Page 6 of My Guardian Demon

Onyx huffed a laugh. "Not trusting me is probably a legitimate decision in the long run. But you can trust me with this story."

I made a humming noise in my throat then chewed another bite of apple as I mulled it over. Finally, I said, "Why don't you tell me yours first?"

"Hmmm." He went silent as he considered this. "Promise you'll tell me about your ex if I tell you about my day?"

"I promise."

"Deal. What do you want to know?"

Chapter 4

Wynn

"Tell me what made it such a rough day. Wherever you have to start in order to cover that," I said.

Onyx sighed. "It's been rough in general. To start it off, the coffee shop got my drink wrong. I was already far enough away when I noticed that I wasn't going back. Who drinks caffeine free coffee, anyway?"

I laughed. "Some people have to."

"Well, I'm not 'some people' and I need my caffeine. I've been off caffeine all day, and that puts me in a bad mood. No one likes when I'm in a bad mood."

"Noted. I have a coffee machine if you ever need to borrow it."

Onyx laughed. "Noted." He cleared his throat. "So then I go into an early morning meeting only to get blindsided with work I normally don't do. ...I don't know how to explain it. ...Let's say I normally do Southern work and this is Northern work. Polar opposite of what I usually do. Somehow, though, because of a clerical error, this work is assigned to me now."

"I vaguely follow, Mr. No-Details."

He chuckled. "Good. I'm giving you need-to-know info only."

I rolled my eyes. "Anything else happen today?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. My least favorite co-worker made buddies with the boss all day. Fuckin' brown-nosed all day. Plus, I went to my favorite café to pick up lunch, and they messed up my order. Again, too far away to go back and get it fixed."

"The co-worker thing does suck. But look at the positives. At lunch, you got to try something new," I suggested.

Onyx growled. "I didn't want to try something new."

"But you did try it. If you weren't mad about it, would you have liked what you received?"

"No." He answered with disgust, like that was the worst idea in the world.

I chuckled. "Okay, okay. Fine. Continue."

Onyx sighed. I could imagine him settling further into his pillow. "So then I get home, and it turns out I forgot my keys. Which is more a pain in the ass than really inconvenient. It was the icing on the cake."

"I try to look at inconveniences under the lens of 'Will this matter in five years?' If it won't, there's no use worrying about it. In five years, you won't remember today. It'll be trivial. Don't let it stress you out."

He laughed to himself. "Oh, I bet I remember this day in five years. The work I got will make sure of that."

"Well, everything else is trivial. Try not to stress out about your workload too much. You can always find another job if you want."

Onyx barked out a laugh but didn't elaborate. "I told you mine, now tell me yours."

I took another bite of apple and chewed as I thought about what to say. I swallowed and said, "I don't even know where to start."

"Wherever seems best, Wynnie."

I was starting to get used to the nickname but automatically I said, "Don't call me that."

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