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stupid behavior.

Chapter 3
    I worked until closing that night and didn’t get home until around ten. To my surprise, I found Roman on the couch eating a bowl of cereal while the cats competed for who could take up the most attention on his lap. Honestly, they seemed to love him more than me lately. It was a betrayal of Caesarean proportions.
    “What are you doing here?” I asked, sitting on the armchair opposite him. I noticed then that the last of the party untidiness had been cleaned. Somehow, I suspected mentioning that would result in him never cleaning again. “I figured you’d be out chasing Jerome’s succubus.”
    Roman stifled a yawn and set the empty bowl on the coffee table. Immediately, both cats sprang off his lap to get to the residual milk. “I’m on break. Been following her all day, though.”
    “And?” My natural curiosity aside, I was uneasy about the idea of Jerome’s authority being called into question. The arch-demon might annoy me sometimes, but I had no desire for a new boss. We’d come dangerously close to a leadership change when he’d been summoned, and I hadn’t been impressed with any of the candidates.
    “And it was incredibly boring. You’re much more fun to stalk. She went shopping for most of the day. I didn’t even know stores would let you take that much shit into dressing rooms. Then, she picked up a guy at a bar, and, well, you can figure out the rest.”
    I rather liked the idea of Roman suffering while Simone had sex. “Figured your voyeuristic tendencies would be into that kind of pornographic display.”
    He made a face. “It wasn’t good porn. It was like the nasty, kinky porn they keep in the back of the store. The kind of stuff that only really sick people go after.”
    “So no clandestine meetings to report to Jerome?”
    “Nope.”
    “Makes sense, I guess.” I stretched out and put my feet out on the table. With Doug incapacitated, I’d spent a rare day on registers, standing more than I usually did anymore. Unless I was mistaken, Roman’s eyes lingered on my legs before returning to my face. “If she didn’t see any immortal action today, she’d have nothing to tell on.”
    “Not until tonight, at least.”
    “Tonight?”
    “How scattered are you? Peter and Cody are having one of their things tonight.”
    “Oh, man. I forgot.” Peter loved to throw dinners and get-togethers and seemed unconcerned that I’d just had a major party of my own. As a nocturnal creature, his soirees always took place late at night. “And Simone’s going?”
    “Yup. Mei’s with her now, and I’ll relieve her at Peter’s.”
    “So you’ll be there in spirit, if not in person.”
    “Something like that.” He smiled at my joke, and for the first time since he’d returned to town, I saw a genuinely amused sparkle in those teal eyes. It reminded me a bit of the witty, gallant guy I used to date. It also occurred to me that this was a rare non-antagonistic conversation for us. It was almost…normal. Misunderstanding my silence, he gave me a wary look. “You aren’t thinking of wussing out, are you? Your day couldn’t have been that hard.”
    I actually had been thinking of wussing out. After yesterday’s drama and now my regret over yielding to Maddie, I wasn’t sure I was up for my immortal friends’ zany hijinks.
    “Come on,” Roman said. “Simone is so boring. And I don’t even mean her activities. She’s just bland. If you’re not there to entertain me, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
    “Are you saying the rest of my friends aren’t entertaining?”
    “They pale in comparison.”
    I finally agreed to go. Although, it wouldn’t have surprised me if his interest in me making an appearance was just to bum a ride. Nonetheless, I was in a good mood as I headed over to Capitol Hill. It was a little weird having Roman with me and not with me. To continue his spying, he’d gone invisible and without signature. It was like having a ghost in my