly downing the second at once.

Stephanie reached out to grab the drink from him, lowering it slowly to the table. “I know you’re a big guy, but if you’ve never had human alcohol before you may want to slow down.” Her hand brushed his, marveling at how soft his skin was. She almost expected to feel his scales.

“I’ve had spirits before,” he retorted, and she could have sworn she heard the start of a lazy slur to his words.

“Right, okay,” Stephanie said, raising her hands in a placating gesture. She wasn’t going to argue with him in the middle of a bar, lest he decide to show off his demon self again. It was nowhere near Halloween, so it would be difficult to explain.

“Well, if you can’t even give me a hint, I suppose I’ll just have to keep calling up all these guys,” Stephanie said with a sigh.

“Are there many?” Rick asked, chewing on the straw of his now empty mojito.

Stephanie shrugged. “I guess it depends - I’ve had drinks with guys at networking events, who knows if they thought it was a date? ‘Ex’ is a really loose term you know.”

“I suppose,” Rick allowed.

“Do you fact check these people before you agree to a curse? Like, did you see if I actually dated any of these guys? What if they’re really from an opposing company and just want something bad to happen to me so they do better in Q4 sales?” Stephanie asked, her finger sliding along the rim of her wine glass. It elicited a low hum, which drew Rick’s attention for a moment.

“They have dated you, I confirmed that. And more than just a drink at an event,” he added.

Stephanie smiled. “Okay, good - see, that’s all I needed! I don’t need you to go back on your contract or whatever, I just needed a hint. You don’t understand the dating world up here. Is it an up, by the way? Are you ‘down’ there?” she asked, her gaze trailing down to the ground suggestively.

“Yes, Anathamea is down, and technically that makes you up. Dating everywhere is tough, don’t act so special,” he said, waving his hand at her. The bartender was on the way with yet another mojito, avoiding Stephanie’s eye contact.

“I didn’t say I was. You saw Frank, that’s what I’m dealing with. My list of other guys isn’t much better.”

“Frank was rather boring,” he agreed, greedily sucking down the mojito. “Far too boring for you,” he added.

“Not just boring,” Stephanie clarified. “He was rude. He showed up late and didn’t apologize, he didn’t offer to walk me to my car even though it’s late, and he didn’t ask me a single question about myself.”

“I’m sure someone will curse him soon, he’s the usual victim,” Rick said almost pleasantly.

“The usual victim?” Stephanie asked.

“Oh, yes. Most of the revenge demon business is relegated to people who can’t get justice by the human law. Of course, there are exceptions, like in your case, where people are just angry and need a supernatural outlet that doesn’t implicate them. But most of the people I curse are human men because they’ve done something awful.”

“So, you’re a …good revenge demon?” Stephanie asked.

Rick shrugged. “I don’t believe in good or bad, there just is. An act that one person would see as evil is justified to another, and sometimes an act is done for the greater good, but it is evil to those who have to suffer. To assign things as good or evil would make my job impossible.”

“Huh,” Stephanie said, sitting back in her chair as she considered his words. “That’s pretty profound, you know. You basically have to compartmentalize so you can do your job without feeling like shit.”

Rick blinked at her. “No, I don’t compartmentalize. I just recognize that not every action is as simple as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ You can’t assign everything that.”

“Okay,” Stephanie agreed, waving the bartender over to close out the tab.

“What? No more mo-jitos?” he asked, frowning at his empty glass.

“I have to get to bed, some of us have work tomorrow.”

“I am working,” Rick replied indignantly.

“Yes, well, we can’t all drink at work.”

“Sounds like you need a new line of work,” Rick shot back. The start of a lazy slur now escalated to a full on one.

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Well, you can stay here and down another few drinks if you’d like, I’m sure a nice human woman will pay for them.”