He sort of zoned out for most of Paz getting ready, and before he knew it they were back in the bedroom, which was bright as fuck.
Paz walked over to the shades, but Trent sighed and said,It’s fine. I’m up.
“Well, yes, you were up about forty-five minutes ago,” Paz reasoned, walking over to the closet to sort through Trent’s clothes.
No, I was not “up.” I was awake, and not by my choice. That is different than “up,”Trent explained.
“Ok. I’m not sure what the difference is?” Paz puzzled, starting to pull out clothes to wear.
Becauseyouare a morning person. You wake up ready to go. It’s not natural. It’s some freakish trait that morning people share. Like your head pops off the pillow and you’re going a hundred miles per hour and turning on lights and chatting and thinking about fucking color schemes, Trent complained.Who does that? Morning people, that’s who. Not natural,he mumbled again.
“Yes… What would you prefer I do?” Paz asked.
Most people need time to wake up. To reboot and get ready to face the day. Coming awake is a slow and gentle process that requires darkness and quiet, Trent explained. Then he caught sight of himself in the mirror.Are we wearing that? We can’t wear that!
Paz paused in front of the mirror, giving a turn. The dark jeans were tight as fuck and fashionably ripped, and Trent had to admit they made his ass look great. But damn, he didn’t know he still even fit into those things. They were from college. The sweater… Well, everyone would definitely know if he got cold. It was thin and worn but somehow it looked sexy. He looked five years younger. He also looked like he was ready to go out for a hookup.
Maybe if I wore this last night I would’ve scored, Trent groused.But really, I’m not sure this works for Target.
Paz chuckled. “First of all, you could’ve scored last night, but you had morals. Second of all, no reason not to look hot, because you are fucking hot, Trent. I’m going to enjoy every moment in this body.”
Something about the way Paz said that had Trent feeling all kinds of flustered, and based on Trent’s chuckle he guessed the demon could tell.
“Finally,” Paz concluded, “who said anything about Target? Beautiful, I got the blue card all ready, and I know what’s in your account, and we are not shopping at big box stores.”
Fuck,Trent murmured.
Paz laughed as he walked out of the bedroom, grabbing his keys and wallet from by the door.
Trent grumbled and groused, but he had to admit he was actually a little excited; Paz’s enthusiasm was a bit contagious. No, it wasn’t clubbing or vacation, but maybe it would be nice to have his house feel more like a home.
Maybe it wouldn’t feel quite so lonely when it was just him again.
Chapter
Six
DOES HELL HAVE HGTV?
They ended up at some home goods store that had aisles and aisles of everything you could imagine—and quite a few things Trent couldn’t imagine. How were there that many kitchen items in the world? Trent didn’t even know what half of them were for, but when he asked, Paz seemed to know every single one.
What the heck is that, and how do you know so much about kitchen shit?Trent asked as they passed yet another strange looking kitchen utensil, which Paz thankfully did not put in the cart.
“That is a garlic roaster, which you won’t need. And I possessed a five star chef for a week or so. He wished to get through the reorganization of his kitchen. He had a lot of people he needed to replace and couldn’t stomach doing it, so I did it. It was kind of fun cooking, though. His husband was awesome, too,” Paz finished.
They were still walking through one of the kitchen utensil aisles, and a woman started into their aisle, heard the end of Paz’s comment, saw no one else in the aisle, and turned around and went a different way.
Trent chuckled.Way to be discreet, he laughed.
Paz pulled out Trent’s phone and grabbed his earbuds from his pocket, putting them in. “Yeah, forgot about that,” he mumbled. “No one ever questions you when a phone is out, though.”
Smart,Trent admitted.But back to the chef. I bet he was happy you did the dirty work for him, but how does the whole home life thing work? Did the husband know the guy was possessed? And did you, like, have sex with him and stuff? Did he think of it as cheating to have sex with a demon even if it was his husband’s body?
“Ah, well, no, the chef wasn’t happy. I told you, no one is happy to be possessed. There’s usually a lot of screaming. Most people then sort of check out for the duration. They’re there, but they’re not really there. It’s a thing humans do. If that happens I usually snap them back before I leave and explain what happened while they were gone. He wasn’t quite checked out, at least not all the time, unfortunately. When he was present he was… well, hostile is an understatement,” Paz admitted.
“And his husband didn’t know,” Paz continued. “It isn’t my style to tell anyone, and I usually warn people that if they tell their loved ones they’re likely to end up checked in for psychiatric evaluation. I didn’t sleep with the husband—I could tell that the guy I possessed would have totally held it against his husband, and I didn’t want that. The husband was really a sweet guy. It was easy enough to make excuses for a week, especially with all the work stress the chef was under.”
Trent felt his shoulders sort of shrug at that. Huh. That was interesting. He hadn’t really felt his body before, but he didn’t think too much about it, because he was too outraged on Paz’s behalf.
