Page 25 of Falling for Lucifer
“What? I?—”
“I ain’t a bitch, Hades.” Lucifer’s tone held a warning to it, and Ellodie thought they would for sure come to blows. Hades didn’t seem like the kind of man who liked to be challenged.
Hades surprised her when he simply waved Lucifer off and asked, “Y’all together now?”
Ellodie wondered what Hades meant about Lucifer bitchin’ up as she opened her mouth to speak. Lucifer responded before she could though.
“Nah, but we faking like we are.” He grinned at Ellodie, who would have turned beet red if her skin was a few shades lighter.
Harley eyed them. “What do you mean you’re faking? Still?”
Lucifer nodded and glanced at Ellodie. “Don’t be embarrassed now, baby. You told ya cousin. Only right I get to tell my people.” He winked at her, and she forgot about being embarrassed for a moment and melted into the sofa. Kali finally settled down as Lucifer rocked her gently. Ellodie found it so charming that he could calm a wailing baby so easily. It meant he had a good spirit, something she had picked up on pretty quickly.
“That shit sounds dumb as fuck. Why y’all pretending to fuck on each other?” Hades asked as he glared at them.
Ellodie’s eyes grew wide. “No, we aren’t pretending that . . . I mean . . .” She guessed they kind of were pretending to do exactly that. She sighed. “My parents, my mom, specifically, is a bitch. There’s no other way to say it.”
“Can confirm,” Harley mumbled.
Ellodie let out a nervous giggle. “Lu’s just helping me out. I don’t really know how else to explain it.”
Hades mugged her for a few long seconds before he asked, “You know what I say about shitty parents?”
Ellodie hesitated before she shook her head. She had a feeling he was about to say something completely off-the-wall. “What?”
“Fuck them mothafuckas up.”
Ellodie cocked her head to the side and repeated what he said in a hesitant tone. “Fuck them up?”
He nodded. “Fuck ya mama up. That’ll teach her. Then you can stop playin’ wit’ my brother. I’on play about him, so if you or ya peoples hurt him in anyway, guess what I’ma have to do?”
Ellodie gulped before she responded, taking a stab at what he was about to say. “Fuck us up?”
Hades nodded. “You and ya peoples up, and I’on really wanna do that. You see my daughter?” Ellodie glanced at the baby resting in Lucifer’s arms. She looked just as chunky and cuddly as Etta. Her skin tone made her look like a Hershey kiss, and she had a mass of brown curls on her head. When she met Hades’s eyes again, she nodded but didn’t respond verbally. “She retired me from being a certified crash out, but if a mothafucka wants to try me or my people, I’ll have to come up out of retirement, feel me?”
Ellodie suddenly second-guessed her situation with Lucifer. She hadn’t thought about the possibility of him getting hurt in allthis. Her mother could say some lethal things when she wanted, and there was also the issue of them clearly gaining feelings for one another.
Lucifer must have picked up on her mental battle because he put his arm protectively around her and addressed his brother. “You done, man?” Hades simply shrugged. “Don’t listen to him. I already told you that man is a certified nut. I’m a big dawg, baby. I don’t break easily, if ever. Be careful with me, keep it real with me, but don’t be afraid of me or this situation we got going on. That’s all I ask.”
He sealed his words with a swift kiss on her lips. It shocked the hell out of her because they weren’t in a situation where they needed to fake their relationship, which made her feel like he kissed her because he wanted to. She beamed up at him, and they stayed locked in each other’s gazes.
“Aw, baby look at them,” Harley said. “Reminds me of us when we first met.”
Ellodie tore her eyes from Lucifer and looked at the couple on the other side of the couch. Harley snuggled into Hades while Etta drifted off to sleep in Harley’s arms.
“Nah, I ain’t even like you when we first met.” Hades looked around the room like what he just said wasn’t bizarre.
Lucifer laughed deeply while Harley hit him on the back of the head.
“Yeah right, nigga. You was a goner,” Lucifer joked.
Hades glared at him. “Looks like you the goner now, my boy. Y’all sure you just pretending?”
Ellodie squirmed in her seat and was thankful when Harley intervened. “Leave them alone.” She looked at Ellodie and Lucifer. “We were just about to order some food. Y’all want to stay for dinner?”
Lucifer looked down at Ellodie. “What you think, love?”
Whenever he called her that, her insides turned to jelly. She nodded quickly. She was more than okay with spending more time with Lucifer, even if it meant being in the same room as his crazy ass brother.
