Page 17 of My Funny Demon Valentine
Skye stuck her lower lip out. “Fine.”
“Are you working at Bootleg this Thursday?”Please say no, please say no.
“No, but now I wish I was. I want to meet him.”
It was time for a subject change. Scooping up their mugs, Eva deftly avoided Thelonious and then sank onto the couch beside Skye. She passed her friend her tea, set her own on the end table, and picked up her laptop and headphones from the coffee table.
“Enough about men. I want your opinion on the new track I wrote for my set.” She snapped her headphones over Skye’s ears and hit play on the track, taking it as a good sign when Skye’s eyes closed and her head bobbed.
“This is good!” she yelled, palms pushing the headphones tighter to her head, grinning broadly.
Eva laughed. “No need to shout, but thanks.”
“What!”
“I said no need to shout!”
“I can’t hear you over the music! It’s really good, Eva!”
Eva chuckled and sipped her tea.
5
Asmodeus Mozart
Thursday night at ten, Asmodeus climbed out the back of a cab—a laborious method of travel compared to flying, but he had to keep up human appearances now—at the club called Bootleg. The outside wasn’t much. A scuffed up black door with a faded sign was complemented by a neon blinking arrow indicating it was upstairs.
He was a little early, so he got busy leaning up against the wall and blending into the shadows. He lit up a cigarette to pass the time.
Demons were impervious to health problems but loved to indulge in human addictions like alcohol and drugs. Ash was a little too “boring” (as his brothers would say) to be a big partier, but he did enjoy smoking.
A minute later, Eva came around the corner at the end of the street, and he ate up the sight of her with hungry eyes. Even in black and white, she was so... vibrant. And that wasn’t just because she was attracted to him. It was because she was. Even if she’d looked at him like he was as sexy as toilet paper like every other woman did, he’d still have wanted her.
Her wild hair, her short, curvy body, and that ridiculously round ass that he wanted to bite so fucking bad... He had to have her. No question.
But first: music.
When she was close enough, he stepped out of the shadows, tossing his cigarette on the pavement and stamping it out with a boot. “Eva.”
She stopped in her tracks and stared at him without speaking. For a moment, he could have sworn a flash of straight-up fear crossed her face, but it passed quickly, and he had to wonder if he’d imagined it. “Hey, Ash— Wow.”
“What?”
“I forgot you were so— Never mind.”
He stepped closer, drawn like a magnet by the heated look she was giving him. Yeah, she definitely saw him all right. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
The air between them crackled with chemistry. Maybe they could skip the club altogether and get straight to the sex.
“You wanna go inside?”
“Yeah, I do.” And he did. Sex could come later. First, he could enjoy some good music.
They pulled open the door and climbed the creaky stairs. Inside was packed body to body, standing room only. The venue wasn’t big by any means, and the room was probably way past capacity, but places like this never followed the rules.
Bare lightbulbs dangled from wires over the bustling bar. A few tables lined the sides of the room, but most were empty because everyone preferred to be packed together on the dance floor at the heart of the action.
