Page 39 of Demon Hunter

Okay, great! I’ll leave it with you, then. That’s a relief! Say hi to Matt for me, and have a good night.

I wish him a good night too, then flip back over to the ad and stare at it for a few seconds. Makes a nice change from staring at the code on the job sheet.

Though neither are what I shouldactuallybe doing.

On impulse, I open the folder I created with all the information about SuperTask, the company in question, and click into the file with the code I downloaded from their website. It can’t hurt to refresh my memory, right?

I’m skimming through when I hear Matt moving around in the bedroom. Shit. He’s been trying to hide the nightmares from me, but I think he forgets that I’m awake for a lot of his sleep time. So when he’s tossing and muttering, it’s hard for me to miss.

At first I wasn’t sure if I should wake him or not, but after he was so cagey and apologetic the first time I did, I did some research. They’re just dreams, not night terrors, so as long as his restlessness lasts for less than thirty seconds, I let him be. And so far, it has.

Doesn’t mean I don’t hate hearing it, though.

He groans, and I start to get up, but then comes the unmistakable sound of him clicking the light on. He’s awake. It must have been a shitty one.

Seconds later, his footsteps pad down the hall, and I turn to face the doorway as he appears in it. “Can’t sleep?”

He shakes his head. His hair’s rumpled, eyes bleary and squinty, and he’s scowling. It’s ridiculous how much I love him. “Stupid dreams.”

“Nightmares?” I try not to sound too interested. He hasn’t wanted to talk about them before this, but maybe now?—

“Nah. Just… stupid dreams. They don’t make sense. I was flying, but then I was underwater, and I could hear some random couple fighting over him staying out with the boys all night. She was threatening to leave him, but that got interrupted by a little kid vomiting? But I don’t think it was their kid, because it was a different woman who was talking then. And I couldn’tseeany of them, just hear them. Then all I could smell was baking bread, and man, it smelled so good that I woke up.” He sniffs the air. “I can kinda still smell it. Fucking weird-ass dreams.”

I sniff too. There’s a bakery a block away, and sometimes when the windows are open and the wind is in the right direction, I catch a whiff of baking smells. But I got nothing, and the windows are closed anyway. “Super weird,” I agree. “But why are you up?”

He shrugs. “Sleep isn’t happening. And I wondered where you were. Normally you’re in bed by this time.”

I glance at the clock on my center screen. “Fuck.” I’ve been staring at assorted code and not actually working for a lot longer than I realized. “Okay, yeah. Let me get everything shut down. I’ll go night-night, and you can hopefully get a couple more hours too.” As I start the process of closing the things that need to be closed and securing everything else, I add, “Maybe skip the run and sleep in? You can probably convince Ian to go for a run with you later.” They’ll be here around midmorning, according to what Ian told Matt yesterday.

“Yeah, maybe.” He snorts. “Hey, why don’t you come too, and then we can make it a group activity and tell Marc he has to join us?”

I pause halfway through standing. “Does Marc run?”

“I mean, I’ve never seen him do it.” Matt grabs my hands and tows me toward the bedroom. “But I’d pay money to see him in workout gear.”

The image that rises in my mind makes me laugh. “Oh my god, we’ve got to make that happen. Whatever it takes.”

Chapter 17

Matt

My phone chimes with a text,but I’m still reaching for it when my best friend and his… demon appear in the middle of Dylan’s living room.

Dylan chokes on his coffee.

I clutch my chest. “Motherfucker! Warn a guy before you do that shit, Ian.”

Ian rolls his eyes. “I sent a text.”

“That I never even got the chance to open!” I grab my phone and hold it up to prove my point. “And what, you couldn’t appear in the hallway? Knocking is too much effort for you? What if we’d been naked?”

“What a thought,” Marc murmurs disdainfully. He’s looking around the room as though he’s never seen one before.

Ian, on the other hand, just shrugs and flops down on the other side of me on the couch. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

My mouth is open to retort, but I snap it shut. “When did you see Dylan naked?”

“In the locker rooms after training, a million years ago. You were there too, remember? We were all too damn tired to care if anyone saw our bits.”

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