“Oh good. I was so worried.” Lainey had one hand pressed against her stomach and the other tightly gripping her chest, like her arms were the only thing keeping her body from coming apart. Elliot seemed to relax when her laughter turned into a high-pitched wheeze that shook her internal organs, his body stretching to lean against the side of her smoky car.
“I’m glad we could clear that up.”
“You know, I needed that.” She moved her hands to her hips as she regained control over her breathing. “Right at that moment, I really needed to picture you on day dates with Isaac.”
“We have weed gummies before lunch starts,” Elliot explained.
“Oh, that part was clear to me.”
“I’m not eating family-style portions of pasta in the middle of the day with the bust of the pope stone-cold sober.”
She retrieved her snack from the roof of the car, giggles prodding her ribs. “I keep picturing him rolling a meatball toward you with his nose.”
He arched an eyebrow. “He did do that once.”
“Oh my god!” The laughing started up again, slowing only when Elliot pulled her into his chest and placed his chin on top of her head.
“Okay. Breathe. It’s not that funny.”
“But the thing is, itisthat funny.” Her voice was muffled against his chest.
He trailed his hands up and down the sides of her arms. Her weight collapsed into his weight. Her breathing slowed to match his breathing. She was safely caged within the protective confines of his arms, the world pulsing around them like a beating heart. She curled in closer, not ready to let the hug end.
She wiped her under eyes with her finger, finally letting go. “I’m so happy. I was so sad about this car, and now—I’m still sad about this car—but then I think of you and Isaac with Pope Leo…”
She craned her neck back, wondering if he could feel her heart pitching toward his. “I think of you, and I’m happy.”
He pressed his lips to her smile. “Good.” His eyes were almost glassy when he pulled back. He blinked it away. “This is going to be okay,” he promised, smoothing her hair. “We’ll call someone to tow this back to our place. We’ll figure out this whole radiator thing.”
She sighed. “I had things to do today. I was going to accept some rides. I have to go to the pharmacy for my refill. The toiletat Muddy’s Wings and Things is acting up, and if it’s the flapper again, that’s the easiest hundred bucks ever.”
“I’ll go to the pharmacy for you, you can walk to Muddy’s from here, and we’ll figure something out with the rideshare. Maybe you can borrow my truck for a while.”
Right then, even as she felt the urge to push him away, she decided to try it. To not wall herself off and to really trust him. Just a little.
“It would actually be a big help if you went to the pharmacy. And it would probably improve my star rating to have an operable passenger door,” she admitted. Reluctantly.
His eyes looked down at her, bright and eager. “See? Look at us being optimistic. It’s so unlike us.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re right. We’ll figure it out,” she agreed. And standing in his arms, holding a bag of cheese, she wanted to believe it could be true.
That weekend, they were hosting a younger couple and their towheaded spawn. Lainey liked the three children immediately, which should’ve been the first sign of threat. The second was that each had a first name that was better suited for a last name of a singer in an alt-rock group. The third was that the kids weretoointerested in her sculptures.
At some point during the weekend, the parents had taken a nap and in the most productive twenty minutes in human history, the kids had gotten to work.
It started with little Rockwell breaking his way into the shed to steal a saw and a chisel. Daughtry, older and wiser, took the saw and cut down the stag Lainey had been sculpting forweeks. Sterling removed two floor tiles before turning the chisel to the original stone hearth that served as the focal point of the living room. Meanwhile, Rockwell got busy carving into the walls and yanking out copper wiring like a meth-addicted squirrel.
The clatter of hard stone hitting the newly exposed subfloor was what had finally woken up the parents.
“We were playing treasure hunters,” Rockwell mumbled to Lainey and Elliot on the front lawn at checkout, his body wrapped protectively in his mother’s arms and his eyes cast down to the ground.
“We’re going to have to keep the security deposit,” Elliot explained.
The parents of the exceedingly productive demons said they understood before piling back into their Tesla SUV and driving away, tires kicking up gravel and coating Lainey’s feet in a fine layer of dust.
“There’s no way they accomplished this much carnage in twenty minutes.”
Lainey was fuming, and fuming made her pace.
