Roma looks delighted. “He’scute?”
“Tell useverything,”Bryant says eagerly, leaning forward. “What’s his name? What does he look like? Have you touched his?—?”
“Firstof all,” JJ says, heat flaming up his neck, “there’s no ‘metaphorical hay,’ thank you very much. Early stages, remember?”
Bryant pouts, leaning back in her seat. “My other questions still stand, though. Name, age, date of birth, vocation, criminal record?—”
JJ scoffs. “Oh, so you three can pool your resources and stalk him? Please. I’m not stupid.”
Chester nudges JJ’s shin under the table. “You gotta give ussomething,man. You can’t just drop a bombshell like that with no details.”
JJ hesitates. “Well?—”
Really, whatcanhe say about his imaginary boyfriend? That he’s nice? Funny? Attractive? That they meet up for little lunch dates in the Courtyard?
That he has smooth bronze-gold skin and silky black hair and a sharp smile and?—
Mortified, JJ shoves that last thought away. Even if Cassius Chin technicallyisthe only male-presenting thing in JJ’s life right now, that doesn’t mean JJ has to base his fake love interest onhim.“Well, he has a daughter.”
The words slip out of JJ’s mouth without any actual input from his brain, and heknowsthey were the wrong ones when the rest of the table falls into stunned silence. “Um,” Roma says faintly. “What?”
JJ fidgets awkwardly. “She’s, um, four years old. And she likes dragons.”
“Four-year-olds do like dragons,” Chester agrees warily.
“How oldisthis guy?” Bryant asks, wrinkling her nose. “If he already has a kid, I mean.”
Oh, somewhere between two hundred and three hundred years old.“Notthatmuch older than us. Mid-twenties.”
“JJ.” Roma’s eyebrows are furrowed. “Be careful, okay? Especially if there’s a child involved. I know the Council hasn’t mentioned marriage prospects to us yet, but when they do…”
“It’s an order, not a request,” Bryant finishes, her lips pressed in a thin line. “Side partners are generally acceptable, but—but this guy would have to understand that. Same with his kid.”
For some reason, JJ’s heart twists. “I know,” he says quietly. “Like I said, it’s still early stages. We’re just—we’re just having fun. That’s all.”
“I don’t think any of us get enough fun nowadays,” Chester says softly, and when JJ glances over at him, his eyes are sympathetic.
JJ knows that Chester gets it better than Roma and Bryant ever could. While the girls were born into hunting society and raised to understand their places in it, JJ and Chester had an entire decade of civilian life before demons killed their families and the Sanctum took them in.
Roma and Bryant never expected to marry for love. JJ and Chester did. And if JJ really did fall for a man on the outside, he knows that Chester would be rooting for him, even if the Council didn’t approve.
“Excuse me.” Ms. Yamamoto appears next to Bryant’s chair, her tight smile firmly in place. “Can I get anything else for the table?”
It’s a familiar question—one of the subtle ways, JJ knows, that Ms. Yamamoto uses to tell them they’ve overstayed their welcome. Now that he thinks about it, pretty much every restaurant they frequent usually gives them an hour tops before trying to kick them out.
He’s never had that happen with Cass and Desi, though.
“No, I think we’re good,” Bryant says, handing over her credit card, and the conversation thankfully shifts to safer topics after that.
10
Generally speaking, Cass keeps Desi on a human schedule.
He doesn’tneedto, of course. Little niceties like eating three meals a day and sleeping at night aren’t required for demons—in fact, they don’t need to eat and sleep at all. But Cass has found that sticking to a human schedule is the best way to blend into modern society, which will be important if he and JJ ever decide to enroll Desi in public school. And since he’s determined to let her enjoy her little toddler life to the fullest, that means giving her a stable routine with plenty of quality time for learning and growing.
Usually, their mornings start with Desi dashing into Cass’s room and jumping on his bed to wake him up. It’s rare that Cassactuallysleeps—normally, he just relaxes under the covers and lets his mind wander for a few hours—so he’s typically ready to grab her by the ankles and walk into the kitchen with her upside down and giggling.
Breakfast is always an interesting affair. For the first few weeks, Cass obediently stuck to stereotypical breakfast foods like scrambled eggs and pancakes, but the first time Desi requested spaghetti and meatballs at eight a.m., he wasn’t about to refuse. Nowadays, their three meals of the day are fairly interchangeable, and Cass is really enjoying the challenge of finding new recipes for Desi to try.
