Maybe she was right. Maybe he needed to get over himself and stop taking everything so seriously. Maybe he did have more control than he thought. He remembered well the hope for the future he’d felt after meeting Skye and making their pact. He hadn’t felt anything like that before or since, and he wanted that feeling back.
“Are you still cooking?” Skye shouted across the table. “You told me when we met that you like to cook.”
Bel took a breath. He could do this. It was just a simple conversation with a pretty human. And she was asking him about food. He could talk for hours about food.
“Yeah, I—” Unfortunately, he was interrupted by the house music cutting off and a guy on stage announcing that theywere going to start the jam. A moment later, the band fired up, somehow managing to be even louder.
Iris and Meph returned with two armfuls of drinks and sat beside Skye. Meph grinned evilly at Skye, and Bel groaned internally. Sunshine looked thrilled by the music, and she dragged Raum into the crowd to be closer to the stage, smiling up at the musicians like they were heavenly angels come to Earth. Bel looked over and caught Skye watching him. Her gaze darted shyly away.
He picked up a shot glass from the table without asking who it was for and tossed it back. There were two more, so he drank those too. When he set the third glass down, he glanced up and found Skye now giving him a concerned frown.
Great. She probably thought he had a drinking problem. He was never going to get through this night with his pride intact.
Surprisingly, after some time, Bel found himself relaxing. He remembered what it was like when he’d first escaped Hell and he’d gone out to party with his brothers every night. While he wasn’t up for that level of revelry now, he was starting to hope that maybe Sunshine really was right, and he hadn’t given himself enough credit.
Maybe he could be around humans.
Whenever Eva and Asmodeus went up to play, the rest of them crowded the stage rowdily. It was fun to mess with Ash and watch him shoot glares at them out of the corner of his eye while keeping up with the band. Multitasker extraordinaire.
During their second set, Bel decided he needed a break. He slapped Meph and Raum on the shoulders hard enough that they stumbled, and then went back to the table. There was only so long he could stand having people pressed against him in acrowd before he started imagining tossing them through the air like sacks of grain.
He sat warily back on the wooden bench, and it groaned but held. There was another full shot glass on the table that he was pretty sure Iris had brought for him. He glanced up and saw her looking, so he raised the glass to her before tipping it back. She gave him a thumbs up.
Iris turned back to the stage just as Skye appeared beside him. She’d been with them in the crowd most of the night, but he hadn’t gotten another chance to speak to her.
The look she gave him now told him she wanted to change that. “I’m hungry, so I’m gonna go grab something to eat,” she said with a smile. Her gaze was direct. “You wanna come?”
He knew he should say no. Eva didn’t want him hanging around her friend, and he should back off out of respect for her. But Sunshine’s encouragement and the memory of his first meeting with Skye made him want to take a risk. Plus, the little human was the opposite of Naiamah in every way, and that was appealing enough on its own.
“Sure,” he replied. Getting some fresh air and a break from the noise was probably a good idea too.
See? He could be smart about this.
“I’ll text Eva and tell her where we’ve gone,” Skye said, donning her coat. Eva was currently on stage, so she couldn’t find a way to intervene, which suited Bel just fine. He stood, meeting Raum’s gaze across the crowd. He was behind Sunshine with his arms around her and his chin resting on her head.
Raum cocked a brow in question, glancing pointedly at Skye. Bel rolled his eyes. Raum unwrapped his arms from Sunshine and pulled his phone out of his pocket. A moment later Bel’s phone buzzed, so he checked it.
Raum’s text said,You got things under control?
Bite me, Bel texted back.
Raum read the message but gave no outward reaction. He replied,Eva will be pissed if you incinerate her friend.
Bel shook his head.Not fucking funny.
No one’s laughing.
He shot his brother a glare and pocketed his phone.
“Let’s go!” Skye said. Pushing through the crowd, she ducked and weaved between bodies. Bel walked in a straight line behind her, and people moved out of his way.
Down on the street, he took deep breaths of fresh air and shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket. Meph had gotten him hooked on wearing them and he hated it, but damn it, they were comfortable. He had to order at least a 5XL which made his choices limited, but he let his clothing-addicted brother pick them out for him, so minimal effort was required.
He walked next to Skye, ducking under low-hanging signs and dodging crowds coming from other venues on the street.
“You’re the tallest person I’ve ever seen,” she said with a laugh when he was almost clotheslined by a string of fairy lights. “What are you, like, six-eight?”
“Seven foot,” he mumbled.
