Page 62 of How Not to Date an Angel

“Being selfish doesn’talwayshave to be—” Julian stopped himself as Rami leveled him with a dry stare. “Right, this is your context. Shutting up.”

He mimed zipping his lips and throwing it away before retreating his arm back beneath the plush blanket.

“I haven’t even heard from Heaven in a long time. So I’ve just been here, studying humans, getting to know them, taking my notes and sending what I can back to Heaven. To angels, they’re just another jellyfish to watch through the glass. Tothem,” they said,motioning vaguely to the windows, “it’s very real. Humans experience suchtragedies,Julian,” Rami said, begging him to understand, remembering the wars they’d seen, the stories they’d heard from their clients. “Atrocities committed for nothing more than one’s own… selfishness.” They paused, hung up on the word, something ringing in the back of their mind, but they couldn’t put their finger on why. “But according to Heaven, it’s all natural.That’s just the way of things,they’d say.”

Before Julian could speak, Rami lifted their hand. “I know it’s not up to us to police them. That is precisely my point. A single human can suffer so much and receive no good in return. I’ve seen so much of it down here. Where things are real, whererealpeople are having to live day after day and bear witness to evil, bad things.”

Julian was silent.

Rami was, too, attempting to funnel their jumbled thoughts into coherent words. “I think somewhere along the way, I began to resent the bad. No matter what my job is, it doesn’t feelright.It’s a broken system, and I thought I was above it. Turns out, I think I’ve fallen into its trap all the same.” Their lips twisted, disappointment welling up. Disappointment in themself.

“Because somewhere in all that, I began to blame demons for it. Demons became a target for all the unfairness, all the darkness I’d witnessed. And logically, I know that’s not true. So. I’m sorry,” Rami said, sitting up a little straighter. They caught Julian’s attention and held it. “I’m sorry I’ve been judging you so harshly against a narrative of my own making. I shouldn’t have said what I did at the bar.”

Their speech through, Rami sat and waited.

Julian stared at them, head cocked to the side. They could practically hear the gears turning behind those golden eyes.

“Gonna be honest, Feathers, I don’t really know what to say,” Julian finally muttered. His gaze trailed away before snapping back.

“Well, that’s—“

“No one’s ever apologized so thoroughly before.”

Rami blinked at that, and realized distantly that Julian was leaning closer.

“You… forgive me?” Rami asked, swaying forward, caught in the orbit of this demon.

Unbidden, Rami’s gaze dipped to his lips, quirked in a bit of a smile.

Julian waved his hand back and forth, and Rami’s heart fell before the demon winked.Winked.

It was devastating.

“Yeah, I forgive you,” he said softly, and then—

And then.

A kiss. So gentle, barely a brush of their lips, and oh, this was a terrible idea, of that Rami was certain. But Julian was so close, and so warm.

He was from Hell, wasn’t he? He probably ran a little warmer than others.

How did he smell like that? All… deep, velvety cocoa, not dissimilar to the very chocolates Rami loved. Or their morning coffee, the slightest hints of that heat.

And his lips were softer than Rami would’ve thought.

It was chaste, a press of mouths, and then Julian pulled back and Rami was yanked from the moment, back to reality.

Their cheeksflamed,and they pulled away. Julian’s expression was unreadable.

They would just… pretend that this neverhappened.Yep. Yes, that. Okay.

Rami cleared their throat. “How is the couch treating you?”

Julian turned his head to the side, a grotesque noise cracking.

Rami must have contorted their face into a displeased facade, because the demon took one look at them and snorted.

“That answer enough for you?”

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