Page 17 of How Not to Date a Demon

Lissie tackled Bubba and took him to the floor, chomping on his ankles. He yelped out a playful bark and tried to twist and nip her ears.

“He doesn’t disappear during the full moon. I haven’t seen any spell books or weird symbols.”

The list was dwindling fast. Nothing fit!

Her gaze latched onto a hyperlink at the bottom of the page, reading, “How to Deal with Others.”

“Other what?” she grumbled, clicking the link loudly out of frustration.

When the page loaded, she scanned it and narrowed her eyes.

“How to protect against malevolent spirits and other supernatural beings. I’d say he’s other, wouldn’t you guys?”

The puppies ignored her.

Maeve clicked the link to the article, and the first thing she scrolled to was a list of five items that were effective against the supernatural.

“Okay, here we go,” she murmured, scanning the article.

Her IQ felt lower after she read it. But more research didn’t yield anything more promising, so after another hour of rabbit hole searches, she came back to her first tab.

“Fine. There’s a little truth in every myth, or something like that, right?” she asked the pups.

They still didn’t answer her, passed out after their latest romp. She was in this all alone.

“Salt?” she asked doubtfully, reading the first thing off the supernatural checklist.

She supposed she’d seen enough salt circles to know why it was supposed to work, but... “Whatever, let’s just give it a shot, hmm?”

Maeve

“Here you go, sugar,” she said, sliding Galen’s plate in front of him once he’d settled in after returning from his errands for the day. “How was your day?” she asked.

Galen was none the wiser as he took the plate from her and centered it on his placemat. Little did he know… this was his first test.

“It was eh,” he said, looking a little down even after their great start to the day. It almost made her feel guilty.

“Wanna talk about it?” she offered, stabbing her first potato with her fork. Maeve took a bite while eyeing Galen’s plate. Almost.

Come on…

He lifted his gaze to her, and she snapped to attention. “Is it okay if I say not right now? You tell me about your day, that’ll cheer me up.”

Well, she certainly couldn’t tell him she’d been researching how to repel him, could she?

“While you were gone, I was lazy,” she admitted. “I laid around with the puppies.” Not technically a lie. “Read a new book.” It was articles instead of books, close enough. “Pretty boring to be honest.”

Galen rested his cheek on his fist and sighed. “That sounds wonderful to me.”

Maeve parted her lips, comforting words on the tip of her tongue, only to see Galen finally spear a potato as well.

She played it cool while he bit it off the fork, chewed for a moment, and swallowed. Trying to hide a wince, he washed it down with a sip of beer. It clicked to the table a moment later, and he cleared his throat. “It’s a little… uh…”

“Delicious? Super awesome? The best meal you’ve ever had?” she suggested, staring at him innocently.

Salty as fuck because I used half the shaker? she thought to herself.

His lips twitched as he studied her before nodding. “Of course, sugar pie. It’s amazing.”