Page 19 of How Not to Date an Angel

To your previous role: a messenger.

Resisting the urge to groan, Julian stared at the clipboard so hard he hoped he burned a hole in it.

No such luck.

He could return now, give up on the angel, and wait a hundred more decades to get another chance—ifhe got another chance. Or he could continue, fail, be demoted, and wait anyway.

Or.He could try, succeed, and remain on Earth.

Julian lifted his head to the sun, felt the warmth on his skin.

There was no warmth beneath the florescent lights of Hell.

“I’d like to continue the temptation,” Julian said.

A pause extended as the scroll remained silent. Julian tensed, half expecting to be sucked back down to Hell anyway.

You have until the end of the week.

Julian nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said.

The text on the paper all vanished in a puff of smoke, and Julian waved a hand to clear it. The messenger took the clipboard from him and nodded before disappearing in another flash of light.

Spinning, Julian glanced around, but found the humans none the wiser.

He relaxed in the face of their indifference, noses too buried in their phones to glance up and notice what was going on around them.

One week,he thought.

He could tempt the angel in that time, right?

Well, it wasn’t like he had a choice. Hell didnotlike being disappointed.

Rami

After the demon left, it was like the sun shone a little brighter through the windows. Their shoulders finally relaxed despite the ache in their neck, and they sank deeper into their chair, reluctantly sipping their now hot coffee.

It was still delicious, to their dismay.

But the caffeine did little to boost their mood, and they glared at the couch responsible for their aches. The cushion was still indented from the demon’s presence all morning, the ghost of him lingering.

Rami placed their bookmark before closing the book altogether and setting it on the side table, exchanging it for their mug. The warmth was perfect against their hands.

It had been… not so terrible to spend the morning alongside the demon, theysupposed.

At least Julian was quiet.

Waiting, Rami realized, to show off his little magic trick.

Rami’s sip of the hot coffee was loud in the quiet of their space. It was nifty, they admitted. Coffee didn’t always taste the same once reheated, and this had been a particularly perfect, smooth pour, leaving nutty and cocoa hints behind. They would have hated to waste it, so they couldn’t say they didn’t appreciate the demon’s gesture.

Still, they were not one for frivolity when it came to magic. They’d been sent here to masquerade as a human, to study them, and overall, that was just easier when they knew what it was tobea human.

And what better way to learn than by listening intently to their life experiences, their process of emotion, as they sat on the yellow couch and played with the pillow tassels?

Besides, Rami must have been doing something right, because they hadn’t heard from Heaven in quite some time.

Why change what was clearly working?

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