“I had a perfectly good blouse, but your cousin Shauna spilled wine on it.” She fiddled with her tasteful gold chain. “I swear that women has nothing better to do than hold a grudge.”
I flung her closet door open. “Since it’s a party…” In theory. “Here.” I pulled out the brightest shirt I could find: a jade green number with its tags still on.
“Your father bought me that.” She raked a critical eye over it. “I think the color would make me look a bit… desperate.”
“You’re right. If you put it on, everyone would be like ‘cougar it down a notch.’”
She laughed. “You’re the payback my mother warned me about. Go enjoy your party. I’ll be down momentarily.”
Duty done, I fled back to the TV room.
Rohan patted the seat next to him and I gratefully sank into his embrace. “You want another drink?” he said.
“Yes, but no. My mom has enough ammunition for tonight.”
Leo sat down on top of me. I sniffed her neck for her Sexy Ruby perfume. “Ooh, smell me, baby.” She draped her arms around my neck and smooched my cheek.
Ro put his hand on my knee. “That’s mine.”
Leo made a raspberry noise. “I pre-date you.” She swung her legs onto his lap. “But if you’re good, I’ll share.”
Rohan winked at her. “I’m very good.”
Leo leaned back against me. “How good? On a scale of one to ten with one being a pleasant foot massage and ten being Ricky Whittle banging me senseless on the glass elevator going up the outside of the CN Tower?”
Ro cough-laughed.
“What?” she said. “TMI?”
“More oddly specific,” he replied.
I tugged on Leo’s hair. “Plus, I’m the only one you’re supposed to objectify tonight.”
“Right.” She mouthed “We’ll talk later” at Ro.
“Can I get you ladies anything?” he said. Leo requested some more goat cheese-stuffed figs and Ro left.
“You didn’t invite Drio?” I asked.
“I did. He said he was too jetlagged.”
Or was he still hurt? I didn’t say anything to Leo because I didn’t want to make her mad and have her drain me dry. I pushed her off me. “Your free trial of my goods has ended. You want me to put out? Sign up. Very attractive lease rates.”
“Eh. I’m gonna shop around.” She hopped up and straightened her silver velvety sundress, her plethora of silver jewelry tinkling. “Wait here.” She skipped off, returning a moment later carrying a large gift.
I ripped open the envelope to find a little kid’s card. A “Now you are 2!” button fell out. Leo had added a “one” in red crayon. That explained the button Ari had pinned to his shirt. Inside the card, she’d written “About time you were my friend again, dummy.” She’d covered one side of the card in heart stickers.
“I love you, Leo.”
She nudged my shoulder. “Love you, too. Open it.”
I tore into the gift. “No way. You remembered.”
Leo and I used to go see movies all the time, often at this odd little mall downtown that most people only went to for either the theater or the Japanese dollar store. But there was also this art gallery featuring a lot of local artists that we’d hang out in while waiting for our movie to start. The art was weird and wonderful, from pastel portraits of cute monsters to vivid paintings involving fractured fairy tale tableaux. My favorite artist was Camilla D’Errico, who painted these doe-eyed anime girls. One had an octopus hanging off her head, another painting featured a unicorn-horned girl emerging from a Technicolor sea.
Leo had bought me one of D’Errico’s framed prints of Neo New York, this Blade Runner-type cityscape. A girl with a hot pink umbrella stood downcast in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the city. I’d always said I’d buy it as soon as I had my own place.
I tackled her in a hug until she proclaimed that I was suffocating her, then I slid the painting behind the sofa so no one spilled anything on it. “Hey, can I ask you a work question?”
She pinned my button on me. “I haven’t heard anything about Candyman.”
“Not that. Ever heard of an oshk?”
Leo laughed. “Where’d you hear that urban legend?”
“Not so legendy. I saw one.”
Leo looked skeptical. “Oshk is the bogeyman of demons. It’s what mommy and daddy demons tell baby demons when they’re bad. Bad in the wrong ways for demons.”
“I never thought about demon parenting,” I said.
“It leaves a lot to be desired.” She scratched her cheek. “Shit. That might explain why some of the demons in town seem to have disappeared.”
“I’d noticed. Eaten?”
“Or took off.”
“Do oshk hurt people?”
“It’s only the one. The oshk is a Unique. But no on the hurting people. Not that I’ve ever heard.”
I hoped this wasn’t a first-time-for-everything scenario.
Citrus perfume teased my senses as a woman pressed into my side. My cousin Yael, my favorite family member after Ari. “Who’s the hottie?”
I pushed aside her explosive corkscrew curls that I’d envied most of my life to kiss her cheek. “Which one?”
All three of us looked at Ro, Ari, and Kane, chatting in a corner. Rephrase. Ro was chatting with them both. Ari and Kane were standing stiffly in the same general vicinity.
“Start with the one Ari is obviously desperate for.”
Leo laughed and stood up. “Good to see you again, Yael.”
My cousin beamed up at her. “You too, pipsqueak.”
Leo went to join the guys while I examined my cousin. “How do you make middle-age look so hot?”
“I’m thirty-three, asshole.” She ran a hand over the gray tank dress she wore. “Also, I have good genes.”
I shuddered. “You better hope you didn’t inherit those, because you’ll be playing tetherball with that rack of yours when you hit fifty. Where’s the monster?”
“With the sperm donor.” Her expression darkened at the mention of her ex.
“I bet you have photos.”
Yael pulled out her phone so fast, she almost brained me with her elbow. She scrolled through each of the hundred photos of her seven-year-old daughter, complete with detailed explanation of what Rachel was doing in each one.
I lasted for about eighteen photos before smothering myself with a pillow.
She pulled the phone away. “You made it through about four photos longer this time. Wow, you’re all mature and shit.” She elbowed me. “Now spill.”
That was all the prompting I needed to give up the gossip between Ari and Kane. Yael knew the truth about what Ari and I did, had known even before he’d hidden out at her place to avoid a repeat of another demon getting to him before his powers had become active.
She rubbed her hands together. “I’m going to make him miserable. But first I plan on interrogating your boyfriend. The one you failed to mention you were dating.”
“Ari. That rat.”
My brother must have heard us because he smirked and raised his glass in cheers.
Yael stood up, and I scrambled to my feet. “What would it take to keep you away from him?”
She’d terrified Cole with her inquisition. Granted he was young and nowhere near as arrogant as Snowflake, but I didn’t want Rohan to freak out.
She stroked her chin. “You really like him, don’t you?”
“No shit, considering I’m dating him.”