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“Life’s short,” I said drolly.
“We’re all going to die, cupcake,” he said. “I’d rather not die because you kill me with my own door.”
I grinned. “No murder, bonbon. Just trying to make your perfect face match your flawed personality.”
He made a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. Honestly, we both knew I wouldn’t want to kill him, most days. Maybe I liked Elibecausehe wasn’t going to die of natural causes. Fae creatures lived longer than mostdraugr. I wasn’t sure ifIwas going to live longer than a human, but if I did, it would be nice to have a few familiar faces.
Perfect partner,a little voice whispered. It sounded like Mama Lauren, but it was my own neurosis, not her magic. I needed to tell him—maybe ask about Doran, too.
I wasn’t about to discuss it here, though. Tonight, I wanted to pretend I was plain old run of the mill human. Witches were human, and humans died. I’d be gone long before a faery.
“Afraid of the dark?” Eli asked as he looked into the dusk behind me before pushing the door shut, as if it would trap the bad things outside. “Or something in it tonight?”
“Sometimes. Or maybe how much I enjoy what I do in it.”
“Your job doesn’t define you, Geneviève,” Eli said quietly. “You hunt in the dark, butyouare not dark.”
I laughed in a combination of relief and amusement. I loved that Eli called what I did “hunting.” I leaned in and said, “Ikillin the dark. It’s very different than mere hunting.”
“And you are radiant as you do so,” he said, unperturbed by my words.
“I amnot.”
He pressed his lips together as if trapping words from escaping again. He did that more and more. Silently, he opened a box on the table and handed me my phone.
I looked at it. Four messages from Tres.
Eli’s disapproval was beyond obvious. “His messaging feels more obsessive than normal.”
“He’s grieving. People do that differently.”
“Send me a bottle?” I asked in a flirtier tone than I should have, pointedly shoving the phone in my back pocket. Eli had read the texts, and that meant I didn’t need to read them just now. Tonight was a night out with friends—and maybe a little careful flirting with Eli.
I cleared my throat. “Join us for a drink later?”
“Of course, my dear meringue.”
“Good.” I paused before adding, “I like being around you.”
“I know.” He gave me a wicked smile. Then he passed by me closer than comfortable and whispered, “Sunglasses.”
I pulled my shades off, and winced at the loss of detail that followed. But as I left him there, I was smiling. I liked us this way. Easy. Light. We simply weren’t suited for long conversations right now. Perhaps we never would be.
Perfect partner, my ass. We’d be a disaster.
Eli motioned to the bartender as I scanned the room, looking for my two closest female friends. Honestly, I was suspicious of the sort of women who lacked good female friends. Mine were people I’d easily kill for or die to protect. Hell, I’d even sit through pedicures for them, and that was a lot less fun to me than killing.
The bar was dim in the way of my preferred bars. I saw better in the dark, and if I had my way, the only kind of place I’d be in would be dark rooms, darker rooms, and carefully chosen areas on nights with a New Moon. Those were a sort of perfection that I wished I could enjoy without being aware of what else was in the dark with me. The world took on a kind of clarity that only happened when the sky was perfectly dark.
In the darkest corner of the bar, I saw Christy and Sera beside a pool table. Several old men watched them. I wasn’t sure if it was because Christy was running the table or because she was bent low and wearing a shirt with a lot of cleavage. She had several degrees in esoteric shit, but research didn’t pay the way her pool hustling could.
Consciously slowing myself, I slid between tables and waitresses, bodies and beers. Sera sighed in relief at the sight of me.
“Thought you weren’t going to make it,” she said as she stood and hugged me.
Christy’s gaze lifted from the table, assessed me, and that was that. We didn’t talk when she was earning the rent, and goddess love ’em, tourist after tourist bought her sweet and fumbling act most nights. She was adept at a lot of things, but an affinity for physics meant that she steered pool balls like she had a magic wand instead of a pool cue.
I settled in at a table to watch.
