Page 14 of Asher

I force myself to focus. Maybe if I can convince him to help me out, we can negotiate the terms of our agreement to include more hot, sweaty, delicious sex. Though probably not if I use the words “negotiate,” “terms,” and “agreement.”

“Micah’s my cousin. He opened his stupid fat mouth while I was trying to think of a solution, and told everyone I couldn’t participate in that stupid match-dating scheme because I’m seeing someone.”

“He told your grandmother you were seeing me? How? I’ve never met Micah.”

Fuck. This isn’t going to go well for me. “No, he just said I was seeing someone. Well, he said I was seeing a non-demon who wasn’t sure he could handle living in the village for at least part of the year, and that’s why I’d kept it quiet. Because we’re taking it slow.”

He looks at me expectantly, clearly waiting for me to explain how that led to tonight’s shitshow of Grandmother thinking he’s my boyfriend.

Although, really… it’s the perfect solution. He’s here for a year anyway. And it’s not like he’d be stuck with me all the time… I spend about half of every month in Zurich.

“People were asking me questions about my imaginary boyfriend,” I continue, “and I… panicked. Your face popped into my head, and I didn’t think I’d ever see you again—I definitely didn’t think you’d ever meet my family—so I, uh, borrowed your identity. Sorry?”

He stares at me, unblinking, for a minute, then nods stiffly. “I suppose I can see how that would have happened. And I didn’t expect to see you ever again, so maybe if I’d been in a similar situation, I would have done the same thing.” He sounds doubting, and I’m sure he’s judging me hard. But he doesn’t say so or show it, and I’m grateful. I really don’t need my hookups thinking I’m an idiot.

Although… given what I plan to ask next, that may still happen.

“It’s just a stupid coincidence,” I add. “Or…”

Wariness takes over his expression. “What do you mean, or?”

“Well… doesn’t it seem an incredible coincidence that of all the people in Zurich, it was you, the one person who would be moving to my village and meeting my family, that I hooked up with the other day?”

“Not the one person,” he corrects. “My team is here too. There are three of us.”

I ignore that. It’s not relevant and doesn’t help my point. “And then, of all the people I’ve met in my life, and all the many combinations of people I could have made up, I used your name and description when my family asked about my fake boyfriend.”

“Itisvery coincidental,” he agrees slowly.

“Is it, though? Or is the magic taking a hand in things? It does that sometimes, you know.” Or so Gideon, my cousin, tells me. His boyfriend is the lucifer, so he’d know. It seemed kind of farfetched to me that the existential magic that makes up the universe and selects our leaders would care about individual people.

Garrett’s face changes to incredulous disbelief. I’ve always loved that other species have no subtlety of expression. It makes negotiating with them so much easier.

“Are you trying to say that this whole… whole…debaclewasfated?” He looks like he’s going to start sputtering at any moment, and affection rushes through me. I barely know him—except carnally—but already I like him.

I definitely like what he did to me when we were naked.

“I don’t believe in fate,” I scoff. “But I know the magic acts to make things happen that otherwise might not. Grandmother said the lucifer interviewed you personally—surely, after meeting him, you can concede that’s true?”

He nods stiffly. “Alistair said it happens sometimes,” he admits.

“Alistair?” Something clicks in my brain. “AlistairSmythe? Are you related?” I know of Alistair Smythe, of course. He works directly for the lucifer—with Gideon, believe it or not. Gideon’s told me some stories that make me wonder how my chronically impatient cousin hasn’t strangled him yet.

“He’s my cousin.”

I seize on that. “See? I didn’t know that… how could that be yet another coincidence? Alistair works with my cousin Gideon—they’re both the entire reason you’re here. Would you have been in Zurich if not for them? No? They’re the reason you and I met. It must be that the magic is taking a hand in this.”

The disbelief morphs to pure skepticism. “To what end? Why would the magic want your grandmother to think I’m your boyfriend?”

I have no idea how to answer that, because the truth is, there’s no possible way the magic cares about Grandmother’s matchmaking scheme. So I have two seconds to make something up that sounds plausible and will convince Garrett that he should go along with this whole cockamamie plot.

“Maybe it knows that the village—and Grandmother—will behave differently, treat you differently, if they think you’re family. Maybe it needs your anthropological viewpoint on what’s happening here, but knows you’ll only see what you need to if you’re fully accepted from day one. Which you would be, as my boyfriend.” Wow, that wasn’t believable at all.

Oddly, though, he seems intrigued. Could he actually have fallen for it?

“It is a known phenomenon that people behave differently with family and friends than they do with outsiders,” he muses. “And your grandmother was much warmer toward me when she thought I was dating you.”

“Yes, exactly,” I agree, even though I don’t see how it would make much difference. He’s here to teach the kids and tell us what we need to do to make the village accessible and welcoming to other species. How would it make a difference to that if Grandmother invites him to weekly family dinner or not? “While you’re here, we tell everyone you’re my boyfriend. Then, toward the end of the year, we start acting like things aren’t working out, and nobody will be surprised when we ‘break up’ and you go back home. You’ll get what you need for your study, and I’ll get a year’s reprieve from Grandmother’s matchmaking. Maybe more, since I can pretend to be heartbroken for a while after you’re gone,” I add, seized by inspiration. “Who knows, maybe she’ll shift her focus to Micah this year and forget all about me.” That would be amazing. Nobody deserves it more than him.

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