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Nico

N ico clutched his phone in his clawed hand. He hadn’t put it down since Miri had texted and asked them all back to her house for dinner. He was afraid that if he let it go, the message from Miri would disappear like it had never existed.

He walked up the driveway and stopped on the porch. The other three were already there, waiting awkwardly with the occasional glare at Kaz. He raised his dark brows at the loitering demons.

“We figured we’d wait until you got here in case anyone needed a pep talk,” Ace answered the silent question.

Oh, he had a pep talk for Kaz, all right.

Nico’s eyes narrowed on the golden demon. “If you’re not here to fix this mess, then turn around and go back to your car.”

Ace nodded and crossed his arms over his chest. For once the happy-go-lucky demon was stone cold.

“I’m your cousin, but if you blow this for the rest of us, I may actually kill you.”

“I’m going to apologize,” Kaz promised.

Apologize? The dumbass had better be ready to grovel on his hands and knees. If he didn’t fix this, there was no maybe about it. Nico would murder him.

“Do you have a plan?” Duke rumbled.

“Apologize, beg for mercy, grovel. Whatever it takes.”

Ace raised his eyes to the sky in a silent prayer. “We are so screwed.”

Duke leaned past the knot of demons and rapped his knuckles on the door. “If he’s going to fuck this up, we might as well get it over with.”

“You’re filling me with confidence right now,” Kaz sighed.

The door swung open immediately. Miri waited on the other side, her cheeks flushed red. She rubbed at her ear and smiled awkwardly. Nico hid a smile. She had definitely been listening to their conversation with her pretty little human ear pressed to the door.

“Hi,” she said. Miri twisted her hands together in front of her. His eyes traveled over her t-shirt and leggings. Soft, casual, relaxed, and smelling of coconut and sugar. The way he loved her best.

Nico sighed. It had only been a couple days but he had missed her so fucking much.

One awkward round of hellos later and she waved them inside. Nico paused in the doorway and looked down at his feet. Do they kick off their shoes like usual or was this going to be a short, devastating conversation?

Duke sniffed the air. “Do you smell that?”

Nico inhaled. “Lasagna.”

He kicked his shoes off and tucked them into the shoe rack without a second thought. Miri might dump the bunch of them but apparently she was committed to feeding them first. Hopefully, she had made that incredible garlic bread again.

Nico followed her to the living room—his eyes definitely were not locked on the sway of her hips. Nope.

He blinked at the coffee table. It was set the same way as their first dinner date here in her house. Lasagna, salad, garlic bread, and a whole lot of wine.

Nico had no idea if that was a good sign or a bad one, but either way… garlic bread.

The other demons paused in the doorway and took in the sight.

“Before we all throw ourselves at your mercy, just how strong does Kaz’s grovel game need to be?” Ace asked hesitantly. “I want to be really clear so that we don’t screw this up.”

Miri waved his words away. “Just sit down. Nobody has to grovel?—“

“No,” Nico cut in. A certain somebody abso-fucking-lutely needed to grovel and he wasn’t going to be able to enjoy dinner until he heard it. “We all need to see Kaz do some groveling. We got tossed out of this house because of his fuckup.”

“Fair enough.”

They took their same seats around the little table and turned expectantly to Kaz. The golden demon swallowed and shifted uncomfortably.

“Okay, this is going to need a little backstory,” Kaz sighed. “Before this relationship with Miri and the rest of you, I was in another poly relationship—Duke knows this already, he was a part of it too.”

Nico glanced at the expressionless purple demon. Duke didn’t look worried about the direction this was going in, and he trust the winged demon. He turned his attention back to Kaz.

“I’ve told you a little of this, Miri, but our ex cheated on the group. It started small. So small we didn’t notice anything was wrong at first.” Kaz scrubbed a hand over his messy, purple hair.

“First she started hiding things. Just little lies. Telling us traffic was bad when she got home a little late from work, saying her phone had died to avoid answering texts, even just cutting out coffee. It was tiny out of character things that started to get bigger and bigger as time went on.”

Nico crammed a bit of lasagna in his mouth. Was it rude it rude to eat while Kaz was unloading his trauma? The garlic just smelled so damn good.

He was starting to see where Kaz was going with this whole, but damn, the guy did not know how to keep a story short. Especially when there was hot food in front of them.

“Then Dana started to get manipulative to cover her tracks. Pitting us against each other, starting fights and leaving us to clean up the mess.” He sighed. “What we didn’t know until later is that she was using those big dramatic blow ups to sneak away bang some prick with tentacles.”

Pausing the garlic bread’s journey halfway to his mouth, Nico raised his eyebrows. Tentacles? No shit? He’d heard good things about those little suckers, but the creepy wiggle of the appendages was just a no for him.

“It really put him off sushi for a while,” Ace added.

“Don’t interrupt, asshat.” Kaz tossed a garlic bread crust at him. “After we figured out she was cheating and everything sort of imploded, I didn’t really date for a while. In fact, this is the first real relationship I’ve been in since then.”

Huh. Nico frowned. How had Miri managed to pick four demons who were shit at dating in one fell swoop? Ace was a playboy, Duke didn’t really do the whole people thing, and he and Kaz were both shit at relationships.

She should really ask MONSTR for a refund. Or some kind of credit, at the very least.

Kaz carried on with his explanation, oblivious to the way Nico was dissecting it in his head.

“When I realized that you were hiding something, it was a big trigger for me. One I didn’t even realize I had.

After that it was a bit of a downward spiral.

” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“It wasn’t fair of me to snoop through your phone just because I apparently have some hefty baggage. I should have talked to you?—“

Ace cleared his throat. Rolling his eyes, Kaz waved away the interruption.

“Yes, you talked to her and handled it like a big boy. I didn’t; I know.

Now stop interrupting me.” The demon shot his cousin a look when he opened his mouth again.

Ace closed it with a snap. “As I was saying, I shouldn’t have snooped.

And I definitely shouldn’t have blown up on you afterward.

I took the mess with my ex out on you and that was not fair to you in any way.

“For the record, though, I was pretty confident you weren’t cheating.

Even in a toxic, emotional spiral, I know that’s not who you are.

I was more concerned something was wrong, and you weren’t acting like the Miri we know and love because something really awful was wrong and you were just afraid to tell us. ”

His speech trailed off into silence. Miri and the assembled demons waited in case he had more to say.

“Dude, seriously? That was like B- groveling at best.” Ace was the first to break the quiet. “Did you even practice this before you came?”

Kaz glared at him. “It’s an apology, not a one man show.”

“I knew I should have written your dumb ass a speech,” he sighed. Ace pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Also, you never actually said you were sorry,” Duke added. “So really it wasn’t even an apology.”

Kaz opened and closed his mouth. “Well, fuck. Maybe I should have practiced this.”

The most important conversation of his life and the moron hadn’t even thrown an outline on a notecard? Nico was really starting to doubt the wisdom of ever allowing the golden dipshit back in the relationship.

He glanced at Miri to gauge her reaction and blanched. Her clawless hands covered her face, her shoulder shaking. Tiny gasping sounds whistled through her fingers.

Oh, Gaia. Was she crying?

Nico looked at the others. The other three stared back with equally wide eyes. Kaz’s mediocre apology had broken their sweet little human and now Nico really was going to have to kill him… but not until after they figured out how to make her stop crying.

“Um, Miri?” Ace’s tail wrapped around her wrist. He tugged gently. “Are you okay?”

Her hands dropped from her face. Cheeks fire-engine red, she choked on a giggle and wiped away the tears welling in her eyes.

The air rushed out of his lungs. She was laughing.

Relief washed over him in a tidal wave. Ad bad as Nico tended to be with relationships, he was infinitely worse with tears.

He’d never quite been able to figure out what to do in that situation; offer them a tissue while they sobbed on his shoulder?

Pat their back? Make little shushing noises like they were a wounded animal?

But laughter… laughter he could happily handle.

“I really missed you guys,” Miri hiccuped. She didn’t look the least bit concerned about their panic as she beamed at them in turn.

Now that he wasn’t having a heart attack over some tears, Nico waved for Kaz to continue.

“Um, I shouldn’t have gone through your phone.

I knew it was huge violation—and Duke tried very hard to stop me—but I let my insecurity get the better of me.

It was like a little nagging thought that wormed its way into my head and wouldn’t let go.

I am genuinely, mind-bogglingly sorry, and I swear to you that it will never happen again. ”

He looked at Ace. “A-?”

“B+ if I’m being generous.”

“I’ll take it.” He turned his golden gaze back to Miri. “Is there anything I can do to make this better?”

“No, you don’t need to do anything, Kaz. The apology was enough.”