Page 65 of How Not to Date an Angel

“Might I inquire where this something is?” they asked, slippers hushing across the floor as they pulled the kettle off the stove.

“You could. But I want it to be a surprise,” Julian said.

Rami stilled, arm stretched above them to the shelf of mugs, and Julian stared at them, wishing he could see the expression on Rami’s face.

“Well, that’s kind of you,” Rami said, and placed a mug on the counter top with a ceramic clink.

There it was again. That word.

Soft. Sweet. Gentle.Kind.

All the things Julian wasn’t allowed to be. The spikes he felt were tensing, as if eager to burst or fend off all the very things Ramiwas,and was accusing Julian of being.

“Wait until you see where we’re going before you say that,” Julian told them, and pushed away from the counter to take a seat on the couch.

Rami did not reply, and it was a tense silence that passed agonizingly slow before the angel walked past Julian… to also take a seat on the couch.

Julian glanced over at them, then to the chair—that Julian only just then realized he had begun to think of asRami’schair.

“I don’t get any hints as to where we’re going?” Rami asked.

“Nope,” Julian bit out, and sipped his too-hot coffee. The burn was good. The taste was better.

Rami hummed. “I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see. Is there a dress code for this sort of destination?”

Julian snorted. “No, not at all. It’s just a shop.”

“Oh, a shop? I love shopping,” Rami said, sipping from their mug with a stupidly cute little smile on their face.

“Of course you do,” Julian muttered.

Rami didn’t offer him a reply, which was just as well.

His spikes were still spiking, and he drank his coffee and sat his mug on the table with a clack.

“Why aren’t you in your chair?” he finally snapped.

Rami turned to meet Julian’s gaze. “My chair?”

“Yes,” he said simply, and motioned to the chair to their right. “You sit there every morning. Why are you on the couch?”

“I suppose I felt like sitting here this morning. Is that so bad?” they asked, a single brow arched in a challenge.

Julian deflated, his spikes receding. “No. I guess not,” he grumbled.

Rami hummed again, and what the fuck was that about?

There was little else to describe what Julian did for the rest of the morning besidespout.

So he pouted, and waited for the angel to drink their coffee while they flipped through the pages of yet another book. Julian couldn’t remember if it was a new book or if it was the one they’d been reading every morning. Something told him it was new.

Julian stewed as the sunlight slid across the wall across from him, marking the passage of the day.

To occupy himself, he magicked a phone and pretended there was anything of interest on it. Julian had gotten his fill of the internet when he was in Hell, after all, and watched the time tick away achingly slow.

When the hour was polite enough, Julian stood. “Alright, are you ready?”

Rami dragged themself from the pages with a slow blink. “Oh, for the surprise! Yes, certainly.”

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