Page 78 of Cookbooks and Demons

“Come on. I’m hungry,” she said and turned to pluck her terry bathrobe from where it hung from her closet door instead of getting dressed properly. “I think I’ll take a quick shower—”

Just then the doorbell rang.

The two of them looked at each other in alarm. “Who could that—” she started to say, but then a possibility struck her. “Cindy! Last night. What she did… police would investigate.” She pressed her fingers to her lips in concern. “But how do we explain how we teleported her to thehospital?”

Rafferty’s eyebrows furrowed hard as they both thought. “I could always kill them?” he offered.

She smacked his arm. “No! You cannot always kill them!”

“Ow, I was kidding,” he said, rubbing his arm, then pulled on his shirt to work the buttons. “Teach me for trying to make a joke,” hegrumbled.

“Okay well, I need to put more clothes on if it’s the police. Could you go answer…?” Then her phone pinged. “Just go answer the door and keep them busy. Please,” she said as she dove among the devastation of her bed to findher phone.

“As you command, my lady,” he said, stepping out of the room, receiving a pillow at the back of her head as payment. He chuckled back at her.

Helena finally found her phone not in the bed but on the floor beside it, face down. It pinged again just as she got her fingers around the edge. The screen lit up to show the message notifications from Charlie.

“Helena, it’s not the police,” Rafferty called.

“Crap,” she whispered, deciding she would respond to him after she dealt with the door, and took a shower… and procrastinated a while longer…

“Who is it?” she asked as she left her bedroom to pad down her hallway, still inher robe.

“Helena?” Charlie’s voice called.

Oh crap, she thought, but there was nothing for it now. As she came into her main room, she spotted her friend standing by the door, his eyes red from crying. Please be about Cindy, please be about Cindy.

But the look he gave her told herit wasn’t.

“Did you know?!” he demanded, pivoting from Rafferty, who prudently shut the door, to Helena.

“Charlie, you need to take a breath,” she tried to say, but he wasn’t going tohave it.

“Did. You. KNOW!”

Helena stiffened her back. “No,”she said.

Charlie stood there panting. He blinked as what she said registered. “No? You didn’t know?”

“No, not ‘no.’ No, you are not going to come into my house and start screaming at me because you’re angry at someone else,” she stated in no uncertain terms.

Charlie’s eyes flared again as he understood. He opened his mouth to scream again, but then the mature part of his brain, not dictated by emotion, forced him to hesitate. Then to take a breath. Then to deflate. His head dropped and Helena moved, opening her arms to her friend. Holding on, he buried his head in hershoulder.

“Oh God, Helena! What am I going to do?” he sobbed.

Over her friend’s head, Rafferty indicated he was heading to her kitchen and Helena gave him a tiny nod, with a mouthed “Thank you.” As he passed, Rafferty squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.

She stayed that way, rubbing Charlie’s back and letting him cry until all that were left were shaky breaths. “Here, let’s sit down and talk, and I will tell you what I know,” she said, encouraging him toward the table.

“Thank you,” Charlie said tearfully, sniffing hard. “I’m sorry aboutall this.”

“This is not your fault, Char. And it’s not mine either,”she said.

He horked another sniff. “You’re right. It’s fucking Chris’s,” he agreed and dropped into a chair so he could plop his head onto the table’s surface. “I wouldn’t have cared as much if he told me or at least asked for my permission. I would have understood, you know. I mean, we’ve both done boys’ weekend before, but this… this isn’tthe same.”

“No, it’s not the same, is it?” Helena agreed, dropping her tissue box in front of him before sitting down kitty corner from him at the end.

Rafferty reappeared, poking his head out of the kitchen. “Helena,” he said softly, “where is your coffeemaker?”

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