Page 34 of The Devil and His Ghost

“Go on. Praise me some more.”

He laughed, and an easy silence followed with classical music as the backdrop to our slow dance.

“Your hair is longer,” I noted eventually, drinking in all of his close features.

His face was the same as it had been—sharp jaw, skin that had never seen a pimple, eyes darker than the deepest abyss, plump pink lips, a matte black ring hooked through his nose. Some things were different, though. His black hair was longer and fluffier, brushing the tops of his ears and across his forehead. The muscles of his arms and chest seemed bigger, too, though maybe they had always been large, and I merely noticed it now with my older eye.

After all, younger me had been mesmerized by the demon’s handsome face and his demonic features, not how firm his body looked and felt or how his tapered waist caused a fire to roil in my stomach. As a woman, though …

“Yeah,” he replied, drawing me out of my salacious thoughts. “I’m trying to grow it out to do a half-long, half-shaved hairstyle for the band. Those other shits don’t like changing up their hair, so I figured I’d take one for the team and be the one constantly changing my style.”

“Now I’m intrigued to see all the different looks you pull out in the future.”

“Speaking of looks,” Xander mused with a slight tilt in his head, “I’m surprised. It’s been years, but you still only have the one tattoo. I would’ve expected more by now.”

I cocked my own head. “Oh, I have one more. You just can’t see it.”

His obsidian eyes narrowed a fraction, clouding with restrained desire as they raked over me. “Is that a taunt? Because I’ll absolutely take that dress off if you goad me.”

I swallowed hard as an unfamiliar heat lit up my insides. The feeling was scarily overwhelming, so I changed the subject. I couldn’t get lost in Xander like I wanted to in the past. I couldn’t dig up the desires I’d long since given up on. Desperate to expel the fantasies of him from my head, I whispered the first thing that popped into my head.

“Why did you never look for me?”

Our dance stopped, but we didn’t move to release our grips. Our gazes were unbreakable, mine, no doubt, swimming with regret over asking such an absurd question while his remained friendly.

“How could I?” he replied. “You didn’t tell me where you were going.”

I knew the question was childish on my part. I was the one who left. Why should he be expected to find me? If I wanted him to come after me, what was the point in leaving? Despite knowing all of this, I couldn’t get my mouth to cooperate with my rational brain.

“You could’ve found me the same way you did at the mental hospital.”

Again, I knew he hadn’t done anything wrong. I knew I was the one to blame for our lack of communication over the years. But … I just wanted to know that he’d seen some sort of value in our dynamic as much as I had. Knowing that he cared, even a little, would’ve been enough for me.

But he never came.

“That was an accident,” he explained carefully. The calm that had previously bracketed the lines of his face tightened from the truth he begrudgingly admitted. “I didn’t know you were at Mountview when I found you there. I may be a demon, but I’m a Mischief demon. My kind can’t find or pop over to people like other demons can. I can appear in places or if I control any spirits, I can go to wherever they are. But not people.”

I frowned before I could stop myself. A deep pang gripped my chest. All this time, I’d thought he’d purposely come to Mountview Psychiatric Hospital to take me away as promised. But … he’d never meant to come back for me. His surprise upon seeing me that day, his reluctance in wanting me to go with him, his deep sighs as I followed him through his apartment—they were all signs of a man who didn’t want the nuisance that clung to him.

I swallowed hard and lowered my eyes. “I see. That makes sense.”

“Did you want me to look for you?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Instead, I looked up at him again. He apparently didn’t need my verbal response. He read me like an open book.

The carefree smile he’d worn flattened slightly, and he asked quietly, “Then why did you leave like that?”

“I was always going to leave, remember? I just did it earlier than expected.”

“Right,” he murmured under his breath. He raised our joined hands and twirled me around. By the time I faced him again, the easygoing smirk was back on his face while he sighed dramatically. “It’s just so sad. I didn’t get to flush my pet fish down the toilet properly.”

Despite myself, I laughed. How could I forget that he thought of me that way?

Silence fell between us. We continued an idle sway to the soft lull of the piano piece coming through my phone. His palm was warm against mine, and the longer I stood in his arms, the more I wanted to let go of everything I feared and ran from to just fall into them.

Instead, I noted, “It’s cool that you ended up forming a band with your friends like you mentioned back then.”

“Have you been keeping tabs on me?” he teased.