Page 80 of Oh No! There's an Incubus in my Hot Spring
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I’m notthatdrunk.”
I let a breath out in a whoosh and all the tension leaves with it. “Great. Well. Okay. Welcome aboard, Irene. I’ll draft some paperwork for your full-time position. I have an agency that helps with contracts, benefits, and the like, so it’ll be a few days.”
She pours herself some more wine. “You gonna initiate all your employees like this?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I say, pouring the rest into my glass. “I’m not sure how much staff we’re going to need, honestly. With me living here, I’ll be taking on a lot of it.”
“We’llbe taking on a lot of it,” Apollo corrects.
I smile as the image of him mopping up the bathrooms, his wings getting stuck on the stall doors, flutters through my mind.
“You guys are freakingadorable,” Irene gushes from the rim of her glass and I think she’s probably a little more drunk than she thought. She hasn’t stood up yet…
I look at the food still scattered across the floor. “I should probably order a pizza.”
“Oh! I bet you’re a sausage girl, aren’t you,” she grins, leaning forward on the table.
“Hawaiian.”
Her face screws up and she makes a retching noise. “I was wrong about you. We can’t be friends.”
“But I’m down for sausage every once in a while,” I say with an exaggerated wink.
We all laugh, even Apollo getting the innuendo.
“I’ll order a meatza.”
I flip over my phone and see three missed calls and two texts.
Unknown:I’m staying at the Triple Tree in town.
Unknown:I need to see you. Please.
The heat in my blood becomes stifling.Anothernew phone number just to antagonize me? Where is he getting the money? I swear to fuck, if it’s my mother—
“Do we need to commit a murder?” Irene asks.
I look up from my screen to see both of them staring, all joviality gone. Is my face that easy to read? Maybe Apollo never even needed to sense my emotions to know what’s going on with me.
“My ex is staying at a hotel in town. I don’t know what his aim is. I don’t know how he keeps getting new phone numbers. I don’t know why he won’t just leave me be!” I rant angrily as I order a meatza, a molten chocolate cake, hot wings, and a big heaping of garlic knots with marinara sauce.
“Maybe he comes over for a chat and accidentally drowns?” Irene offers.
“Another death here three weeks before the grand reopening? I don’t think so.” A humorless laugh hisses out of me. “He’ll fuck over my business from the grave.”
We’re quiet for a moment as I finalize the order, and I sigh dramatically. “And I don’t want him to die. I just want him to go away from me, forever.”
Irene noisily sips the last of her wine and sets the glass down. “Yeah, death can help with that.”
We chuckle again, but I shake my head. “Nah, he’s a dick, and he should have to live with his consequences, not escape them.”
“Mm, sagely.” She nods her head and tilts her glass again, then frowns at me through the bottom of it, her lips appearing over-wide, like a carnival mirror.
“Be right back,” she says as she pulls out her car keys and stands.
“You’re not driving somewhere, are you?” I ask.
“No, just getting a few things from the back,” she says, walking toward the door.
