He squeezed my hand, careful not to leave marks. “Who else?” he said, and I realized he wanted the rest of the list—not out of jealousy, but because he genuinely believed that love was a numbers game, and that each ex was a rung on a ladder he didn’t know how to climb.
I thought of the guy before Seth, a grad student in Tampa who’d once proposed to me after a music festival, too high to remember it the next day. I thought of my first girlfriend, a girl named Sammi who had dyed both our hair with box bleach in eighth grade and then kissed me behind the choir room. I thought of the bartender who’d let me drink for free and called me his “dark muse,” which sounded romantic until I realized he was dating three other muses at the same time.
I gave him the highlights reel. “A music nerd. A girl with good hands, a bartender who couldn’t keep a secret.” Then, because it felt wrong not to say it, “None of them ever lasted. I was always too much.” I looked down at our hands, my chipped black polish against his red skin. “Or maybe they were just not enough.”
He nodded, looking thoughtful. “I like that you’re too much,” he said at last. “I like that I can’t predict you. If I could, I’d be bored already.”
"Does it bother you?" I asked, and my voice came out lower than intended. "That I've fucked other people. That there have been… well, not a ton, but enough to make a dent."
It was the kind of question I'd flung at men before—usually at the bitter end, a lit match in a room I was already planning to torch. But with Samiel, I wanted the answer. I needed it from him, unfiltered, because I didn't want to wake up a week from now and find out my past had started to rot the foundation.
He didn't answer right away. His hand stayed on mine, palm warm, thumb moving in slow arcs over my knuckles. When he finally spoke, it was quiet but brutal as always. "I hate it." He didn't look away from me, not even to blink. "I hate that anyone else has ever touched you. I hate that they got pieces of you and didn't even know what they had." He flexed his fingers, and I realized he was fighting the urge to squeeze, to leave a mark on me that would outlast every other handprint. "But it's only fair," he added, softer now. "You had a life before this. So did I."
"Did you?" I said, and realized I genuinely wanted to know. "You ever have anyone… serious? Before now?"
He shook his head, smiling with just the right amount of self-loathing. "No. I told you—demons don't really do love. Not unless we're starving for something. And I didn't even know I was hungry." He paused, then: "You're my first real thing. The first one that matters."
I should've found that terrifying. Instead, I felt it settle in me like a shot of whiskey—a little burn, then a clarity that cut through every other noise. "I don't care if you get jealous," I told him. "But you can't do the thing where you treat me like an object. If I'm your first, I still have to be a person."
He grinned, but there was no menace in it. "I'm learning," he said. "But you have to be patient. Sometimes the urge to break things is all I have." He let go of my hand, just enough to cup my face, thumb tracing the line from cheekbone to jaw. "If I get too much, you have to tell me. Or punch me. I can take it."
"That a challenge?" I said, letting him see the spark of mischief that always made men underestimate me.
"It's a promise," he said. "And I hope you hold me to it."
I let the moment hang, let the weight of his confession fill the space between us. Then I leaned in, resting my forehead against his. "Next time you get the urge to break something," I said, "try me first. I might like it better."
He laughed, and it was a real laugh. Under the table, he squeezed my thigh once, then let go.
Wanting to shift topics, I asked, “Can I ask you something weird?” I stared out at the traffic of demons and humans moving through the bar, all pretending not to obsess over each other. “Where’s your family in all this? I mean, do you have parents? Siblings? I’ve never met a demon who wasn’t just, like, born fully formed out of a volcano or something.”
Samiel nearly choked on his whiskey. “You want to meet my family? Annie, that is a threat, not a privilege.”
“I’m not saying I want to meet them,” I clarified, grinning. “I just want to know if you have a mom out there who’s gonna show up and judge me for coming to dinner with chipped nail polish and a healthy fear of organized religion.”
He made a show of rolling his eyes. “My mother’s barely on this plane. She comes around once a year for the HOA meeting and then bitches for six months about the paint on my house.” He tilted his head like he was rifling through a mental Rolodex. “There’s my dad, but he’s mostly retired. Spends his days building model trains and arguing online about politics. Theonly thing that sets him off is when people disrespect railroad infrastructure.”
I burst out laughing. “Your dad is a train guy?”
“Oh, absolutely. He’s got a whole basement layout.” Samiel’s face twisted with mock horror. “Once he cornered the mayor for a solid hour about switching the town’s public transit to light rail. The mayor nearly exorcized him out of boredom.”
I grinned so hard my jaw hurt. “Tell me there’s a picture,” I said. “If there’s not a photo of your dad in a conductor hat, I’ll be crushed.”
“You’ll get your photo,” Samiel said, “but prepare yourself. If you meet him, there is a ninety percent chance he’ll try to induct you into the ‘Friends of Railroads’ club, which is not a euphemism. It’s just a bunch of retired demons and a handful of confused humans who genuinely love trains more than oxygen.” He sipped his drink, then gave me a look: “If you want to really play with fire, ask about my brother.”
“Oh, god. There’s a brother?” I leaned in, hand on his thigh. “How have you never mentioned this?”
He shrugged, but it was the kind of loose-tendoned motion that said this was a topic he’d spent years defusing. “Azazel doesn’t come around much. Technically he’s older, technically he’s the better son, but honestly? He spends most of his time in Hell because he thinks Earth is ‘too loud’ and the coffee is shit. When he does show up, it’s only because the old man guilt-tripped him into it, or because he’s bored and wants to prove he still knows how to ruin a party.”
I tried to picture it: an even more demonic version of Samiel, somehow less interested in humans, maybe even allergic to small talk. “He sounds like fun,” I said.
“He’s miserable,” Samiel agreed, but there wasn’t heat in it. “He’s also the one person on the planet I count on if something bad happens. Not even Vepar. If ever there was a demon who’dhelp you hide a body, it’s Azazel. But you’d better believe he’ll judge your shoveling technique.”
“Oh my god,” I wheezed, clutching the edge of the table. “Samiel, you’re telling me you’re the normal brother?”
He bared his teeth in a guilty, delighted grin, then reached for my hand, folding his claws around my knuckles. “Not normal. Just… adaptable.” His thumb swept back and forth, slow and thoughtful. I could see the shape of his family in this—the contradictions, the stubbornness, the way he clung to me like I was an answer to a problem he hadn’t known he was solving.
Samiel turned it around on me. “So, I’ve told you about mine. What about yours?”
