My Indecent Valentine: Ablaze #2

6. Chapter 6

Isleep soundly for the first time in months. No nightmares. Fear is a battle waged in the mind, a place where even the tiniest grain of knowledge can be a shield and a sword. Sofia’s resilience and strength come from her upbringing. I’ve met her family and know this to be true. But now I also know there are drops of demon blood coursing through her veins, and that tiny grain is waging a mighty war, winning out over the fear that has gripped me since our wedding. My human wife is not fragile. She is dazzling.

The next day, after a restful five hours of sleep, I supervise the halo repairs while Sofia oversees food prep in the kitchen. I’d like to stay focused on this evening, but my mind won’t stop calculating. I scribble notes and figures on cocktail napkins. The new mortgage will be less than we pay in rent now. Once our outstanding bills are paid down, profits will go into expanding the restaurant, giving us the dining room capacity to ensure our income exceeds our expenses by a healthy margin every month.

With the halo patent in my pocket, I have other pressing business as well. I need to set up potential investor meetings for us as soon as possible. We have one on the books already. Magleon insisted we hear him out.

“Before you go on the hunt for someone else, let me at least show you the manufacturing and distribution plans I’ve already worked up. We were good business partners once before. We could be again,” he said. Sofia will have the final word, but I”m inclined to look for someone else. Some things are best left in the past.

Repairs are finished by three. When the halo is glowing and humming, I stand there looking at it with new eyes and kick myself for missing what Magleon saw so quickly.

The serving staff show up by four, and we open right on time for Valentine’s weekend. There’s a line out the door all evening, even though the Valentine’s tasting menu is by reservation only. At best, one out of ten walk-ins will get a table. They don’t care. They wait anyway because they know it will be worth it.

Sofia’s tasting menu is divine. There isn’t a dull-eyed demon in the place. Every eye is brightly swirling in the oranges and yellows of pleasure, including table sixty-six, where Magleon and his partners are dining. He greeted me on their way to being seated. “It looks like it’s shaping up to be a good night,” he says, scanning the room full of delighted customers and clapping my shoulder.

“I almost sunk this place,” I admit, saying right out loud a thought I would normally keep private.

“You would have found a way to save it,” he says. “Or you would have moved on to something even better.”

“I don’t know about that,” I say with a dismissive snort.

“Creativity and passion may not be as readily appreciated in the demon community as they should be, especially not by your curmudgeonly father, but it’s passion like yours and talent like hers that make the world a more elegant and worthwhile place, my friend. I cannot wait to see what we do next.” He winks and hurries off to rejoin his party.

I walk through the more generously spaced tables and am filled with contentment. Magleon is right. It is a good night. I stop for a moment to take it all in, to be still, and to watch the show. Beneath the halo and amidst the magic of the leaping flames, my stunning wife glows. Without the amplifying magic of the blue flame, she is back to being herself. No smoking or glowing eyes, no tongue that tastes fear. Yet she is more radiant than ever, and she carries herself in a new way.

I’ve always found her brightly flushed face intoxicatingly beautiful, but tonight, she is cool, collected, and brimming with confidence. My heart sings even as I make a mental note to draw her an extra hot bath when we get home. I will stare adoringly at my red-faced Sofia at some point tonight.

By the time we close on Sunday, it’s been our best weekend to date, and by midnight, the staff have all gone home. The place is quiet. I sit alone at the bar until my wife joins me. She slides a cocktail glass over to me, and at first, I light up. But then I recognize the concoction and, snorting, I push the glass back towards her.

“Try it,” she says, nudging back my way, and reluctantly, I take a sip.

“Good, isn’t it?” she says, and I shrug. Every cocktail I created was to my taste. Of course I’m going to like it. That doesn’t make it good. “I found quite a few good cocktail recipes in here,” she says, producing an old leather-bound journal, a giant tome with gold filigree. It’s my mixology journal into which I poured all of my brilliance. I roll my eyes at the sight of it, even though it’s my fault she has it in the first place.

As soon as we got home from Magleon’s, I pulled out the couple of private boxes I’ve kept over the years and gave them to my wife. I was burning with a need to share myself with her and opening them up felt like the right place to start. They were full of relics from my past, including the mixology journal which she snatched up right away. She’s been walking around with it ever since.

“I should have guessed you wouldn’t be able to resist testing my recipes,” I say with a snort. She ignores me and, instead, she makes a show of flipping through the journal. She holds it up like a religious text and reads from it.

“The very long name of this particular cocktail is Bourbon Bliss Royale.” She peeks at me over the top of the journal. “Why didn’t you stop at Bourbon Bliss? Why tag on the ‘Royale’?”

“Because, wife,” I prop my elbow up on the bar and rest my head on my fist. “Peritorum Sacellum was a highly sophisticated establishment, the kind of place where every drink needed three names to properly reflect the stunning level of complexity and elegance I’d achieved at the ripe age of twenty-three,” I say. “You clearly don’t understand the true essence of sophistication, or you wouldn’t ask such puerile questions.”

She snorts, and raising the book again, she reads on. “Sulphurous Sumptuous Sip.”

“That was a smoked cocktail with a hint of sulfur. It came with a sumptuous sugar-coated gold straw and was meant to be sipped, obviously.”

“Obviously,” she echos me with only the faintest hint of amusement. I take another sip from my glass, and I smile at the pleasant tingle on my tongue. What can I say? I like what I like.

“Perdition’s Prestige Potion.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. That one is entirely self-explanatory.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “I didn’t know you had such a flair for alliteration or such a good palate.” She closes the book. “We’ll have to change the name, obviously, but I’d like to add this to the menu.” She gestures with the book to the glass I’m holding.

“This? You can’t be serious?”

“Have you ever known me to not be serious when discussing my menu?” She arches an eyebrow at me.

“I have not,” I say with some chagrin. “I don’t think we’ve ever broached a more deadly serious topic than your menu.”

“Correct,” she says. “I have an idea for an appetizer pairing. This feels like a starter cocktail to me. Lots of citrus and bright flavors to wake up the palate. It would cut through something rich and fatty very nicely. We could try it out next week. What do you think?”

I swivel in my barstool, pull the journal out of her hands, and discard it on the counter. Then I grab Sofia by the waist, pull her between my legs, and clamp her in place. “I’d be honored,” I say. Her eyes go soft, and she melts against my chest. My hands roam from her waist, over her hips, and then around to cup her ass. “And now I have a question for you. Do you regret coming to live with me in Chicago?” It’s a question that’s been burning in my mind since our night with Magleon, since Sofia asked me something similar. I expect I know the answer, but I’d really like to hear her say it.

“Of course not, mi esposo.” She lifts a hand to cup my face, and I rotate my head to kiss her palm. My heart squeezes. “It’d be nice to visit back home more often, but I’m glad that I’m here with you.” She plants a kiss on my lips. “I would follow you anywhere. You know that, right?” She tilts her head at me.

“Would you follow me to Winter Bliss tonight?” I ask. “We’re going to be closed for the next few days. We could catch the next red-eye to Idaho, soak up some small-town charm, and spend a few nights in that ramshackle cabin. What do you say?”

“Yes.” She beams at me. Closing her eyes, she presses her cheek to mine and whispers. “Yes, yes. I could use an escape to Winter Bliss.”

So could I. “Let’s go.”