Page 31

Chapter 30

Both Her Downstairs Holes

Jemma

“I still just can’t get my head around his actions, though!” Ezra muttered, his lump of clay spinning, forgotten, on the wheel. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was catching feelings for you, too!”

I snorted, keeping my eyes firmly trained on my line of stitches. Thank goodness for crocheting. It had this almost magical way of grounding me when my thoughts were spinning and my emotions were out of control. It had been the thing that got me through those first few months after Mum and Dad died, when the grief was so raw that I would do anything not to feel it.

“You know what I can’t get over?” I whispered so the other trainee potters wouldn’t overhear. “The fact that you’re fixated on his feelings , and not that he’s the son of the Devil, and he sent me a bunch of crazy text messages to trick me into selling my soul to him so I could satisfy my drunken donut craving!”

Ezra’s eyes pierced me. “Jem, if the reason you kept all this from me was because you didn’t think I’d believe you … remember who was the one who roped you into bingeing every episode of Lucifer . I do not need convincing on this front!”

I tugged at my yarn, giving myself a bit more slack. “Fiction versus reality, Ezra. I know you know the difference.”

He glared down at his clay, sinking his fingers into the centre of his glob and attempting to make a hollow. “And yet here you are, dating a big, glowing devil man.”

“Fake dating,” I corrected. “Clearly it’s fake, because he turned tail and ran the second I realised I was feeling more for him.” I sighed. “And while you not believing me was absolutely on my mind, I didn’t want to drag you into my mess. I mean, what if he decides that you’re the next soul he’s going to go after? I didn’t want to put you on his radar in any way.”

Ezra’s clay collapsed into a sodden heap. “What am I doing wrong?” he demanded, poking at the mess. I turned back to the little angel wings I was midway through crocheting.

“Your clay’s too wet,” Humphrey’s amused voice said from behind us. “Here, let’s start again with another piece.” He scooped up the sodden clay and replaced it with a fresh, firm lump.

Humphrey pulled up a chair behind Ezra, settling his legs around my bestie. Together they worked the clay, shaping it and reshaping it until it slowly began to resemble something that could (if you squinted) be called a vase.

I had to look away then, because my eyes stung, and I didn’t want Ezra to feel like he needed to stop enjoying his little Ghost moment with his Hottie Potter just because I was moping that the bloody Devil didn’t want to shag me, because I was getting too attached.

Why did I have to be so easy to read? Why did I have to realise I had feelings at the worst possible time? He said he hadn’t been finished ‘playing’ with me? What did that mean? What kind of things did the Devil like to play in the bedroom?

I mean, I’d read enough smut to know what I’d like him to do … but I really wanted the reality.

I damn well wanted him. There was no getting past it. And knowing my luck, I’d fail his next task for me, he’d make off with my eternal soul and leave me pining until I died, hoping that when my soul went to Hell, I could hang out with him some more …

* * *

“What’s got you looking so maudlin, Pinkie Pie?” Humphrey asked as the last of his students filed out of the studio. “Don’t tell me … you had a falling out with Big Blondie?”

I shrugged, not trusting my voice. I could feel Ezra watching me.

“Well, I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t resolve with a little brainstorming … I mean, I saw the way he looked at you on Friday night at the markets and the way he took every opportunity to touch you—that man is besotted!”

“It’s not that simple,” I mumbled. Ezra cleared his throat, and I glanced up. He was tilting his head frantically in Humphrey’s direction, making that hand gesture where you open and close your fingers to look like a yapping mouth.

Did he actually want me to tell his brand-new boyfriend my crazy story? Did he want to scare poor Humphrey away?

I shook my head. Humphrey glanced from me to Ezra and back again. “What am I missing here?”

Ezra looked fit to burst. He was bobbing up and down on the spot, his cheeks red with the effort of keeping it in.

I sighed. “I suppose he’s inner circle worthy … you can tell him. But if he decides we’re both insane, that’s on you.”

“Tell me what?” Humphrey glanced at Ezra, who looked like a kid who’d just been given free rein in a candy store.

“Jemma’s Blondie is the Son of Satan, and they met when she accidentally bargained her soul for a box of donuts, and now she has to do these tasks to try and win it back, but I think they’re both actually falling in love for real and just neither of them is prepared to admit it to the other, but Jemma still has to win her soul back from him and we have to help her!”

Ezra bent over, hands on his knees and gasping for air.

“Okay …” Humphrey said, his voice dubious. I held my breath. He was going to tell us both that we were lunatics, and kick us out of his studio, and never speak to either of us again … which was going to make being his neighbour at Lakeside Markets super awks.

“Can you repeat that at a pace that is actually understandable? All I got was Satan is in love with Jemma …” Humphrey’s face was adorably confused.

So we did.

* * *

“Okay, so I think the plan is, we get SJ to fall in love with Jemma.” Humphrey took a giant bite of his pizza, letting the shock of his statement wash over us.

I flopped against the back of the sofa, and a breath whooshed out of me. We’d come back to our apartment to ‘brainstorm’, which couldn’t be done without pizza and sangria.

But apparently, ‘brainstorming’ was just the pair of them trying to matchmake me with a literal devil.

A devil who made me feel all fluttery and fuzzy and squishy inside. Damn him!

I managed to shut my mouth long enough to form words. “So … we’ve gone from seducing him into giving it back to me, or at least being distracted enough to make it easy for me to win it back … to actually making the Son of Satan fall in love with me … can devils even fall in love?”

I told my stupid heart to stop trying to vibrate its way out of my chest. Because there was no way that he was going to fall in love with me.

But maybe there is … that silly, romantic part of my brain whispered.

“When do you think you’ll see him again?” Ezra asked, slurping on his sangria.

I shrugged, forcing my face to remain neutral. “No idea. When he knows what my third task is, I suppose. He made it pretty clear he wasn’t going to be making any social calls …”

“And, you can’t, like, text him? Isn’t that how he got in touch with you to begin with? Did you try replying to that number?”

I bit into my gluten-free pizza and chewed violently, tugging my phone out of my jeans pocket. I navigated to the weird purple text thread and typed.

Jemma: Yo

I tossed my phone onto the coffee table, where it was immediately snatched up by Ezra. He took one look at the screen and choked on his drink.

“‘Yo’? You’re crushing hard on this guy, in addition to wanting him to, you know, not whisk your soul down to hell for eternal torture, and you text ‘Yo’ to him?”

Humphrey guffawed while I shrugged, my face heating. “I don’t know, it just seemed like a casual way to start a conversation …? I mean, I don’t know how he even got these messages to me. I doubt he has a phone. He probably just magicked them … so chances are he won’t even see it.”

The living room lights flickered, and Ezra dropped my phone as if it had electrocuted him.

I barely dared to breathe as I jumped up, scooped it from the floor, and glanced down at the screen.

FiendPay: Yo yourself

I swallowed, my heart hammering. “Uh, he said yo back to me.” I flopped back onto the sofa, nibbling on a fingernail. “I feel like a teenager texting a boy from school! What do I say back?” I gazed imploringly at Ez and Humphrey. “Help me! Gay guys are supposed to be good at this stuff!”

“Well, for starters, no self-respecting gay guy would start a conversation with ‘Yo’.”

I groaned, shoving a pillow over my face. “No self-respecting person full stop says ‘Yo’! What was I thinking?”

Ezra snatched my phone. “Didn’t you say you left him with that book? What was like the hottest, filthiest scene in it?”

I flushed crimson. Ezra and I very rarely discussed my books because he was always mildly horrified at the things I found titillating.

“Uh … there’s a part where he uses his forked tongue to … double penetrate her …”

As expected, Ezra wrinkled his nose in distaste. Meanwhile, Humphrey giggled hysterically, his eyes glittering. He hopped up and started perusing my bookshelf. “I think I need to get into reading.”

“The one where the guy’s butt accidentally-on-purpose gets sexily impaled on a demon’s horn … that’s a real eye-opener!” I deadpanned. Ezra made a gagging sound. Humphrey pulled the exact book I was talking about off the shelf and immediately began reading.

“Don’t you dare corrupt my sweet boyfriend, Jemma Bliss,” Ezra warned, tapping away at my phone. I sat on my hands because they were shaking. What was he writing?

He tossed it back to me, and heart in throat, I read.

Jemma: So … have you made it to the part where he uses his tongue on both her downstairs holes yet?

“Ugh! Her downstairs holes? Are we twelve?”

Ezra raised his eyebrows. “I would sincerely hope twelve-year-olds wouldn’t understand anything about tongues and downstairs holes.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I think you fail to recognise just how internet-savvy tweens are these days. But in any case?—”

I snapped my mouth shut when the phone zapped me.

FiendPay: Well I am going to go looking for that part now!

“What does it say?” Ezra demanded.

I fought back the giddiness, and lost entirely. “He’s going to go find that part right now!”

“Ooooh, see? The power of porn will unite you!”

I threw the cushion at Ezra.

“But this still doesn’t really solve the problem of my soul …” I muttered around the straw of my sangria.

“But it’s a start,” Humphrey argued. “Rome wasn’t built in a day. We have to make him realise he’s fallen for you. Stealing your soul will be so much harder when he’s in love with you.”

“He hasn’t fallen for me! He’s?—”

A frantic pounding on the door stopped us all in our tracks.

“Oh my GOD!” Humphrey whisper-shouted. “It’s got to be him!”

“You answer it, Jem!” Ezra hissed. “Go on, we’ll pretend we’re not even here. Let you have your private moment to canoodle.”

My legs were barely more than jelly beneath me, and I could feel every mouthful of that sangria fizzling in my blood as I walked the few steps from the lounge to the door. The hammering began anew.

“Ooh, he’s desperate to see you!” Ezra giggled.

I opened the door.

It wasn’t SJ …