“You had lunch with Charles without me?” Kanesha pouted.
“You were in class.”
“Point.” She wasn’t too upset. “I’ll just have to do the exact same thing back, although I can’t make you jealous.”
“He’s ace,” I pointed out.
“Right, and I’m gay, so you know there’s absolutely no chance of anything.” She grinned teasingly at me.
“Hey, remember, it just means you beat out more competition.”
Kanesha grinned again and then pulled me in for a kiss – something she could never have done without my full cooperation. Of course, she had it. When we both came up for air, though, I pulled away. “I also fought demons without you.”
“Nah, I dealt with the one that found its way onto the NoVa community college campus.”
I winced. “Sorry. I was kind of occupied.”
“Hey, if I can’t deal with a demon on my own I’ve been wasting all the time I’ve spent training.”
I decided she had a point. “There were quite a lot of them.”
“I kind of worked that out. But none left.”
“Except the big one, which my dad said he would deal with.”
“Deal with.” Kanesha air quoted.
“Hey, I’m not his keeper.”
We would probably have continued in this vein for some time, with an obvious end point, but somebody knocked on the door at that precise moment.
I opened it, and it was a highly disheveled Sarael.
“More demon problems?”
He nodded. “Can I just…rest up here…for a moment? I don’t think I can drag myself to the nearest church.”
He looked like he’d been dragged through several hedges, some backwards and some forwards.
I headed into the kitchen. “I don’t suppose I can get you anything.”
“I don’t need to eat, but…” A pause. “No, I don’t think you can. Just let me flop on your couch.”
He did so. “What did the demon do?” Kanesha asked.
“Oh, we missed a bigger one. I did manage to send it home, but it was…” A pause. “Trying to use a kid as a shield.”
I winced, stepping back out. “Kid okay?”
“Kid will be having nightmares for weeks, but…”
That could have been a lot worse.