Page 84 of Oh No! There's an Incubus in my Hot Spring
When I look up at him, he’s watching me with a gentle expression.
“What?” I ask, trying to hide in my hair and failing because of the damn alligator clip.
He pushes my curls behind my ear. “You’re perfect.”
My face flares with heat and I haven’t even had any sake yet.
Our waitress drops off the drinks and some water, then takes our order. I pour the sake into the little cups and then hold mine out to him.
“Kanpai!” I say, clinking his little white cup.
“Kanpai,” he repeats, watching me as I take a small sip. He follows my lead, and then cocks his head down at the cup. “It’s liquor.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“But it’s hot.”
“Yeah,” I laugh. “It is.”
“Interesting. I wasn’t very invested in consuming your foods, but you’ve shown me many things I didn’t think were possible. I’m awestruck.” He smiles up at me and the world stutters, chatter around us going quiet.
No.
No. No. No.
You are not allowed to fall in love with him.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I’ll give you a tour of everything I can before our time is up.”
He dips his head and takes another drink.
We sit quietly for a few moments, and I wonder if I ruined everything. I know he can feel my mood. I know he can feel something shifted. The thought sends flesh-eating eels wriggling through my insides and I take another big drink of sake.
“Tell me more about New York City?” Apollo asks.
Ah, good, a safe topic.
“Well, for one, it washuge. Towering spires of metal and glass reaching up into the clouds, traffic you wouldn’t believe, and so many people everywhere. It was loud, and fast, and no one said ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ unless they were in polite company. The restaurants are fantastic, so much good food. There was this Thai restaurant that had the best noodles on planet Earth—”
Alexis’s moans and the slap of her hips against Jason’s crash into the front of my mind. I blink down at my napkin, then pour myself another drink.
Apollo places his hand on my back. “What about the tall spires?”
I nod, knocking back another searing drink with abandon. “Masterful expressions of human ingenuity and ambition. They’re made with steel, and flexible enough to move with strong winds without breaking. Most of them are for big businesses. Some of them I even coached in their early days.”
He smiles, staying quiet as he drinks, and so I keep going.
“I worked with so many great people. So many good mentors for different things. That time in my life was necessary,” I say, remembering how I’d asked him to erase the last five years.
The waitress drops off our soup and the seaweed salad, so I busy myself with breaking my chopsticks and getting a taste. Apollo tries to follow my motions, but his hands fumble the chopsticks. I chuckle and show him how to hold them, then help him practice picking up strings of salad.
After a few tries, he finally gets something workable and quickly tries to shove the bite in his mouth. In his haste, the chopsticks twist and deposit the seaweed onto his chin instead of into his waiting mouth. We both laugh and I help him clean off. The waitress returns with a fork.
“Will you tell me about your time in the…other place?” I ask, unsure how to ask him about where he comes from.
He leans into me on the bar, pushing the salad out of the way. “It was very different from here. My maker”—he clears his throat—“father gave us everything we needed.”
“But what was itlike?” I press.
