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CHAPTER FOUR: THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS - PART FIVE
Frowning, Azel pushed his way out of the bar. He’d been looking all over for Harri, for half an hour since he’d gotten off stage and couldn’t find her where he’d left her. He’d thought maybe she’d just gone to the restroom or something, since she’d left their drinks on a nearby table, but she hadn’t come back. She hadn’t been by the bar or with her cousin or friends. She hadn’t been watching their hosts do birthday shots. Had she left?
Why would she leave? She’d been having fun. Last he saw her, she’d been standing in the crowd, watching him with a small, savoring sip of a smile hidden behind her bubbly drink. And, sure, he’d lost track of her while he tried to politely wave off the grabbing hands of the women who’d congregated along the lip of the stage, but he’d had to deal with them before they either pulled themselves on stage or dragged him off it.
This was why he typically didn’t like large groups of people. There were always too many eyes, too many hands, too many desires; it was too easy for a demon to get overwhelmed and for it all to turn into a goddamned mess. And, when they all wanted a feel, a taste, wanted to take a piece of him… He shook his head. No, he preferred one-on-one.
Only he’d gone and lost his one. Azel scanned the parking lot for Harri’s car, spotting it beneath the streetlamp. So she hadn’t left the place entirely, stranding him here. That was nice. But then where was she?
He shut his eyes. Away from the crowd, from the countless wishes and wild wants of dozens of intoxicated people, he should be able to find her. He tilted his head and tried to taste Harri’s particular brand of listless longing in the air. Turning, he walked around the building, feeling for her in the dark. Melancholy called out to him, led him like breadcrumbs to a bench in the employee parking lot. Surrounded by frozen cigarette butts and slush-sogged fast food wrappers, Harri was hunched over on her phone, her gloveless fingers flying over it furiously.
He stood in the shadows and watched her for a moment, wondering what he should do. Looking around the secluded place, it was clear she wanted to be alone. Yet he could feel her loneliness. Her yearning to belong, to fit in. Which didn’t make sense. These were her friends. Her people. She did fit here. Like Nate had said, she belonged with these people.
Yet here she was. Alone. On a bench. Surrounded by other people’s trash.
So he sat down next to her. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t do anything. Just sat next to her and let her type. Because she was literally radiating a desperate need to. So they sat like that for what felt like twenty minutes. Gradually, he felt her mood lift — not in a way that felt happy, per se, but that let that oppressive darkness around her ease just enough — before she finally shut off her phone. “Sorry, work stuff.”
He nodded. “No worries.” He was only here for her; whatever she wanted to do was fine by him.
She fiddled with her phone, not turning it back on but looking like she might at any moment. “There was a problem. I just needed to…” She shook her head, shoving her phone and her likely frozen hands into her coat’s pockets. “I’m sure you don’t want to hear about it.”
He shrugged. He didn’t mind, if that was what she needed. “Will I be able to understand any of it?” He doubted he could help her solve anything that might stump her. Katie had said she did tech stuff for a living; that could get jargon-y and go completely over his head fast.
She wrinkled her nose. “Probably not.”
He cocked his head. “Will talking it through help you figure things out?”
She shook her head. “Not really.”
He nodded. “You want to tell me anyway?”
She ducked her head, burrowing into her coat like a shivering turtle, her glasses fogging up as she sighed. “It wasn’t anything…” She frowned. “It’s really not…” She huffed, her breath billowing out in the cold, and hunched her shoulders a bit more, her feet shuffling on the dirty pavement. “I just needed a break, you know?”
He gave her a nod. Sure, he understood that. The bar was crowded, loud. “You feel better now?”
“I’m fine now.” She wasn’t, not really, and he could feel it. “It was just… a lot in there.” She bit her lip. “I was just feeling…”
“Overwhelmed.”
She nodded with a slight hum of relief. “And, sometimes, work helps, when I feel like that.” She sat up a little straighter. “I’m good at my job. Work is something I know how to do. I can always find the right answer.”
Oh. He nodded, feeling her insecurities begin to rise inside again. “And, in places like this,” situations like this, “you can’t always.”
She shrugged. “With people, you can never…” She pursed her lips together tightly. Azel, for all his powers to read people, cursed the fact that he could know exactly what she was feeling — sad, confused, inadequate — but have no idea why. “It’s not as easy for me. Never has been.”
He frowned. “Did something happen? You looked like you were having fun on stage.”
She smiled softly. “I did.”
So something happened off-stage.
She sighed and looked up at the cloudy, light-polluted night sky. “I think maybe parties like that are just not really my thing.” She scrunched her nose up. “Like I’m standing in a room full of people and I still feel so alone.” With a grimace, she kicked a soda can toward the dumpster. “People go to parties to be seen, to feel connected, and instead…” She huffed. “I always end up feeling invisible.”
He nodded. “I get that.”
She rolled her eyes at him skeptically. “You feel invisible around people?” She gestured to the whole of him. “Look at you. You had women throwing their underwear at you like you were some rock star.”
He grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, everywhere I go, people are always looking at me,” he conceded, before shrugging. “But I know what it feels like to not feel seen.” He arched his brow at her. “You think any of those women knew who I was.” He gave her his own disbelieving look. “You think any of them cared?” He let out a sharp laugh. They saw temptation in his face and a good time in the size and shape of his body. “They know what they want me to be and, for them, that’s all I should ever be.” They didn’t want him — whoever that even was — they wanted the fantasy.
That was his whole thing, after all, wasn’t it? To become some person’s greatest desire, burn them out with it, before moving on to the next. Before the amnesty agreement, he’d never been the same person — had the same personality or actions or motivations — for longer than the few days each contract lasted. Even after the agreement, he’d gone almost immediately into the service industry, putting on a mask and a show to please and tempt customers, coworkers, and employers.
Sometimes, he wondered, if anyone ever did dig deep enough, under all his facades and acts, what would they even find? Would there be anything there at all?
Laying a chilled hand on his arm, Harri smiled at him sympathetically, the look — despite their differences — feeling like kinship. She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t really want to go back inside.”
Yeah, he didn’t either. Giving her a conspiratorial smile, he raised an eyebrow. “You want to get dinner? I hear there’s a Mexican place I should try.”
When she smiled, he sucked in a breath as her worries and insecurities eased. Huh. It was a strange feeling. Even though he’d made a living pleasing people, fulfilling the holes left in their lives, it’d rarely ever actually made anyone feel better. In his line of work, you learned very quickly that feeling pleasure and feeling better were not the same thing, especially when that pleasure — no matter how good in the moment — came tied with some pretty steep penalties. While he liked to think that most of his clients shuffled off their mortal coils more than satisfied, it’d never felt quite like this.
As if, simply by his being there — no mask, no show, no contract; just him — her night was a bit better, brighter. As if knowing him, being with him, didn’t automatically come at a cost.
Harri stood, smiled at him. “That sounds amazing. Let’s go.”
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