Chapter 11 #2
“I did. But the verdict is still out, you’ll have to let me know what you think,” I continued, fully committing to my inquiry and fighting the tugging at the corner of my lips. “Or do you think three chillis is overselling it?”
He looked up at me slowly, like he was considering every word I’d just said, contemplating whether I was the stupidest person alive. The verdict is still out on that, too.
“As a demon, my measures of intimacy are completely different.”
“Different how?”
“The book is a little tame,” he said as he finished off his bowl of ramen, before standing up slowly and making his way over to the sink. “And the miscommunication is infuriating. I like to be more direct when I want something.”
And just like that, I was burning up. My body felt like it was alight with the heat coursing through my veins. I suddenly felt like I had accidentally swapped the ramen packets and was suffering the aftereffects of Xtreme Chicken!
I continued to glance down at my bowl, hoping it would swallow me and the vibrant splotches of pink on my cheeks whole.
I was so caught up in my thoughts and mulling over what that could have meant when the smell of smoke stopped my train of thought dead in its tracks.
Thallor placed his hand on the breakfast bar in front of me from over my shoulder, fingers sprawled out, a vein coursing up the side of his forearm.
“On the topic of being direct, I want to know why you decided to give me that book in the first place.” His voice was low and raspy as his warm breath prickled at the side of my neck.
I was seconds from making a sound I couldn’t recover from. A full-body whimper threatened to escape me as he casually grabbed my bowl, before carrying it to the sink like nothing had happened.
“Oh no. No, no. Not like that,” I groaned. “I know you could never be interested in me like that.”
He didn’t say anything. He just kept rinsing the bowls. And I tried to stop my body from going into an embarrassment-induced cardiac arrest.
“Listen, okay, I knew it was spicy because Esme told me it was. But she said it had an exciting plot too. I just wanted you to have options to stay entertained if you were going to stay here a while,” I rambled on, red-faced as I gestured vaguely, hoping to find my reasoning and the end of my sentence along the way.
No matter how hard I flailed, the words refused to assemble as I descended further into humiliation.
“I just wanted to do something nice. I wanted you to stop glaring at me every time I opened my mouth. Which, in hindsight, has not worked out in my favour.”
I stopped talking when he turned off the tap and slowly turned to face me, drying his hands with a dish towel. “You gave me an erotic romance novel as a gesture of goodwill?” His expression was flat and unreadable, but I could have sworn I could hear the smile in his voice.
“It was a lapse in judgement, okay?”
“That does seem to be the theme when it comes to you.”
“You can go back to hating me now. I think that was less painful,” I huffed before stalking into the bedroom.
The next few weeks came and went in a blur.
I’d spent most of it writing and then rewriting paragraphs whilst prompting Jude for his thoughts and feelings on the points I was making.
I’d learnt the hard way that trying to get Jude to engage was an entirely futile endeavour.
I was clearly touch-starved and delusional because even with his limited participation, I’d found Jude pleasant, charming, and fun to be around.
He had spent every moment we were together flirting with me and paying me compliments, and despite my better judgement, I’d reverted back to my awkward, teenage self.
One that could overlook his lack of concentration, because having him around did wonders for my ego.
My shifts at the bar hadn’t gotten much better.
The Boardroom Butcher was there pretty much every night, even on the days I didn’t work, according to Nick.
I’m not sure if that made me feel better or worse, but every night without fail, the man sat at the same dimly lit booth he always sat at and stared off into space.
As much as I would have loved to get him barred from entering, other than being a bit of a weirdo with a penchant for peanuts, he never did anything untoward.
I’d wanted to avoid working there altogether, but needed the money and tips the weekend shifts afforded me.
Thallor was becoming increasingly irritated with me again.
Although we had fallen into a comfortable routine, things had taken a turn for the worse when I told him I was no closer to deciding what to wish for than I had been several weeks prior.
This wasn’t true, of course, but my research had taken a back seat whilst I’d been focusing on my course assignment.
In an attempt to cure him of his bad mood, I had bought Thallor the second book in the mafia romcom series.
This one was titled The Mafioso’s Mistress and rated 3.
5 chillis. Once or twice, I had caught him sitting with a pillow over his lap and an aggressively bright blush on his face that had the corner of my lips tugging upward.
Too tame, my ass. But even that hadn’t served to improve his mood.
If anything, it just made him more tense and more irritable.
And that mood was rubbing off on me. I sighed deeply as I continued to potter around my apartment, scolding my plants and their inability to stay alive.
If I could have berated them into photosynthesising more efficiently, I would have.
But everywhere I looked, I saw shrivelled-up, brown leaves, wilted stems, and weepy-looking flowers.
I found myself instantly swept up in my own botany-fuelled rage, my own muttering cloaking Thallor’s footsteps as he closed the gap between us, leaning over my body until the firm warmth of his body encapsulated mine.
Thallor had made his feelings perfectly clear. Crystal clear. No-room-for-misunderstanding clear, but something about his actions, the ones I knew he wouldn’t give a second thought to, sent my heart galloping until I was sure it would shoot straight out of my chest.
“What are you doing?” he asked. I found myself becoming flustered by Thallor at the most inopportune moments.
I don’t know what it was. I should have been used to his proximity by now, but the way his warm breath prickled at the skin of my neck shot a jolt of electricity through my body and into my head, overpowering the wires in my brain before they malfunctioned altogether.
“They—” I stuttered as he leaned in closer. Words, Quincey. The foundation of communication. One of the first things you ever learn. Maybe try using them. “Um, my plants keep dying on me. I’m trying to figure out why.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” he said sarcastically, before standing up straighter.
I rolled my eyes, giving myself a much-needed reprieve from the way his eyes bore into me.
I took a steadying breath and then another, hoping the sudden closeness wouldn’t result in my knees buckling beneath me.
“You’re not very good at taking care of things. ”
“Right.” The buildup of nervous energy escaped me in the form of a huffed laugh that had me sounding short of breath. I wrung my hands together and willed my mind to slow down as I cleared my throat. “I always water them—”
Thallor settled me with a look laced with incredulity. I grimaced and prepared for the appropriately directed chiding because I could not for the life of me remember the last time I had watered this plant.
“Okay,” I corrected myself, “I sometimes try to remember to water—”
The skin of his bare forearm momentarily brushed against mine as he side-stepped me, leaning down and placing a hand in the soil.
I watched slowly as the curled-over leaves began to unfurl, the yellow, weathered edges retreated slowly, and in their place seeped a vibrant green that could scarcely be seen amongst the rest of my plants.
I looked down at Thallor with wide eyes, his scarlet rings locking onto mine with a glimmer of triumphant amusement.
I almost caught the very edge of a grin before he stood up and righted himself.
“I’m about to ask a potentially stupid question here, but did you just do that?” I asked.
“No, the plant you stopped watering a month ago actually decided it didn’t need to be watered to survive.
” Was the big, bad, scary demon taking the piss out of me?
Thallor’s face remained unreadable, but there was a slight lilt to his voice that suggested he was, in fact, mocking me.
Playfully. “Now, no matter what you do, this plant should never die.” He enunciated the word you with pointed emphasis.
I just looked up at him, feeling bemused more than anything else.
I felt off-kilter somewhat as I churned through any and all possible excuses for why Thallor would have done this, something so trivial as keeping my plants alive.
Alongside the rest of the clutter in my apartment, the array of greenery and my emotional support succulents were incredibly important to me.
Although we gradually settled into a more familiar routine with each other, our conversations and interactions rarely ever surpassed surface level.
Other than the occasional grumble and the disgruntled look always etched across his face, Thallor kept to himself.
And yet, there would be times, as rare as they were, where Thallor’s true personality would shine through the cracks of his well-built walls. The first spark in a raging fire.
“Well, thank you,” I said quietly. “You didn’t…have to do that.”
“I figured you could use the help.” He shrugged as he turned away from me.
“I don’t need your help.”
“You barely remember to feed yourself, Sterling.”