Page 5 of By An Angel's Grace

“Don’t worry about it, Cupcake. You two just have a nice time.”

I went to turn my head in the direction of Gabriel’s voice, but he was already gone. The room we were in – a private one. Just me, Tab, a table for two lit with two glowing candle sticks and four tastefully decorated walls with one heavy, fancy carved wooden door set into one of them.

“Where are we?”

“Basil’s,” Tab said, as if that should explain everything.

“That’s right, I remember Gabriel using the name, but what’s Basil’s?”

“A safe place in its neutrality. A restaurant, a bar, a club, in some ways an inn… The food is excellent.”

“You’re tense,” I realized out loud.

“It wouldn’t be my first choice for an evening alone with you, but Gabriel is correct that it is the best choice.”

The door opened and someone cleared their throat. Tab and I looked as one to the stately looking gentleman in the door in a tux complete with tails. I licked my lips, which suddenly felt dry when I took in his widow’s peak of black scales. He didn’t have hair, but rather shiny black scales close to his head that if you weren’t sharp, you could easily mistake for a slicked back Bela Lugosi style Dracula hairdo.

Tab’s hands drifted lower, and he pressed gently at my waist, a silent signal to get up off his lap and to take my seat. I suddenly felt naked without my .45s and silently cussed out Gabriel in my head, using every colorful name in the book.

“Ma’am.” The demon who was apparently serving us clicked his heels and bowed smartly in my direction before striding forward to pull out my chair opposite Tab for me.

“Um, thank you,” I murmured and let him push me in – the only reason, the absolute certainty and love in Tab’s gray eyes as he watched my every move. All of his silent cues telling me that he was sure everything was and would be fine; even if he wasn’t precisely relaxed.

Of course, Tab was never, ever, fully relaxed… unless it really is just you and him, I thought to myself silently.

“What is for dinner?” Tab inquired of our waiter and the demon gave off a litany of delicious sounding things before, with a click of his heels and another smart bow, he left us, the heavy door shutting tightly behind him.

“Um, he didn’t let us choose…”

“There is no choice in Basil’s, Addy. That is simply what is for dinner.”

“I don’t think I could possibly eat all of that.”

“The portions are quite correct, I assure you. I know you dislike being wasteful.”

I swept my gaze over him but before I could say anything he murmured, “You are beautiful to me.”

“Like it, then?” I asked and absently smoothed my hands over the clinging silk in my lap.

“Very much.”

“You know, I would have been just as happy with a ride to Dick’s Drive-In and dinner on the back of the bike, right?”

He smiled. “Yes, but you deserve beautiful and nice things, especially after your ordeal.”

“Our ordeal, and I’d be cool if the only beautiful and nice thing I ever had to look at again was just you.”

I had to laugh. I do believe I had just made Tabbris, soldier of God, champion of Freewill and the biggest badass I had ever known, blush.

We enjoyed the first course, a broth-based soup that was both flavorful and at the same time light. It was like we found ourselves in a vacuum when it came to conversation, though, without a need to plan everything to the last detail, no one out to try to kill us, no need to run, hide, or evade any sort of capture… Geez, we really didn’t have anything to talk about and I know I really didn’t want to talk about anything that’d happened to us. I wanted the entire thing in the side-view mirrors on my shiny new Harley.

There was one thing I was sure I had asked before, but I wanted to hear it anyway, so I asked him, “When did you know?”

Tab looked at me sharply as the waiter cleared our soup away and refilled our water glasses. He bowed and backed from the room with his silver service tray and the silence, which was understandable when the demon was present, continued to stretch between Tab and I to the point I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, suddenly afraid of what the answer must be.

“I want to say it was in France, when I held you as you screamed. That was when I first realized it to be true, but that isn’t what you asked. You asked me when I knew.”

“I did.”

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