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Even if neither of the hosts had much luck in the dating department.

Tess tossed her purse onto the counter. The zipper was left characteristically undone, allowing her lipstick, eyeliner, a pack of gum, and a single condom to scatter across the surface.

“Good date?” I asked, reaching for the wine.

“No. No, it was not a good date. My jaw betrayed me!” Tess pointed dramatically to her own face. “Do you know what happened tonight? Do you know what happened when I finally—finally—made out with Hot Coffee Shop Guy?”

I went ahead and bit back my thoughts on Hot Coffee Shop Guy and his tendency to write his number on every pretty woman’s cup.

“What?” I asked, passing her a half-filled glass of red.

“It was going great. We leaned in. Sparks. Fireworks. All the things. And then—”

Tess snapped her fingers.

“Did you… break something?” I asked. While Tess was nowhere near as strong—or, you know, cloven—as a full-blooded demon, she had a freakish amount of strength. I was pretty sure the only reason I ever went to the gym was to watch the guys gape at her deadlifts and bench presses.

“No. Not a snap. A click.”

“Click? What was—oh, your jaw was clicking?”

“Clicking? Babe, it was like my temporomandibular joint was sending out Morse code.”

Tess took a long sip of her wine before continuing.

“I swear on the Styx, every time he tilted his head, it went click-click-click like I had a tiny castanet troupe living in my face.”

“That’s… less than ideal.”

“Oh, it gets better.” Tess flung herself onto my favorite reading chair, nearly spilling her wine on my white faux fur blanket. “He couldn’t just, you know, be a gentleman and pretend it wasn’t happening. Or maybe laugh it off. Nope. He had to pull back, all serious,” she said, scrunching her brows in imitation, “and ask me if this was normal for half-demons. Like, yes, Kevin, all half-demons come with sound effects. Idiot.”

The banana bread was too hot, but I cut into it anyway, plopping a hefty chunk on a plate for my roommate.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m never kissing anyone again,” Tess declared, balancing the wine glass on the arm of my chair so she could reach for the plate. “I’ll just become a nun. A jaw-clicking nun. Sign me up for the closest convent.”

“You can’t join a convent. You’re part demon.”

“Sure, kill a girl’s dreams.”

“I’m also pretty sure you can’t bring Mr. Good Vibrations to the nunnery.”

“Well, that’s not gonna work then. I mean, I don’t mind DJing the turntables,” she said, making a record-scratching gesture in the air, “but the last thing I need is to get carpal tunnel on top of everything else.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to spin the vinyl at all when you take vows.”

“I’m pretty sure I would start shooting fire out of my eyes if I couldn’t relieve the pressure sometimes. Or, you know, call my ex.”

“Do not call your ex!” I didn’t mean for that to come out as forceful as it did. But, well, Tess’s ex was a whole thing. Like a decade of on-again, off-again, tons of hard feelings kind of thing.

“How am I going to call him? He chose to be Lucifer’s right-hand man instead of being with me, remember?”

Oh, I remembered.

She’d been in bed for weeks, crying, not bathing, not eating, and burning the bedsheets with her occasional bursts of rage.

Tess never did anything (least of all her feelings) by half.