Page 38 of Just One Little Bargain

“Hi. I wanted to talk to Evie.” My throat has apparently stopped cooperating, so I clear it. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Wait.” Maddie’s eyes ping between us. “You two know each other?”

“We’ve met,” I say at the same time Evie says, “Kind of.”

Maddie’s jaw drops, then a laugh bursts out of her. “Oh my god! You’re her mystery break-in man.”

“Yes.”

“This is the guy from the bar!” She grabs Evie’s arm and shakes it. “The one I was telling you about!”

“I figured that much.” Evie’s voice is barely audible.

Maddie spins toward me. “The girl problems you mentioned . . . that was about Evie?”

“Yes.” I shift my weight and shove my hands deeper into my pockets before anyone notices the tremor.

“This is kind of perfect.” Maddie’s eyes dance with amusement.

Evie’s face says the opposite. Her lips flatten as she stares past my shoulder.

“I can go . . . if you want?”

Evie stares at me, visibly working through every terrible implication of this situation.

Maddie kicks out the chair beside her. “Sit down. This is clearly happening whether she likes it or not.”

“Fine.” Evie’s jaw tightens.

I pull the chair out and it shrieks across the floor with a clamor that could wake the dead. Several heads turn, their conversations momentarily interrupted.

The table is small, designed for two people, possibly two and a quarter if they’re comfortable with each other. Three strangers with unresolved supernatural tension is asking a lot. My knee bumps Evie’s.

“Sorry,” we both say.

She shifts sideways, pressing her shoulder against the wall. I pull my legs to the left and accidentally bump Maddie’s chair. My leg is still buzzing where our knees touched, and I run through every summoning side effect I’ve ever studied, trying to explain why one accidental touch set off every nerve in my body. Tether fatigue. Realm displacement. Magical feedback. None of them fit. I have no framework for this whatsoever.

“You two need a bigger table?” Maddie asks, voice dripping with glee.

“We’re fine,” Evie grits out.

I stare at the tabletop while she reaches for three sugar packets, tears them open in one motion, and dumps them into her drink. She stirs with a force that suggests she’s imagining the spoon is my throat. I hook my ankle around my chair leg to keep my knee from drifting back toward hers.

Maddie turns to me, chin propped on her hand, and says the seven words that would end my mortal realm disguise.

“So . . . Evie tells me you’re a demon.”

I can’t look at Evie. If I do, I’ll see the panic on her face, and it’ll make my panic worse, and then we’ll just be two panicking people at a table.

Demons can’t lie. My only play is hoping that this sounds ridiculous enough that no sane person would take it seriously.

“I am.”

Maddie’s grin freezes. Her eyes narrow, reading me, and I hold still while her brain decides what to do with that sentence.

“Contract division,” I add, hoping the absurdity of it all will tip the scales to my advantage. “Soul acquisition. Currently on what my supervisor would call a probationary field assignment and what I would call a slow-motion disaster.”

Evie stiffens beside me. I don’t have to look to feel the tension coming off her, but Maddie snorts. One sharp burst of laughter that breaks into a full cascade, her head tipping back, hand slapping the table.