Lily glowed with curiosity as she ducked her head and quietly asked, “Okay, but are you in love with Sagitta?”
I snorted. “You can’t just ask that.”
“But I need to know.”
My cheeks flushed. Just to sate her nosiness, I muttered, “Ask me again in a week.”
“Mmhmm,” she said, clearly doubtful. Figures she’d believe my story about demonic possession but not whether I was in love with my new roommate or not.
“She’s fun. I like her,” Faust remarked.
I skipped over my immediate urge to tell him to shut up. For one thing, he’d said something agreeable. Also, the last time I’d done that, I got fired, so I was learning the hard way to control my tongue.
“By the way, he says he likes you. The demon, I mean,” I told Lily.
She grinned and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Um, okay! Is he single?”
“You are not dating the demon in my head. Besides, he’s asexual.”
“That’s fine by me. We don’t have to fuck. It’s just hard to find a nice man these days.” She winked. “I’d hang onto yours if I were you.”
Strange giddy warmth swirled in my chest. Sagitta wasn’tmineto hang onto... was he?
“I should go find him,” I said, standing up from the bench. “I kind of ran off in a huff and abandoned him in the food court.”
Lily gave me a playful shove. “Go get him!”
I said goodbye to her and trotted back to where I’d left Sagitta. But as I got closer, chilly nerves crept in like ice. What if he wasn’t there anymore? What if he got sick of my shit and walked away?
My dread was realized when I got to the food court. Our table was empty. Not even my drink or half-eaten pretzel remained. Sagitta had cleaned up the mess I left behind, which somehow hurt more than if he hadn’t bothered.
My heart sank.
I didn’t have his phone number or any other means of contacting him because we’d been attached at the hip since I first sought him at the temple.
How the hell was I supposed to find him?
14
Sagitta
As my anxiousmind retreated into its dark corners, my body switched to autopilot. I returned to the apartment, unloaded half the groceries from the fridge, and did the only thing I knew how to do well. The only thing I’d never fucked up.
Cook dinner.
I welcomed the way the onions stung my eyes. I didn’t cry often, but it felt cathartic for them to hurt now. I wiped the tears against my shoulder and kept chopping aromatics. Having a task to focus on stopped me from thinking too hard about the day’s events.
How badly I’d screwed up Chase’s life. How guilty I felt. How, when he got home, he’d rightfully kick me to the curb after my catastrophic failure.
My throat tightened. I swallowed past the painful lump. No time to cry. I had to cook dinner. If it was the last thing I did here, at least I could feed Chase a proper meal.
And then what? When he asked me to leave, I’d trudge back to the temple and beg Cygnet for his help finishing the job I couldn’t handle.
Hot shame prickled the back of my neck. I wasn’t looking forward to that mortifying conversation, and I wasn’t lookingforward to leaving Chase’s apartment and going back to my normal life.
I wanted to stay.
A sharpthudechoed through the kitchen as my knife cut through the ginger and hit the wooden chopping block beneath. The half-eaten soft pretzels from the mall trembled on the counter. I grimaced. It pained me to think about Chase’s dietary habits. Would he go back to chugging protein shakes and eating plain pasta the minute I left?
