Chapter 10 #2
I listened to her grievances with a smile threatening to take over.
I wasn’t an idiot. How could a demon who’d been around as long as I had not know that Kendyll liked me?
She typically tried hiding it, but I guessed she felt bolder on her birthday.
Still, I’d meant what I’d told her before.
Eighteen was too young for my taste, not to mention I was the only person she’d really interacted with outside of the hospital.
She thought she liked me, but that was just inexperience talking.
She needed to explore romance with other people, not me.
“Why agree if you aren’t going to follow through?” she continued lamenting under her breath, taking an angry bite of her cheesecake. “Asshat. All talk. Wussy.”
The barely audible grumbles had me chuckling softly. She was trying to goad me into doing what she wanted, but it wasn’t going to work.
“Thought you were a demon, but turns out you’re just a scaredy cat.”
My eye twitched. So it wasn’t going to completely work.
While she huffed and puffed, I leaned down to drop a kiss on her cheek. “Happy birthday, Ghost.”
She froze and stared wide-eyed at her dessert. Her entire face went from pale cream to firetruck red. The tips of her ears practically glowed like Rudolph’s nose. She blinked many times behind her glasses and peered sideways at me.
“Jerk,” she squeaked again, all the fight gone from her voice.
I smiled. “Guilty. Finish your cheesecake so we can keep going.”
She barely managed to do that, still clearly dazed. Served her right. She wasn’t so quick to taunt me now.
With her food gone, we stood and resumed our trek down the many store-lined streets. Eventually, she shook off the moment on the bench. We grabbed dinner at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant before returning to my penthouse.
The day had been long and busy. We put on a movie, but it wasn’t long before we were both fading and decided to call it a night.
“Do I get the bed tonight since it’s my birthday?” she asked, standing at the foot of my bed in one of my long shirts and pajama pants. I’d bought the girl her own freaking clothes, but she insisted on wearing mine to sleep in.
Not only that, but since her temporary stay here had already been longer than intended, I’d bought her a shikibuton, a traditional Japanese floor mattress, to sleep on so that she didn’t have to sleep directly on the floor.
I’d initially suggested she just sleep on the couch after it became apparent she was going to be here awhile, as it was the only other place with a comfortable spot to rest in my one-bedroom place.
But she’d just silently follow me into my room and choose her spot next to my bed.
She also occasionally tried bargaining to get a chance at my luxury bed, such as now.
I climbed onto my huge mattress and fluffed my pillow, giving her an unapologetic grin. “You wish.”
She got into her shikibuton on the floor. “It was worth a shot. Good night, Mr. Monster.”
“Night, Ghost.”
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been asleep when a strangled, muffled scream startled me awake. I stared at the ceiling in the dark, confused as to what the noise was, when another agonized shriek filled the room.
I shot up in bed and peered over the side where Kendyll thrashed and trembled beneath her blanket. She gasped and cried in her sleep, knuckles bleach-white where they clenched her comforter.
“Kendyll,” I called, reaching down to grab her shoulder and shake it. “Kendyll, wake up.”
Her eyes snapped open, and she sucked in a large breath. Her teary gaze was fixed on the ceiling, and her body continued shaking beneath my grip. Gasps made her chest rise and fall hard until it slowly evened out.
“Sorry,” she croaked, her screams and tears having made her voice rough and small.
“It’s fine,” I told her. I stared down at her, recalling the note I’d seen in her papers back at Mountview about having nightmares. I pulled my hand back and braced myself on my forearm to continue looking over the edge of the bed. “Bad dream?”
She closed her eyes and gave the smallest dip of her chin as confirmation.
I wasn’t sure what to say or do. Fear was something I enjoyed invoking, so trying to comfort someone through it was uncharted waters that I didn’t know how to navigate.
“Can I hold your hand?” she asked weakly.
I frowned. I’d held her hand during her tattoo, but holding it again now didn’t feel right somehow. I wasn’t sure if it was because we were in my bedroom or because I felt awkward offering that after she’d had a nightmare, but it was too much contact.
Begrudgingly, I said, “How about a finger?”
Relief settled in the tense lines of her face. She rolled onto her side and offered me her pinky. I dropped my arm over the edge of the bed and wrapped my own clawed pinky around hers.
I squeezed lightly. “Better?”
Through the dark, she peered up at me. Her teary green eyes searched my golden ones for many beats. Silence filled the air while chaotic thoughts seemed to race around her head. I couldn’t hope to catch and understand them all, so I waited. Eventually, she nodded.
“Try getting some sleep then,” I told her.
Our pinkies stayed locked together, but eventually, I managed to drift off to sleep again.
It wasn’t long before I was woken up once more.
This time, it was the sound of Kendyll sneaking out of her blankets and withdrawing her finger from mine.
I wasn’t sure what she was up to, but I heard her digging through the drawer I’d given her in my dresser.
I kept my eyes closed, listening to her tiptoe around the room.
She came back over to the bed, and I felt her standing over me.
Still, I remained calm, the picture of a sleeping demon.
A soft kiss landed on my forehead, nearly making me snap my eyes open. Her strained whisper against my skin was the only thing that kept me frozen.
“Bye, Mr. Monster.”
Her footsteps moved to the door, and soon after, my penthouse door opened and closed. I rolled onto my back and finally opened my eyes. Total silence filled the expansive apartment. I was alone. She was gone.
On one hand, I was excited. I’d finally have everything back to myself without a leech here to constantly consider. But on the other hand, I’d gotten used to having her here—someone to eat with, watch films with, talk to over tea.
Was this disappointment tangling in my chest how pet owners felt when the pet they’d reluctantly rescued died after they finally got used to them?
“Oh well,” I sighed, folding my hands behind my head and closing my eyes.
She was gone, so there was no point dwelling on it now. Instead, I flushed my pet fish down the mental toilet of memories.