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My body enters a state of shock. While she’s toned down her more extreme appearance now, she still looks like a swimsuit model—all thick hips and curves that my fingers can’t help but want to dig into. Ben grins at me, but I’m already averting my eyes, trying to hide my body’s automatic reaction to the sight of her smooth, alabaster skin and the deep twin dimples at the base of her spine.

“Come on, you perv,” I say, grabbing his arm and pulling him into the hall with me, then closing the door. I’m suddenly, painfully aware of how close Ben and I are standing, and howuncomfortable the pressure in my jeans is. It’s been way too long. I’m silently willing him not to notice, but he does, and his grin only widens.

“You can go take care of that if you need to,” he teases. “Don’t mind me.” Then he turns and walks down the hall. I let out the breath I was holding and follow him, my head still spinning and trying to grasp the situation I’ve found myself in: two of the most attractive people I’ve ever seen, but one of them is a demon who wants to drag me back to Hell with her and the other is…well, I’m not really sure what Ben’s deal is at this point. He flirts like crazy with meandAnnoth, but he’s never mentioned any relationships either before or after his time in the priesthood. In defiance of my urge to get to know him better, I keep the conversation focused on Annoth.

“What do you think is going on with her?” I ask, slipping into a chair at the counter and trying to hide the fact that I’m still half-hard.

Ben opens a can of Dr. Pepper and shrugs. “Homesick? Overwhelmed? Full of violent urges with no outlet?” he suggests with a wry chuckle. “Who fucking knows with that one.”

“I want to thank you for today,” I say quietly. “For helping me with those messages, and the groceries, and everything else.”

Ben waves a hand dismissively. “Part of the deal, right? I get you back on your feet, find an exorcist, and you don’t send me to jail.” He laughs, but I suddenly feel guilty. Is he really only doing this out of fear that I’ll turn him in? He said he was ‘interested’ in my situation, and he does seem to be, but what’s really keeping him here? Other than free food and a place to stay?

I consider the possibility that Ben is just a very good actor, and that the second Annoth and I are separated, I’ll never hear from him again.Would that be so bad?asks the practical side of my brain.You certainly don’t need any more complications in your life. True,the other part of me agrees,but Ben seems like the kind of complication that’s worth trying to hold onto.

“How longago did you leave the priesthood?” I ask, suddenly and without thinking.

Ben raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t leave. They kicked me out, remember?”

“Right…sorry…”

“It’s been…just over a year.”

His voice is clipped, and I look down at my hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to–”

“While Annie’s in the shower,” he says, interrupting my poor attempt at an apology, “I want you to talk to me about Ros.”

I shift uncomfortably in my chair as his dark eyes burn into me. “What about her?”

“Well, you two were together for a while, but you weren’t even engaged yet?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, you just…don’t seem like the ‘living in sin’ type.”

“We didn’t want to rush things,” I sigh, “but I had been saving up for a ring and a wedding and a house for a while. Depressingly enough, that’s the money I’ve been living off of since I lost my job too.”

Ben scratches the dark stubble on his chin. “Maybe it’s too soon to talk about why you broke up, so…why don’t you tell me about how you met? I bet it’s cute and wholesome and shit.”

“How we met?” I can’t help but smile, because itisa good story. “Alright…I think maybe I could do that.”

“Good boy,” says Ben with an impish grin. Molten lava rushes through my stomach, down my legs, then up to my face, and I stutter my way through the first sentence.

“Well…uhh, so…Ros and I…w-we actually knew each other growing up,” I say, trying to get my brain and body back on the same track and out of the gutter. “We grew up in the same town, same school, all that. Our parents are friends, and my sister Molly is best friends with her older sister, Viola, but…I just kind of saw her as this annoying little girl who was always hanging out at our house, you know? She would follow Molly and Vi around, begging to play with them, and I had my own friends.”

“Cute,” says Ben as he grabs a knife and cutting board to start prepping the spicy dinner he promised Annoth.

“We both went to college here, but again, we didn’t hang out. I decided to do a minor in English Lit though, which was her major, so there were a few times we ended up in the same classes. We’d wave to each other, but we had our own lives.”

“Yeah, I saw all the old books in your office,” Ben says. “Didn’t take you for a literature guy.”

“What kind of guy did you take me for?”

“I dunno…beer or fishing or golf or something. Rodeos, maybe?”

“Hey, gimme some credit here!” I laugh. “I left the tiny rural town to getawayfrom the beer and fishing and golf. It was never my thing.”

“Alright, alright,” Ben says, holding his hands up. “Go ahead.”