Neon Blue E Frost (speld decodable readers .TXT) 📖

With an exasperated shrug, I shed my towel and wiggle into the dress. It fits perfectly, like everything he’s not-found in my closet. And it’s beautiful, which I admit grudgingly as I do a little twirl to see it flare around my thighs. He tosses me a pair of black suede ankle boots, which he also did not find in my closet. The kitten heels are low enough to walk in but high enough to show off my calves. They’re as gorgeous as the dress, and they make me feel like a million dollars.

“Feel good, don’t they?” He watches me take a few steps in the boots. At my nod, he says, “You should feel good about yourself, sweet meat. More often than you do.” He moves toward the door, collecting my breakfast tray as he goes.

I stare after him. Listen to him pad down the stairs, humming something that sounds suspiciously like the Stones’ Gimme Shelter.

He cares about how I feel about myself. The demon who wants me with him – whatever that means – cares more about my self-image than any boyfriend I’ve ever had. I’m not sure if I should be flattered, or horrified.

Evonne wolf-whistles when I walk through the clinic’s front door and Lin appears in my hearth-room before I’ve even had a chance to start grinding the coffee beans.

“You had time to go shopping?” she asks, eyeing my outfit. “I was sure you’d be holed up with the Sexybeast all weekend. Tell me you didn’t get that on sale. You did. I can tell by how disgustingly pleased you look with yourself. You hit the Basement without me, didn’t you?”

I shake my head. No matter how many dinners together we’ve missed of late, I’d never, ever go to Filene’s Basement without Lin. Her taste is miles better than my own and I’ve never seen anyone so determined to hunt down a bargain. “A gift from him,” I say.

“Oh, God.” She smacks the back of her hand against her forehead dramatically. “It’s those European men. They all have amazing taste. Is he hung like a horse? I bet he is. They all are.”

I choke around the edge of the bag of Bruegger’s Gingerbread that I’m trying to tear open with my teeth. “How would you know that?”

“I was married to one, remember? Zian was French-Chinese and he had the biggest thing I’ve ever seen. It should have been in the Guinness Book of World Records.” She pulls out the stool tucked under my workbench and flops onto it dramatically, a move that would land me on my backside if I tried it.

“Somehow I don’t think that makes you an authority on the penis size of all European men,” I say. I’m sure Jou could give her ex a run for his money, although that’s not a topic I’m willing to discuss. Not with Lin; not with anyone. “Speaking of men, how was your weekend? Pick a lot of apples?” I give her a speculative eyebrow.

“Yes, actually. There’s a peck on your desk.”

I nod. I noticed it on my way in. My mouth’s already watering with thoughts of what the demon might concoct. Apple pancakes. Apple crumble. Apple pie. The crust would be the same deep golden-brown as his skin . . .

I shake myself and attack the stubbornly sealed bag again.

“You’re welcome,” Lin says, and smiles when I mumble a belated ‘thank you’ around the plastic edge. “You did sleep with the Sexybeast, didn’t you? Come on, Zee, even for you it just can’t be that complicated.”

“I’ll tell if you do.” I sigh as the bag finally yields. “God, there’s vacuum packed and then there’s vacuum packed. You’d think these were going up on the space shuttle.” I pour the beans into the grinder and Lin waits while it whirrs.

“Matty and I didn’t make it past the first date.”

“Slut,” I say affectionately.

She shrugs. “Carpe diem. Now tell.”

“Fine. Yes, I slept with him.”

“Thank God!” Lin exclaims. “I was beginning to think you’d taken a vow of celibacy after Saul.”

“Just because I don’t jump into bed with every man I meet—”

“Your loss,” Lin says, with a shake of her ponytail. “Anyway, I’m glad the dry spell has ended.”

I pause in pouring the ground beans into the filter. “I bumped into Saul this weekend, actually.”

“You did?” Lin sits up straight on the stool.

I sigh and focus on the coffee apparatus. “It hurt, Lin. It shouldn’t hurt anymore. But it does.” All of it still hurts. Seeing Saul again. Knowing Jou set me up to prove a point. I understand his point, and I understand that he doesn’t understand why it hurt me so much. But it still hurts.

“Oh, it’ll always hurt a little. It’s been, what, two years since my divorce was finalized, and it still hurts.”

I glance up, surprised. She’s always seemed totally over her ex. “But you’re with Matty—”

“And you’re with the Sexybeast. Doesn’t make any difference. You move on, but the hurt is still there. I’m not sure it ever goes away. Ask me again in a decade.”

I smile at her, because Lin always talks this way, like we’ll still be partners and friends ten years from now. And then my smile wilts at the edges. If the demon has his way, the only place I’ll be in a decade is with him, in Hell.

“That’s not a very happy look,” Lin says, calling me on it immediately. “What’s up?”

I shrug one shoulder and set the coffee machine. “I’m conflicted.”

“Between Saul and the Sexybeast? C’mon. I mean, I only met Saul a couple of times and he seemed like a nice enough guy but there’s really no comparison.”

No, there’s not. But not in the way she thinks. “Jou’s a little . . . alternative.”

“Alternative?” She laughs. “Is he Rastafarian or something? With those dreads he could be. God, they’re gorgeous. So what? You can’t possibly object to him being a little counter-cultural.”

I can object to him being a demon. And wanting to