Page 5 of Demon's Desire

Torie and I were close to the same height, around five-foot-eight. I’d never felt like I was super tall in comparison to other people my age, at least not until guys started lying about their height. One time, I’d talked to someone on a dating app who said he was five-nine, and when he showed up, he was two inches shorter than me. And I’ll be honest, I never thought it was a big deal, except… why lie?

Anyway, so Torie and I were tall. She had dark black skin and long braids that went to the small of her back. Right now, they were black with some hot pink mixed in. She had two gold hoops in her nose, beautiful brown eyes, and the brightest smile I’d ever seen. When she moved away from me to hug Kelly, Mica came over and hugged me as well. He was five-six, and he never lied about it, thank goodness. He was almost as pale as Kelly, and he had a sprinkling of freckles across his nose, though nowhere near as many as hers. His hair was a collection of short cropped brown curls that would have been full ringlets if he ever let them grow long enough. He was wearing his signature black cardigan over a white t-shirt and black jeans.

“Hey, gorgeous!” He smiled as he hugged me. “You look so good!”

“I’m wearing mom jeans and a t-shirt,” I pointed out with a laugh.

“Yeah, but you look good in them,” he repeated before moving to hug Kelly. “It’s so good to see you guys!”

“You too,” Kelly said as she hugged him back.

“Okay, we can do the reunion later.” Torie smiled, taking my hand. “Come on, let’s get this unloading done so y’all can relax in your neeeeew apaaaaartmeeeeent!” She sang the last few words as we started down the alley.

“It’s not that much stuff.” I chuckled, handing Kelly the bag with the food as we walked back around to the alley. “It’ll take all of us two trips.”

“Then it’s a good thing we were here to help,” Mica said as he threw an arm around Kelly’s shoulder. I glanced at her, but after all this time, we were both good at pretending like she totally didn’t have a crush on him, so neither of us really reacted.

We all started grabbing things and carrying them up the stairs to the apartment. As soon as she walked in, Torie gasped and started gushing about how cute the place was, despite the fact that it was covered in boxes. It only took one more trip before we had everything inside.

“You guys want to sit?” I asked, rushing over to the open box in the corner and grabbing two more floor pillows.

“Sure!” Torie nodded and grabbed one as she sat down. We moved them around the coffee table so Kelly and I could eat while we caught up. “Ugh! I have missed you guys so much!”

“We missed you too.” Kelly smiled and squeezed Torie’s hand. “It’s so awesome to be in the same city again.”

“Right?” Torie beamed.

“So, what’s up with you guys?” I asked. “I’ve been so busy, we haven’t caught up in a while.”

“I’m doing good.” Mica leaned back on his elbows. “I’m still working for the vet. Same apartment. Same coworkers. Same bullshit. But I work with animals every day, so I can’t complain.”

“That’s really awesome.” Kelly smiled sweetly at him.

“I just moved to a different restaurant.” Torie rolled her eyes. “I like it so far. It’s this super cute breakfast place in our neighborhood, so it isn’t far at all. I really want you guys to come sometime.”

“Why the eye roll?” I questioned, taking a bite of my food.

“Just my old place.” She groaned. “I couldn’t stand the boss. He was a grade A douche. He hit on every one of the female servers. I tried to report him a few times, but he’s the owner’s best friend, so that went nowhere. Finally, a few of the girls and I all quit at the same time.”

“Damn!” I blinked. “I hope that got the message across.”

“Fucking better have.” She sighed. She was genuinely one of the nicest people that I knew, which meant that when it came to someone being mistreated, she turned into a stone-cold bitch. “Other than that, I’ve been working on some organizing. I have a few friends trying to unionize their jobs right now, so I’ve been trying to help them do that without getting fired.”

“Isn’t it illegal to fire someone for trying to unionize?” Kelly tilted her head.

Torie put on a very overly sweet, sarcastic smile. “You’re correct! It is! If you can prove that’s why you were fired. But if they happen to find out that you’re trying to organize a union, and they just happen to have some other reason, then there are no repercussions, especially since Illinois is an at-will state.”

“She’s very passionate about this,” Mica explained with a grin. “I think it’s awesome.”

“Thank you!” Torie’s face jumped into a genuine smile that time. “But enough about us! How’s Texas been?”

“Texas is fine.” Kelly shrugged. “Texas wasn’t really the problem for me. A tiny town where everyone knows all of my business was the problem. As far as that goes, I’m glad to be gone.”

“Yeah.” I nodded in agreement. “That’s been the hard part. Living in a small area where people are practically on top of each other… It’s pretty exhausting. Chicago is going to be much easier.”

Torie looked at Mica, and Mica started laughing. I glanced at Kelly, and she just blinked.

“What?” I frowned.

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