“Damn.” Her flirtatious grin was somewhat diminished by how far back she had to crane her neck for him to see it. “That’s really tall.”
“Yep.” He cleared his throat and then inwardly cringed. Apparently, he’d lost all his game since becoming a recluse. The woman was trying to hit on him, and he was acting like an idiot.
“There’s a taco place on the next block that I love,” Skye said, mercifully changing the subject.
Bel mentally grimaced.Fast food.There was nothing he loathed more.
She flashed him a worried look. “Unless there’s somewhere else you’d rather go?”
There was nothing on this entire street he would eat unless under threat of torture. “It’s all right. I’m not hungry.”
“Oh.” She stuffed her hands into her coat pockets. “Is it weird for me to eat then?”
“Why would that be weird?”
“I dunno.”
“It’s not weird.”
“Okay. Good.” She coughed.
Shit, he was making this awkward, wasn’t he? Truth be told, he was a bit nervous. He didn’t want to fuck up. Not just because “fucking up” could result in Skye’s untimely death, but because he actually enjoyed her company.
He wasn’t even close to ready to go there, but he couldn’t help thinking about his brothers and the happiness they’d found with their girlfriends. And maybe … though he’d never tell a soul … it would be nice to have that for himself. Maybe it would help him calm the rage somehow, the same way Iris had helped Meph make peace with his demon.
“So, what did you get up to during your six months of celibacy?” Skye asked, trying again to spark conversation. “How did you survive?”
“I cooked a lot. That’s pretty much all I did.”Besides the near constant drama of trying to keep my brothers from ending up back in Hell, being stalked by angels, and trying not to burn my house down and kill people.Damn, it was hard to be friendly when there was so much he couldn’t say.
“Honestly, that sounds perfect because I swear I was starving the entire time.”
He breathed a laugh. That, he could relate to. He was never actually hungry because he didn’t need to eat to survive, yet somehow, he was always ravenous. Not necessarily for food, but just for … something. Food was just a distraction. But it was the best distraction there was.
“What about you?” he asked. “How did you get through it?”
“I focused on school. It was boring, but I’ve almost finishedmy degree now, so it paid off. I like your hair, by the way,” she blurted before he could reply. “Long suits you.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“You look like an ancient warrior or something. It’s awesome.”
He winced. Maybe he should get it cut after all.
“It’s just across the street,” Skye said, pointing. “Let’s cross here.”
When the pedestrian sign lit up, they stepped off the curb onto the crosswalk.
“It’s kinda embarrassing,” Skye said, “but I thought about you a lot after we last saw each other. I’m really glad I ran into you tonight because I wanted to ask you so many times how—”
It happened in the blink of an eye.
A car pulled out of a parking space, and the driver stepped on the gas, oblivious to the red light glaring in his face. Skye was slightly behind Bel, and he was looking over his shoulder at her while she spoke. Which was how he was able to see that she was directly in the car’s path.
He acted without thinking. He spun, took a step toward her, and shoved her hard toward the sidewalk. She went flying. He braced just in time for the car to hit him.
If he’d been human, his legs would have crumpled, crushed at the knees by the bumper, and he would have flown onto the hood. He wasn’t human, however.
The car came to a dead stop, the bumper dented so deeply, it looked like they’d driven into a streetlamp.
