More Than Fiends (10 page)

“Have dinner with me?” he asked, close enough now that his warm breath dusted my face.

Okay, forget about the weird thing. He was just being nice and I was overreacting. Besides, the best-looking male I'd seen since Logan left my kitchen that morning was offering me both food and, perhaps, lusty good times.

Damn it, my life was a mess. I deserved a reward for simple survival.

“Sure,” I said. “When?”

I
had a date.

An honest-to-God date. With a man—an incredibly hunky man—in just three days. More than enough time to lose five pounds, right?

As soon as Devlin was gone, I discovered I had way too much energy. Suddenly, all the aches and pains of demon-killer training—not to mention my poor toe and my misery over my poor car—were gone.

Excitement sizzled, then sort of drifted into nerves and then back to excitement and, finally, disgust.

Honestly. So pathetic that I was that excited.

Couldn't really blame me for the excitement factor, though. My last date had been when Thea was thirteen. He was a mystery writer who'd been renting one of the beach cottages for the summer. Turned out he liked to act out his mysteries, so I spent most of the night posing as a murder victim in different areas of his house. Nice guy, but scoring a little high on the creep meter.

Not surprising that I'd steered clear of men after that little disaster. But now, with Devlin, a whole new world of possibilities was opening up in front of me. If the date went well, who knew? There might be another one. And eventually, maybe even
sex
.

God. Just thinking about that gave me another little burst of energy. To make good use of it, I grabbed up a bottle of demon skin acid and squirted some on the kitchen window. I'd been thinking a lot (okay, not a lot) about that extra-clean streak where the liquid that had missed Leo's head had splashed on the window, and decided to give Jasmine's potion a real test.

I wiped it off a second later with a paper towel and stood back in awe and admiration. No streaks, and the damn glass was sparkling like diamonds under a spotlight. I took a good look at the liquid in the bottle and shook it up a little. Green flakes floated in the brown solution and swirled merrily with every shake. Unscrewing the spray top, I took a whiff. Vinegar, molasses and…oregano? Oregano killed demons? I was guessing there weren't many Italian demons, then. I shrugged, screwed the cap back on and finished the rest of the windows. By the time I was done, my kitchen was bright enough to do surgery in.

“Oh
yeah
. Can't wait to see what Carmen has to say about this stuff in action,” I muttered.

When my phone rang, I grabbed it. “Hello?”

“Thank God,” Rachel breathed into the phone. “I've been calling you all afternoon.”

“It hasn't rung once.”

“Well, I've been thinking about calling you for hours, so it's the same thing.”

Okay.

“What's up?”

“What's
up
?” Rachel shrieked that last word, and I winced and pulled the phone away from my ear. “Hello? Logan? Me, still not having details.”

I sighed, nudged Sugar out of the way and sat down on one of the kitchen chairs. “There are no details to be had.” I was completely overlooking the whole Logan-teasing-me-into-wanting-to-be-kissed-and-then-not-following-through thing. There were some humiliations too deep to share, even with your best friend. Of course, Rachel didn't see it like that.

“Well, that's disappointing.”

“Sorry,” I said and reached for the Pop Tart box I'd left on the table that morning. I peered inside and found an empty silver wrap. Damn it. That's okay. A Pop Tart wouldn't help me lose those five pounds, now would it? “I could lie if that would help.”

“I don't want lies,” Rachel hissed, her voice dropping now so that I had to strain to hear her at all. “I want to know what's going on. Where's he been? Where's the wife—What was her name? Doesn't matter. What'd he say when he found out about Thea?”

“The wife's name was Busty or Musty or—He's divorced.”

“Ooh. Now see—that's a detail.” She paused, half covered the mouthpiece of her phone and said, “Fine, fine. I understand that you're in pain, the doctor will be with you as soon as he's free.”

Whenever Rachel called me from work, it was entertaining. As Simon's receptionist she had to check in all the patients waiting to have their teeth drilled or whatever, and she wasn't the most laid-back person in the universe. “Gee, great bedside manner there, Rach.”

“I'm not the dentist. Simon is. And I think that it's chair-side manner for dentists.”

“Right. Thanks for clearing that up.”

“So, what're you going to do with Logan?”

“Do with him?” Oops. Did I just get a tiny hot flash there? Nah. “I'm not doing anything with him.” Not that the promise hadn't been there that morning. At least until he shut me down while my engine was still running. Bastard.

Where was a damn Pop Tart when you needed one?

“Why the hell not?” she whispered. “Honey, I know you and Logan didn't exactly end things well…”

“Hah!”

“…but come on. He's here. You're here….”

I sighed. “Rach, you
have
a sex life. Why do you spend so much time worried about mine?”

“Because you
don't
have one. It's not healthy. Things get bottled up. You know you're bottled up; you just don't want to admit it.”

True. If somebody ever pried the cap off my bottle, I'd probably spew in all directions. Mmm. Lovely image.

“Besides, you make a lousy nun,” Rachel added.

True again. I don't take orders well. And, hey, now that you didn't even get to wear special outfits, why bother being a nun? You could pray on your own time, right?

“Cass, you know I love you, but you need to get out. With a
man
.”

I pitched the empty Pop Tart box into the trash. “Actually, I have a date.”

“I knew it. You did too get up to something with Logan. Still sparkage there, huh?”

“It's not with Logan.”

“Then who—? Oh God, don't tell me the mystery writer's back. Honey, that was just too strange.”

“Nope, not him.” I was really sort of enjoying this.

“There's
another
man in your life and I don't have details? What the hell is happening to this world?”

I laughed, leaned back in the chair and hugged that thought to myself for a long minute. Yes, it was really
fun
to all of a sudden have men in my life. Okay, they weren't really
in
it, but they were at least
adjacent
to my life.

Rachel was right. Logan was still hot. But there was a lot of crapola to dig through before
that
could go anywhere. Not that I wanted it to go anywhere. I'm not actively anti-Logan or anything, but…maybe I should just be moving on. And moving on brought me right back around to Devlin.

“So, who is this mysterious man?” She paused again. “Yes, Mrs. Spencer. Right. I'll put it down that you were here ten minutes early for your appointment.” Then to me, she muttered, “I swear I think she wants a gold star by her name. So, come on, Cass. Spill. Who's date guy?”

“Devlin Cole.”

A long silence that became longer and longer until…“Are you freaking kidding me?” A whispered shout that hissed over the phone line with an air of excited insult. “I can't believe you met that guy and didn't tell me.”

“Rach, I'm bidding on a contract to clean Magic Nights.”

“So, have you been inside the place?”

“Yep.”

“Ohmigod.”
Her voice dropped again. “You are so dead the first chance I get. This is a betrayal of all Best Friend rules, you know. To have this amount of stuff to tell and
not
tell it.”

“I was going to,” I said, but knew I had planned to wait to tell anyone until I knew if I had the job or not.

“Sure, sure,” she said. “When's the date?”

“Saturday night.”

“Where's he taking you?”

“Don't know.”

“What're you wearing?”

“Not sure.”

“Are you going to give me details afterward?”

Best Friend test. Score well on this one or forever suffer the consequences.

“Of course I will.”

“Especially if you have sex.”

“I'm not having sex on my first date with the man.”

“Never say never,” Rachel said sagely. “It's been a long time for you, sweetie, and you just might not be able to help yourself. God knows, if I was anywhere near Devlin Cole…”

“You wouldn't do a thing,” I said and idly brushed the hair out of Sugar's eyes. She looked surprised to see a world beyond her hair. “You have Simon.”

Rachel actually sighed. “True. I do. So therefore I need a little vicarious thrill now and then. So promise you'll tell me.”

“I swear,” I said, holding up my right hand as if she could see me or something, “on a stack of Godiva.”

“Okay, then. Oh God, the Henderson kids are here. Gotta go.”

She hung up before I could say good-bye or wish her luck dealing with the twins.

When the phone rang again instantly, I punched the button, grinned and said, “I
swear
already, Rachel, the minute I have sex, you'll be the first to know.”

A deep chuckle sounded in my ear. Then Logan said, “With any luck,
I'll
be the first to know.”

Perfect.

Great.

“Logan,” I said, sweeping one hand over the kitchen table, searching for food that wasn't there. The bowl of apples didn't count. “I thought you were Rachel.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“Ha-ha,” I said. “Very humorous. What do you want?”

“Well,” he said, “I heard about your accident and wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Damn. Why'd he have to be
nice
?

“I'm fine—but whoever hit me won't be if I ever catch him.”

“Somebody said it looked like the guy slammed you on purpose.”

“What?” Surprised, I jolted straight up. “Why would somebody do that?”

“Beats me,” he said, and I heard amusement in his voice. “I'm new in town. Got any enemies?”

Hmm. Besides every demon in town? Man, I hadn't even thought of that. Was the word out? Did the bad guys know I was officially on the job?

“Cassie? You still there?”

“Yeah.”

“You were quiet so long…. Take that long to add up your enemy list?”

“Nope,” I said, going for the dig, “there's just you.”

A pause, then, “I'm not your enemy.”

“Then what are you, Logan?”

“Guess that's what I'm trying to figure out,” he admitted.

“Well, good for you. When you get your answer, be sure to share.”

He chuckled. Apparently my snotty little comments weren't exactly putting him off. “Oh, I will. But first I'd like to know who you're planning to have sex with.”

“That's not gonna happen, so why'd you call?” Not friendly, but, damn it, why did I have to be friendly with a man who had really screwed up my life just by moving back to town?

“Cassie, we need to talk.”

I groaned, rolled my eyes and immediately turned to the pantry. “Logan,” I said, “we already talked.”

“Not enough.”

“Trust me, it was plenty,” I said and started pulling boxes out of the pantry, rummaging past Thea's shredded wheat and dried soybean (what was she thinking during that brief but hideous healthy binge?) snacks. I needed sugar. Preferably chocolate, but anything would do.

God, why had I been such a pig and eaten both of the last two Pop Tarts that morning?

“I think we should have dinner,” Logan said, and I stopped dead.

A dating drought for freaking
years
and then two invitations inside an hour? Shaking my head, I pushed my right hand through all the nonessential crap—flour, salad dressing, microwave popcorn—
Finally
. I grabbed the bag of chocolate chips and studied it for about ten seconds, considering whether I really needed to lose those five pounds by Saturday or not.

Screw it. I ripped the corner of the bag off with my teeth while Logan kept talking in my ear.

“Cassie, it's been a long time. I think we should talk about what's going on with us.”

I chugged chips, got a good mouthful and chewed while I tried to come up with a good answer. Sugar flooded my system, bringing a calm I really needed.

“There is no
us
.”