Page 19 of Take You Home (Redwater Demons #3)
C hester doesn’t care that Obie is an actual god. He’s going to find a way to kill him.
He doesn’t have enough time to turn tail and bolt after Obie tells him their pitiful excuse for a cover story?—hell, he doesn’t even have time to argue, because within seconds of the unexpected fake-dating announcement, they’re already within earshot of Obie’s crew.
Even with the glamours, it’s easy to identify the two fugitive defectors and three fugitive demons, and Chester swallows hard as Obie waves cheerfully. “Hey, guys.”
Cassius Chin blinks slowly at them, looking utterly befuddled. It’s a bizarre expression to see on one of the demons who almost singlehandedly started World War I. “Hey, uh, Obie.”
“And friend of Obie’s,” Esmeralda Laguerre purrs, lacing her fingers together underneath her chin. Her smile is unsettlingly reminiscent of Bryant’s right when she’s about to go in for the kill, and Chester fights back the urge to squirm. “Obie, would you care to introduce us? ”
“This,” Obie says proudly, squeezing Chester tight enough against his side that Chester thinks his ribs might crack, “is my boyfriend, Kyle. Kyle, this is Cass, Ez, JJ, Roma, and Desi.”
JJ chokes on his pad thai. Roma thumps him on the back a few times, her face blank and disconcerted. Cassius is slack-jawed with surprise, Esmeralda looks maniacally thrilled??—
Only the tiniest of the demons?—JJ and Cassius’s adopted daughter, apparently?—seems unfazed. “Hi!” she says brightly, waving at Chester. “I’m Desi!”
“Hi, Desi,” Chester says faintly, and he awkwardly waves at the rest of the table, too. “Hey.”
Cassius gets over his shock the quickest. “Hey, man,” he says, reaching forward to shake Chester’s hand. “It’s really nice to meet you.”
“Really nice to become aware of your existence at all, Obadiah,” Esmeralda adds reproachfully, shooting Obie a sour look.
Obie sputters inelegantly. “We only met a month ago, Ez! We’ve barely been dating for two weeks!”
JJ pushes himself to his feet next, reaching towards Chester with an easy smile. “Hey, Kyle. I’m JJ. Obie told us he was bringing someone, but we weren’t sure what you’d want to eat, so we just ordered a vegetarian cachapa. Is that okay?”
Chester’s heart hurts. JJ is as kindhearted and friendly as ever, always the person who’s ready to welcome a newcomer and make sure they’re taken care of. “A vegetarian cachapa is perfect,” he says quietly. “Thanks, JJ.”
“No problem.”
“And I’m Roma,” Roma finishes, shaking Chester’s hand firmly. “I’m glad we can finally make this a triple date. Obie’s always been the odd one out.”
“I wasn’t the odd one out!” Obie protests. “I was happily single, thank you very much.” He tweaks Chester’s cheek affectionately. “Until I met my perfect himbo over here.”
This time, Cassius is the one who chokes on his cachapa.
Chester’s urge to commit deicide is rising higher with each passing second.
“I think you need to work on your pet names, Obie,” he says pointedly, forcing a smile and vowing to make Obie’s life as miserable as possible from now on.
“Maybe your friends can give you some advice about that?”
Obie raises his eyebrows innocently. “But you usually love my pet names, puppy.”
You can’t murder him while you’re spellbound.
You can’t murder him while you’re spellbound.
You can’t?— “You have your moments,” Chester says vaguely, and he clears his throat, trying to ignore how much Obie’s dismissive insult really does sound like a term of endearment.
“Anyway, you?—you mentioned that you thought I’d get along with JJ and Roma?
So I guess I’ll sit over here with them. ”
“Of course,” Obie says, and to Chester’s horror, he plants a kiss on Chester’s cheek. “You can have your own human bonding group.”
Chester resists the urge to wipe his cheek like a five-year-old. “Right,” he says, carefully extricating himself from Obie’s arm to defiantly sit right across from JJ and Roma?—a move that unfortunately puts him quite close to Desi, but that’s better than being too close to Cassius and Esmeralda.
And Esmeralda, for her part, still looks intrigued by this entire situation.
“I have to say, I’m surprised,” she says, considering Chester with a critical eye as Obie sits down on the bench seat next to him.
“Obie has always been obstinate in his perpetual singleness. You must be pretty special, Kyle.”
“I bowl a lot better than he does,” Chester says?—which might be a bald-faced lie, but it’s still satisfying to get a dig in. “Apparently, that’s a turn-on for him. ”
Esmeralda and Cassius both burst out laughing.
Obie looks indignant. “What? I’m allowed to judge a man by the strength of his bowling throw!
” he argues, subtly kicking Chester’s shin under the table.
Somehow, he manages to make it hard enough to sting but light enough that the binding spell doesn’t stop him, and Chester fights back a wince.
“Plus, I wanted a human boy toy, too. It seemed to work out pretty well for the rest of you.”
“Um, ex cuse you,” Esmeralda says, gesturing imperiously at Roma, “but I will not stand for this girl toy erasure.”
“Why am I dating you again?” Roma asks bluntly.
“Because I seduced you with my spellcasting knowledge and general belligerence.”
Roma rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t deny it. Much as Chester hates to admit it, she’s always been at her best when she has someone she can argue with, someone she can view as an equal, someone who spurs her to greater heights??—
But why did that person have to be Esmeralda Laguerre? Why did Roma have to abandon him and Bryant for a demon?
Her and JJ both?
Suddenly, Desi grabs one of Chester’s hands with both of her little ones. Chester starts with surprise, turning to face her. “Mr. Kyle,” she says seriously, “are you my new uncle now?”
“I?—?” Is she asking if Chester and Obie are married? This entire hangout is a trash fire. “Maybe?”
Desi’s eyes brighten. “Yay!” she says cheerfully, and she sets about stepping onto Chester’s lap and trying to climb onto his shoulders. “Uncle Kyle!”
“Desi?—?!” JJ reaches across the table to grab her, looking mortified. “Sorry?—we’re still trying to teach her about, like, boundaries and asking for permission and all that. Desi, sweetie, you can’t just climb on every person you meet, that’s not??—? ”
“It’s okay,” Chester hears himself say, wrapping his fingers around Desi’s ankles as she gleefully takes her place on his shoulders. “I had younger brothers. I’ve got this.”
JJ looks briefly taken aback before his eyes soften. Despite their many years as best friends, Chester doesn’t think he’s ever seen that expression on JJ before, something torn between grateful and fond and??—
And happy. Like he truly appreciates that Chester is being so gentle and patient with Desi. “Thanks, man.”
Chester’s eyes sting. “No problem,” he says, and he clears his throat, glancing at the demons’ half of the table. Cassius is eyeing Desi’s precarious perch with some concern, but he doesn’t say anything, clearly trusting Chester with his kid because Obie trusts Chester with his kid.
Although Obie’s smile looks frozen, so Chester is willing to bet that he wasn’t expecting Desi to immediately take such a shine to him. “Just, uh, be careful up there, pumpkin,” Obie says, grabbing one of Desi’s hands and squeezing lightly.
“In any case,” Chester says, eyeing the three communal trays in the center of the table, “where’s this cachapa I was promised?”
Esmeralda snorts out a laugh, deftly rearranging a few plates onto one tray. “Here. We have some extra chicken pad thai, too,” she says, sliding the mouthwatering spread over to Chester. “Voilà. Buon appetito.”
“Those were two separate languages,” Cassius says.
“Look me in the eye,” Esmeralda says, “and ask me if I care.”
The two of them immediately start arguing about it, Obie jumping into the conversation as effortlessly as he always does with his bowling friends?—and only throwing Chester wary glances every once in a while.
It’s probably as much freedom as Chester is going to get right now. He cautiously releases one of Desi’s ankles to grab his cachapa, looking up at an awkward angle to check her position. “Can you balance up there?” he asks, and then he frowns at JJ. “Can she balance up there?”
JJ looks amused. “She can.”
“For hours on end, Kyle,” Roma groans, rolling her shoulders in sympathy. “She’s like the world’s most effective weighted vest.”
Desi hugs Chester’s forehead. “I’ll be okay, Uncle Kyle! I promise!”
“Okay,” he says, ripping off a small piece of cachapa to pass up to her. “You hungry?”
She takes it with an exclamation of delight, and somehow??—
Somehow, as Obie shoots the breeze with his two best friends and JJ pulls Chester and Roma into a light conversation about Desi’s homeschooling, Chester feels a strange sense of belonging that he hasn’t had in a very long time.
Chester is actually getting along really well with Obie’s friends.
Obie expected JJ and Roma to like Chester, of course.
After all, even if the two ex-hunters don’t know it, they’ve already been friends with him for twelve years.
Obie may have subtly altered Chester’s voice with the glamour, but his cadence and mannerisms are still similar enough that JJ and Roma clearly feel at ease with him, even if they don’t quite realize why.
More surprising, in Obie’s opinion, is the fact that Chester is keeping up with Cass and Ez, too.
They’ve toned down their usual antics out of what Obie presumes is respect for his easily frightened human, but Ez has made it a point to include “Kyle” in their conversations multiple times so far.
Every time, Chester seemed surprised but perfectly game to join in, discussing the latest gossip around the food trucks with a level of passion that perfectly matched Ez’s own, much to her and Cass’s delight.