Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Riley
“I’m going to take a shower. You’re going to sit right there and look pretty. And when I’m done taking my shower, we will eat.”
Torin arches a brow. “I find the way you command me to do things oddly appealing. No one has ever told me what to do. All humans I’ve come in contact with have worshiped me. But you… you are brave… or foolish. I’m not sure yet.”
“I just… really don’t happen to care,” I say before heading into the only separate room in the apartment.
It’s a small bathroom with just enough space for a sink, a toilet, and a standing shower.
I shut and lock the door, feeling like Torin probably gives no shits about privacy.
Pulling my gloves off, I look at the tips of my fingers coated in black.
It’s almost like I’ve dipped them in black ink.
I flex them before lowering them in irritation.
“You can go play,” I inform Kit. “Just… stay in here with me. I don’t trust that man.”
She leaps onto the bathroom counter where she proceeds to smack my deodorant off with such force it ricochets off the wall.
I’m left watching her fixation on the deodorant as she bats it under the counter where I’ll have to get a hanger to drag it back out.
“Seriously?” I ask as I turn the shower on before undressing.
She’s determined to smack it some more, stretching her arm as far as it’ll go.
I leave her to it while I reach out and grab the curtain.
I slide it open and step over the lip of the shower and into the warm water.
The water washes my misery away as I close my eyes and listen to the sound of her trying her best to beat the deodorant out from under the counter.
It feels weird being back at the Magical Interference Unit. I dedicated ten years of my life to working for them… and I loved every minute of it.
And now…
“Shit,” I hiss as I reach up and wrap my hand around the pendant. My fingers slide into each of the three notches.
The warmth of the water slowly brings me back to my senses.
My life now is perfectly fine. I enjoy my work at the library. I like my life. It’s good enough.
I scrub away any blood that I might have missed during my quick rinse at the department, and then move down my body to scrub the rest as best as I can.
“Good enough,” I mutter before I step out and realize that I didn’t grab any of my clothes. Since I’m in an apartment by myself, I always wander over to get my clothes while I dry myself off.
I forgot that I’d introduced a god to my humble abode because absolutely no one else wanted to deal with him.
I could put on my dirty clothes to walk out and grab something, but I decide that I’m going to live my life like I normally would.
I wrap a towel around my hips and Kit leaps onto my shoulder before I head through the door where I see the supposed god staring out the window at the city.
He turns and looks at me. Not a glance but a full-on examination.
“I forgot my clothes,” I tell him.
“Ah, I see that you have decided that Mozzarella is an inferior man and are trying to seduce me. Very ballsy. I will examine the goods and then make my decision,” he says as he stares at me.
When I realize he’s waiting for me to drop the towel, I scowl and hurry over to my dresser. I grab some clothes and disappear into the bathroom to change.
“Playing shy, I see,” he shouts after me.
I get dressed just in time because there is a sudden knock on the door when I step out.
Torin whips a weapon out and I realize that I never did see what he used to kill the hellhound, but I’m getting to see it really well as he flings open the door and hooks a weapon similar to a hand scythe around the delivery man’s neck.
The delivery man squeaks and drops my precious pizza on the ground while I stare at the scene in disbelief.
“Who sent you?” Torin barks even though the man clearly can’t understand him.
“I did! He brought food! Let him go!” I hurry over to the poor man who is now trembling.
“I’m watching you,” Torin warns as he withdraws his weapon. “I will watch you when you work and when you sleep. You will—”
“Go sit down,” I demand, handing the man the largest tip I’ve ever given someone. He takes it and runs before I can explain that Torin is simply a confused god, because what’s more terrifying than a god telling you they’re going to watch you sleep? Thankfully, he couldn’t understand it.
“You paid him to kill me?” Torin asks. “His attempt was weak, definitely not worth being paid for.”
“I paid him to bring me food. He was like a servant sent to bring us food. You cannot just attack anyone you want.”
Torin is busy examining his hand scythe. It reminds me of a Japanese kama, but it’s elegant and made of some type of dark material that shimmers almost blue when the light hits it.
“Where were you keeping that?” I ask while I pick up the pizza. I set it on the counter before placing Kit’s food down which she ignores since there might be pizza to steal.
“In its sheath,” he says as he slides the weapon toward his back where it disappears, telling me he has some kind of magic concealing it.
I set the pizza on the small table and am pleased to see that it’s still mostly round, even after landing on the floor in its box. Grabbing two plates, I hand him one and pick up my two slices.
Torin stares at his plate like he has never seen such a thing before.
“Poison will not work on me,” he announces.
“That’s disappointing,” I say.
“What is this strange food?”
“It’s pizza.”
“And this is the first course of how many?”
“One. Unless you want to raid the cupboards where I have some cookies.”
He gapes at me as I pick up the small cup of garlic butter and drench my pizza with it.
“You have despicable manners,” he declares, probably because his plate is still empty and he seems to think that he should be waited on first.
“I’m glad to hear that,” I say while I grab a much-needed beer and sit down at the table. Kit prances on my shoulder even though I’m well aware she doesn’t need any of the pizza. I pull off a pepperoni and hand it over.
She makes some happy noises as I watch Torin slowly reach out and pick up a piece of pizza before examining it closely.
“This is not food. This is an atrocity. This is—”
“It’s all this humble peasant can afford,” I lie.
He nods, taking pity on my peasant persona, and takes a bite. I see a spark of enjoyment before he quickly covers it up. “It is… edible.”
“It’s delicious, isn’t it?”
Torin takes another bite and moans. “What is this called? I shall make this a new staple in my palace.”
“Pizza.”
“And the white stuff on top?”
“Mozzarella.”
He freezes. “We are cannibals?”
My face scrunches up. “No! Mozzarella is a type of cheese! You’re the one who went off on a tangent about it being a person. It’s cheese!”
“I would lust after mozzarella after eating this as well.”
I sigh and wonder if maybe I could drown him out with some TV. I reach for the remote and hit the button to turn it on. “Now this is a TV, it’s—”
His weapon embeds itself right into the glass, shattering it all over my floor before the TV teeters and then crashes to the ground.
“I have saved your life from the miniature assassins.”
I stare at the wreckage as I think about how I could explain to him what a TV is so he’d understand why the little people inside are not assassins, and that he destroyed our only form of entertainment for the evening.
“Thank you for saving my life,” I say instead.
He beams at me. “You are quite welcome.”
After I finish two pieces of pizza, I move to the couch where I watch Torin eat the entire rest of the pizza that he’d bitched about. Then he longingly gazes into the box like another whole pizza might appear if he stares long enough. When that evidently bores him, he looks over at me.
“What do we do for entertainment in this world?”
“We mostly just stare at walls. I’ll stare this way and you stare at that one.”
He glances at the wall before slowly looking back at me. “You are one sassy man… I already forgot your name.”
“Riley the Peeved Peasant.”
“How about some night entertainment? I am a god of love, after all.”
“I’ve provided you a wall to stare at and you’re already wanting more? We should rename you Torin the Greedy.”
“A good lay can go a long way.”
“Ah, I see… well, unless you want to wander out and find them yourself, hiring someone is illegal here.”
Torin stares at me like this is the most shocking thing that’s happened since he’s ventured into this world. Not the TV. Not the subway. Definitely not the cars.
The fact that I don’t have a sex worker on speed dial.
“You are a very handsome man. You will do.”
“I will not do.”
He looks at me with a raised eyebrow before waving to himself.
I think it’s supposed to be an “I am very handsome, come ride my dick” move, but I’m struggling to see anything other than the fact that I’m going to sit on this couch until I sleep.
And then I’m going to wake up in the morning, and this will all have been a big joke.
“I am offering you a chance to have sex with me.”
“Man, you know… I really wish I wanted to, but I don’t.”
Torin appears taken aback, possibly even offended. I’m sure he thought my clothes would explode off my body at his offer. “No one has ever turned down having sex with me. Everyone I’ve met has desired me.”
“Well, looks like I popped your rejection cherry,” I say with a smile, picking up a book.
And so the god of war and love sits his rejected ass down on my couch and proceeds to stare at a wall.
Kit oozes off my shoulder and falls into a slumber as I sigh and shut the book.