“Thanks.” I get back to work on devouring breakfast. Lucas brings my phone, and I text Abby.
Me: Hey, sorry I missed your call earlier, but I think Eliza was happy to answer. Are you busy today? I’m gonna be in town for another hour or so if you want to get together.
Abby: Hey! It’s okay. She said you were sleeping and I kind of forgot you keep different hours than I do. Well, except when I’m working midnights.
Me: Hah, right. I am up late a lot.
Abby: I’m just about to head out to go grocery shopping. Phil is staying home with Penny and I’m really looking forward to an hour or so alone. I can swing by if that’s okay.
Me: Yeah, that’d be great!
Abby: Okay, see ya soon then :-)
“You’ll be happy to know she offered to stop by,” I tell Lucas. “Remember when she used to be scared to come here?”
He nods. “She wouldn’t even come on the front stoop.”
“Seems like so long ago, but it really wasn’t.”
“A lot has happened in that time. No one can ever accuse you of being dull, my love.”
“My life has always had a certain level of danger to it, but things really picked up once I met you, which is coincidentally when Varrador opened his mouth and started gossiping about the Nephilim. My friends were worried you were the killer back then, you know.”
“Interesting. Though the method of murder isn’t my style.”
“Should I be concerned you have a style of murder?”
“Concerned? No. But impressed? Very much so.”
“Isn’t having a style a bad thing? Like what better way to connect murders?”
“That’s if you get caught,” he counters.
I put my remaining bacon on my bagel. “I suppose, but say the authorities find one strangled and blood-drained woman in Kansas and another five years later in New York, and some socially awkward yet brilliant crime scene analyst will make the connection. And maybe they don’t know who did the murdering, but they’ll know it was the same person.”
“What do you propose, then?”
“Mix it up. Stab someone on Monday. Down ‘em on Tuesday. Keeps the cops guessing by using whatever means to an end that suit your fancy that day.”
“You’re more likely to leave DNA behind when you commit a crime of passion instead of something carefully calculated. Suiting your fancy to your daily murderous impulses sounds more like a crime of passion to me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. My impulse killing is calculated. Calculated to be random.”
Lucas looks at me, unblinking. “I’m glad you kill demons and not people, because I’d be very busy erasing memories so you wouldn’t get caught.”
“So you’re saying don’t quit my day job?”
“You get paid for a day job.”
“Right?” I say and take a bite of my bagel. “I’ve always said killing demons was a public service I don’t get paid for or even thanked for that often.”
“I love you,” he says, blue eyes gazing upon me with intensity. “You are so wonderfully weird and so goddamn hot.” He looks at my stomach, which is hidden beneath this oversized sweater. “Even more so now. Our child is lucky to have you.”
“I’ll be the cool, weird mom.” I take another bite of my bagel, and the combination of the garlic cream cheese spread, and the bacon is nearly orgasmic. I’ve always liked food, but it tastes so much better now. “And you’ll be the impossibly hot dad all the moms whisper about, all secretly wanting to fuck you.”
“Oh, it won’t be a secret.”
“No, it won’t be.” I smile, realizing the knot in my stomach loosened just from the few minutes I sat here talking with Lucas. “We should get going as soon as Abby leaves. My familiars are already going to demand I cook them steaks for the rest of the week for having to babysit Scarlet for me.”
“At least they’re able to.”
“I know. Can you image having to find a pet sitter any time we wanted to go out?”
“We’d take her with us. I don’t want a stranger in my house.”
“I wouldn’t, either.” The motion sensor on the front door beeps, and I get up, taking my food with me, to go let Abby in.
“It is so freaking cold out there!” she says as soon as she’s in. “Thank goodness a warm front is moving in.”
“It’s so bad I don’t want to even go outside.”
“If I wasn’t desperate for some quiet, I would have just ordered my groceries to be delivered.”
“Going to the store is your quiet?”
She shakes her head. “Once that baby is a year and a half, you’ll understand. Speaking of, let me see it.”
She means my bump, and I finish the rest of my bagel, shoving it in my mouth, and pull my sweater tight around my abdomen. “I think I felt her move.”
“You’re far along enough to start sensing movement. I felt it really early with Penny at just barely seventeen weeks. And you’re also far along enough to get an anatomy scan soon. Do you have anything lined up?”