Page 54 of Finders Reapers

I eyed him warily, unwilling to admit that being cocooned by his body was nice—one thing that I had missed since dying was real, genuine, human touch. My smile was confused more than welcoming.

“Hi?” I asked, the word becoming a question.

He beamed at me, and his dark chocolate eyes flicked down to mine. I took a moment before I pried my gaze from his face and took in the woman who stood in front of us.

She wore a lifeguard’s uniform and a frown that distorted her beautiful face into a mask of anger. She had a button nose, which belonged on a plastic surgeon's wall as an aspirational image. Her wide eyes darkened with a storm. Even though her lips were pulled into a smile, there was a mocking edge to it.

“Jamal, honey. Who’s this?” Her eyes did not meet mine.

Jamal cleared his throat, and the sound was halfway between a choking laugh and a cough. “Isabella, this is my girlfriend, Vallie.”

“Vallie?” Isabelle scoffed as she flicked her hair but still did not look at me. “You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend.”

I ignored her pointed statement and forced a smile on my face. “Nice to meet you, Isabella. You’re a lifeguard?”

Isabella ignored me. “Don’t lie to me, Jamal. She isn’t your girlfriend. She’s like, what, five foot?”

“Isabella,” Jamal said in a low, warning tone.

Isabella rolled her eyes. “Is this why you haven’t messaged me back, Jamal. Because, newsflash, I’m not always going to respond to a 3am ‘U up?’ message, I deserve more.”

“I have a girlfriend.” Jamal affected a bemused innocence that made him look like a puppy.

Jamal might have been faking his confusion, but I wasn’t. I’d been thrown into a lovers quarrel, and I just wanted to escape. Jamal caught my eye, and I could see the moment he realized that I was seconds away from blowing his cover.

We’d just met, and yes, there was some sort of magical connection between our bodies—but that was Reaper low jack. It wasn’t a reason to break up with someone.

Isabella growled and turned to me, her nasty smile back in full force. “He fucked me last night, you know. At the party. In his bed.”

“I don’t care?” I said truthfully, turning to Jamal and shrugging.

When her hit didn’t land, she turned to Jamal. “You can’t keep hitting me up and then knocking me back. You keep pretending that I mean something to you, but then you go and find some short ginger bitch and pretend that she’s your girl just so you don’t have to face up for the fact you have feelings for me. You avoid, avoid, avoid.” She clapped her hands after each word. “I thought I meant more to you than that.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. Neither, apparently, did Jamal.

Isabella waved her hand in front of her, dismissing us both before she stomped away from the bar. I couldn’t help but watch the way she moved. Her hair swung with every step in a way that had to be on purpose.

I gave Jamal a long look and batted his hand around my shoulders. “What was that about?” I demanded.

“You’re not so good with social cues, are you?” Jamal exhaled, shaking his head and allowing his shoulders to drop. I hadn’t realized until that moment, but he had been on edge.

I gave him a long look. “I literally played games in my room for a living and could go weeks without seeing another person unless they were employed by Doordash.”

Jamal shrugged and gave me a smile that was equal parts cocky and confident. “Isabella and I have different ideas of what our relationship means.”

“Right,” I elongated the word.

A severe expression washed over his face. “We’re Reapers, Vallie. We can’t offer humans what they need. I can’t give her children. I can’t even guarantee that I’ll be in Las Vegas from one day to the next. Reapers don’t feel love the same way that humans do.”

My brow furrowed. “We can’t feel love?”

Jamal shrugged. “Not in the way they can. Our souls are owned by HQ. Suspended, tethered to the Human Realities and to our Grim, to prevent Heaven or Hell from sucking us in. The heart and the soul are closely entwined. You can’t give your heart to someone if your soul belongs to someone else.”

My lip curled in distaste. “Who owns our souls?”

“Quietus.”

“Quietus?” I repeated. “What’s that?”

---