xVerity: Yup.
xVerity: We’re all waiting for you.
LoveHarley: Sorry!
The delay had been deliberate, but he wasn’t about to tell the Single Dads as much. They’d find out why he’d run late in a minute.
LoveHarley: I have a really weird favor to ask
xVerity: Shoot.
TeenDad2: Harley, have you even left the house yet? Haha
LoveHarley: Yeah, I’m actually here
LoveHarley: But I want Nikki to open the door after I ring the bell. Is that okay?
xVerity: I’d like to challenge anyone to try to stop her. She loves guests.
LoveHarley: Great :) I’ll see you guys in a minute.
“Is it go time?” Evie, who sat in the passenger seat, pulled down her hood and took off her baseball cap. She shook out her hair, leaving it loose.
“Yup.”
“You sure you want to do this?” Evie tossed the cap into the back seat. “I can camp out in the car if you change your mind. We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
“I want to.” A car passed by at a normal speed, but Harlow watched it from the corner of his eye regardless. Public appearances were always a risk, and after Evie’s stunt at Geek Out Con, they were fresh in people’s minds. Harlow didn’t discount the possibility that they’d be discovered. If Lincrest were a busier street, Harlow might have changed his mind about what they were about to do, but the location of the house and the company within it had him convinced that, for now, they had nothing to worry about.
“You’re the boss.” Evie winked. She punched his shoulder playfully, then undid her seatbelt and set her hand on the door handle. “Let’s go?”
Harlow unbuckled. He followed her lead. “Let’s go.”
They unloaded from the car and made their way up the stone driveway. Small deposits of crystals in each laid stone sparkled in the afternoon sun, enchanting. Evie hopped from stone to stone, then sprang onto the path leading from the driveway to the front door. Harlow remained a few steps behind her, alert despite the relative safety of the area.
Evie made it to the stairs first. She hurried up them and came to stand on the stoop. Harlow stood behind her, one stair down, doing his best to block her from view of the street.
“I hear people inside,” Evie remarked. She cracked her knuckles and craned her neck from side to side, then shook out her arms and shoulders. “Sounds like your friends are already having a good time. You sure you don’t just want this to be you? I can go back to the car all sneaky-like and they’ll never know I was here.”
“Nope.”
“All right. If you say so.” Evie cleared her throat, bounced her weight from foot to foot for a second, then stood perfectly still and sucked in a deep breath. “Here goes nothing, right?”
“You’ve got this, kiddo.”
Evie snorted and looked over her shoulder. Excitement sparked in her eyes and livened her features. “Since when have Inothad this? This one’s in the bag.”
With a flourish, Evie rang the doorbell, then took a small step back. No sooner had she done so than a little girl of no more than six flung open the door, her long brown hair glossy and straight. She wore a pink and white plaid dress accented by a large white bow tied to the side of her neckline, near her shoulder. Her mouth was already open, like she was about to speak, but no sound came out.
She stared at Evie with wide eyes.
Nothing. No sound, no movement, no sign that she was even breathing.
Harlow counted down in his head—he’d seen this before.
Three. Two. One.
“Hey.” Evie grinned the cocky, crooked grin that her on-screen character, Haraleah, put on whenever she was up to trouble.
The girl in the doorway screamed so loudly, Harlow’s ears rang. He’d expect that, too. After all, it wasn’t every day that a young, transcendent demon from Tartarus made house calls.
