The room was brightly lit—always brightly lit—butDaniel was the only one there, standing behind the snack bar while a machine gurgled before him. Weights were strewn haphazardly beneath the twinkling disco ball, and the air hockey table was littered with papers and a lone, closed laptop.
Daniel turned, stirring a cup of coffee, and startled, sloshing coffee over his fingers and hissing in pain.
“Jesus! You scared me!” He laughed, setting the disposable cup down and grabbing a towel to mop up the coffee. “What’s up? The others all went home just a little while ago. Bunch of night owls, all of them. I don’t see how they do it. I had to call it a night around midnight, and I still woke up in time to see them all off. Can I get you anything? Can you drink coffee? Or just sins?”
Ashmedai tilted his head. “Just sins.”
“Okay. What’s up, then? Did you see Nic? Is he okay?” He rounded the snack bar with his cup, taking a slurping sip.
“I did. He’s fine. Where are your things?”
“My things? In the medical room. Why are—Ashmedai?”
Ashmedai headed into the dark medical room. Daniel’s two duffel bags were in the corner, beside the cot on the far right. The top one was open, so he stuffed everything inside and zipped it up, then grabbed both and disappeared to the apartment.
He dropped them both on the sofa and returned to the Rink’s medical room just seconds before Daniel flipped on the light. He flinched, and Daniel turned the light back off, leaving only a streak of light from the main room to illuminate them.
“What are you doing? Where’d you take my stuff?” he asked.
“Is there more? Missing anything?”
“Am Imissinganything?” His honey-gold eyes widened. “Yeah, all the stuff you just took! Where’d you go?”
Ashmedai rolled his eyes. Snagging Daniel’s wrist, he tugged him into the darkness and disappeared, ignoring Daniel’s holler of surprise as he hurtled through the shadows after him. When they landed in the living room, Daniel staggered, his free arm pinwheeling. Luckily, he seemed to have set his coffee down somewhere before following Ashmedai to the med room.
“Oh my God, please don’t ever do that again. I think I’m gonna be sick.” He doubled over, one arm around his stomach and the other clutching his head.
Ashmedai rolled his eyes.
Daniel straightened. “Where are we—why are we here? Why’d you bring me here?”
“Live here.”
Daniel’s hands flailed. “I know you live here!”
Ashmedai cut a hand through the air. “No!Youshould live here.”
Daniel balked, taking in the apartment again. “Wait, what? But you live here.”
“I don’t sleep. Don’t eat. Don’t need this space. I come here to wait until night. That’s all. You, you could use it. The bed. The space.” Humans did things in bathrooms and kitchens that Ashmedai never would. Daniel would get much more use out of this place.
Daniel softened. “Did… Did Nic say something? Is that why you’re doing this? You don’t have to do all of this for me. I was fine at the Rink. I can find my own place.”
Ashmedai debated how much to tell him. He probably wouldn’t like that Nicolas was making contingencies for hisown death any more than Ashmedai did. Telling him about the promise would just worry him.
“‘Your brother is my brother.’ Told him that.”
Daniel’s eyes widened. “You did?”
“I don’t have a family. But family takes care of each other. Right?” Nicolas took care of Daniel, certainly.
“Right,” he breathed.
Ashmedai gestured at the living room around them.
Daniel shuffled in place, pushing his fingers through his short curls and looking around the room. “Well—okay, but what about your stuff? You have clothes and stuff, right?”
“Yes.” He hadn’t thought about that. They probably wouldn’t mind if he stored the box at the Rink.
