Chapter 2

Chapter

Two

DASH

I rangthe doorbell at my old apartment over Clegg Cycles. Lilith had reached out to me to say she was planning to explain her special situation to Quinn, and she wanted me to be available if Quinn wanted to talk.

Of course, I was going to be there for my best friend. I’d never let Quinn try to work his way through what she would tell him alone. It was a lot of information to get at one time.

Lilith opened the door, her makeup smeared from tear tracks rolling down her face. “Shit. You told him. Where is he?”

“I didn’t get beyond telling him we needed to talk about us. He took it the wrong way and left. I wanted to follow him, but I was afraid it would make things worse.” She reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a handkerchief to dry her eyes.

“Okay. Let me go look for him. How long ago did he leave?”

“Maybe five minutes. He took my car because I was parked behind him, and my keys were on the table. He came up with the crazy idea that Adonis was my former lover because he found some texts between us on my phone. I couldn’t tell him I’m his mother. I just said, ‘I’m older than I look.’”

That was an understatement on her part. She was from the beginning of time.

“What did he say to that? What pissed him off so much that he left?” Obviously, there was something specific she’d said that exploded a bomb in Quinn’s head.

“He asked me to marry him, and I said there were too many things we needed to discuss before we got to that point. I told him I thought we had a lot of differences between us that we needed to hash out. He said, ‘It’s the money thing, isn’t it? I don’t make enough money for you.’ Then he stormed out. You know money has nothing to do with this, right?”

I snorted. “Considering you can have as much money as you’d ever need? I know this isn’t about a financial difference, but Quinn doesn’t. Let me go find him. I’ll try to talk to him. Do I have your permission to tell him everything?” Maybe he’d listen to me without running away...

She exhaled. “You’ll have to tell him about yourself. Are you ready to do that?”

“Probably, but maybe not everything at once. I’ll start with you first, okay?”

Lilith reached into her pocket and pulled out a ring. It looked ancient, with a red stone that seemed to have yellow flames dancing inside. She handed it to me. “If you can get him to put this on, it might give him a better explanation about who and what I am.”

I took the ring and put it in my jacket pocket. “I’ll do my best to get him back here to talk to you. I don’t know if I can do any good, but I’ll try. You’ll be okay, yeah?”

Lilith nodded, so I took off. By the time I got to the SUV, I’d figured out where he’d probably gone, so I headed in that direction. The Grease Monkey Bar ’N Grill was in Quinn’s old neighborhood in Oak Park.

The neighborhood was pretty rough, which was one of the reasons he’d moved away in the first place. The other was to help his sister financially. Without having to pay me rent, it was working out for him.

I parked on the street, avoiding the parking lot behind the dive bar. I saw Lilith’s fancy Alfa Romeo parked at a meter just a few spaces from mine. At least Quinn hadn’t completely lost his mind and put it behind the bar where he couldn’t see it.

I pulled my sunglasses from the top of my head and went to the door, hitting the key fob twice to be sure I locked the SUV. I reached for the door handle and stopped. I almost slid Lilith’s ring onto my finger to understand how it worked before I gave it to Quinn, but I thought better. It was private between Quinn and his girl, so I shoved it back into my pocket and resisted the temptation.

Just as I suspected, Quinn sat on a battered stool at the far end of the bar. There was a young woman behind it, drying glasses as he tried to talk her up like the idiot I knew him to be. The dude had no game whatsoever.

I sat on the stool next to him. “Draft, please.”

The young woman looked relieved and went to work getting my beer and a fresh bowl of peanuts. Hell, it was ten in the morning, so beer and peanuts were as good as anything else for a heart-to-heart.

“What do you want, Dash? How’d ya find me?”

Our eyes met in the mirror behind the bar. “You’re not hard to find, Quinn. I talked to your girl. She asked me to look for you. Why don’t you go back home and talk to her?”

“I don’t need to hear her say she’s too good to marry a mechanic. Hell, I’ve asked her to move in about ten times, and she won’t. She leaves when I fall asleep and returns just before I wake up. I got one of them nanny cam things because I had the feeling she wasn’t stayin’ the night. I couldn’t wake up to catch her, but I’ve got the evidence right here.”

He unlocked his phone and pulled up an app, handing it to me. The time stamp was from the previous night, and the video showed Lilith sneaking out of his place. “Maybe she wanted to run home and freshen up? I’ve heard that some women get up before their boyfriends and brush their teeth and put on makeup. Maybe she’s worried that if you see her without it, you won’t want to be with her.”

“I’ve seen her without makeup, man. She’s still beautiful. I don’t give a damn about that shit. Where does she go? Why won’t she move in?”

My heart broke for my friend because he was so upset. Quinn had been unlucky in love for years. Somehow, women knew he was an easy touch and took advantage of him. From what I could tell, Lilith was the first woman who hadn’t. And she was a demon. If anyone would take advantage of a kind guy like Quinn, it would be her.

“What the fuck scared you off? What made you walk out on Lily?”

Before he could answer, the door opened, and Keir walked in with a guy I didn’t know. I watched as they sat at a table in the corner, and I couldn’t breathe. The guy with him was handsome, but Keir was my fiancé. Who the fuck was he with, and why?

Quinn touched my hand. “Who’s that? Why’s your face all screwed up like that?”

I stared at him. “Can’t you see that one of them is Keir?”

Quinn stared for a minute and then turned to me. “He kinda resembles Keir, but he’s not your guy. So, back to me.”

I was there for my friend, so I turned to him, but I kept my eye on the guy who looked like Keir in my peripheral. “Yes, back to you. What the hell, Quinn?”

“She’s better than me, Dash.”

I chuckled. “No, she’s fucking not. Lily wouldn’t be with you if she didn’t believe you were worth her effort. Ask her why she leaves your place, man. Don’t make up shit in your head. You’ll always be wrong.”

I pulled the ring out of my pocket and handed it to him. “There’s shit out there that you won’t understand at first. Start here.” I pointed to the ring. “Put it on.”

When I looked over my shoulder where Keir’s almost twin had been sitting with that random guy, I saw they’d left. I had no fucking idea who the guy was or why he looked so much like my fiancé, but I was damn well going to find out.

Quinn picked up the ring. “What the fuck is this?”

I took a sip of my beer and grabbed a fist full of peanuts, dumping them into my mouth. The salty nuts mixed well with the beer. I hadn’t decided to go day-drinking with my best friend, but it was shaping up to be a good idea.

Quinn slid the ring onto his right index finger, which was weird. The ring hadn’t looked that big to me when Lilith had handed it off.

When his eyes glazed over, I figured he was seeing whatever Lilith wanted him to know about her existence, so I scrolled through my phone to see if my future husband had texted that he was going out to meet someone.

The guy Quinn swore wasn’t Keir looked a little too much like the love of my life for me to be comfortable seeing him with another guy. When I didn’t have a message from him, I sent one of my own.

How’s your morning? You out and about? ILY

I finished my beer and ordered another, glancing at Quinn, whose eyes were still glazed over. I grabbed his phone and put it in front of him as I tilted his head as though he were looking at the screen.

When the bartender glanced at me and pointed to him, I nodded for him to get another beer too. I wasn’t sure how long it was going to take for Lilith’s message to get through to him, but I would be the ultimate best friend and look out for him while he took in whatever that ring was telling him.

He’d been that guy for me when I’d lost Viking and Miss Siobhan. It was finally my turn to return the favor.

“You okay, man?”

I drove us back to the garage. Quinn was too fucked up to drive, so I gave a homeless guy a hundred bucks to watch Lilith’s car until I could get Simp and Fish to pick it up. It was probably best if they weren’t around while Quinn and Lilith talked.

“I’m kinda stunned. You believe that shit is real?”

I wasn’t about to answer him until I knew what he meant. “What shit?”

Quinn released a semi-hysterical laugh. “Demons. Hell. Blood drinkers. She’s a fucking jokester.”

I lowered my glasses to see his aura had an anxious vibe. “You think she’s joking?” I had to traverse this road as calmly as possible or he’d flip out on me, and I didn’t want that.

“How about we step back for a minute. How’d you find out about that shit?” I hoped to fuck it dawned on him after I said it.

“That…that ring you gave me.”

“Quinn, dude, I just gave you a ring Lilith wanted you to have. I’m not sure what you’re talking about with all that other bullshit.” I was a prick to lie to him, but I needed him to speak up about what he’d learned.

“She claims to be a demon from Hell. She says she’s the mistress of Satan and, get this shit, that old guy who started working for Keir—Adon—is her son. That shit’s fucked up, Dash.”

I made the right onto the street where the garage was located, pulling into the parking lot across the street and turning off the engine on my SUV. “Quinn, dude, think about it. How do you know these things? How’d she tell you because you walked out on her before she could say anything to you about that shit.”

Quinn glanced at the ring and tried to pull it off. When it wouldn’t slide down his finger, he froze. “I’d bet she’s not done telling you whatever she wants you to know. I’ll stick around if you want until you know it all, but seriously, there’s shit going on in the universe I’d have never guessed.”

I stepped out of the SUV and walked toward the garage. Simp, Fish, and Georgia stood in Quinn’s bay staring at my vehicle.

“What are you guys doin’? Get back to work. He’s fine.”

Lillith stood from behind a Harley Street 750. She wore a pair of Quinn’s denim coveralls, and her auburn hair was braided down her back. “Is he?” She snapped her fingers, and everything stopped.

“What’re you doin’?” The beginner Harley was without tires, but two new ones were leaning against the wall.

“He was supposed to change the tires and tighten the brakes. I don’t want him to get behind.” She wiped her fingers with a grease rag before shoving it into her back pocket.

I chuckled. “You know how to fix bikes?”

Lilith smirked. “Oh, Dashiell, I know whatever I need to know. Now, how’s my guy? He hasn’t run screaming yet.”

“No, ma’am. He’s seeing the rest of whatever you had in that ring. He mentioned demons, Hell, Adonis, and vampires. Is there anything else to know?”

She grinned. “Just that I love him. I think it’s probably too much for him to accept, so after he gets out of the vehicle, I’ll wipe his memories and be gone.”

Demon or not, Lilith was growing on me, and hell, I hadn’t seen my best friend so happy in a very long time. I hated the idea of things ending like that.

“Nope. You two are great together. I have a question, though, if you’ll allow it.”

“Sure.” Lilith’s face lit up with curiosity.

“Adon is your son, and you have others, correct?” I carefully phrased my question. She could snap me like a twig.

“Yes.” It was a little guarded, which told me to continue treading lightly.

“Quinn made a comment once that you, uh, you have a di—a penis. But you also had children. I’m curious… Fuck it. I’m nosey. How does that work?”

“If you haven’t learned that I can be anything I want or need to be, you need to take another trip to Hell with me. I present the way I feel comfortable, based on the situation, and Quinn doesn’t hate my dick.”

Hmm. That told me a lot more about my friend than I really needed to know.

“Your car is at the bar. You want me to send someone to pick it up?”

The door to my SUV opened, and Quinn stepped out. He was staring at Lilith, and I felt as though I was in the middle of a private moment where I had no business being.

Lilith strolled out of the garage in heels so damn high I had to wonder how she walked, and when she got to Quinn, his arms spread in front of him, and she stepped into them. When he wrapped his arms around her, she sunk into his body.

Everyone in the garage came to life and went back to work. I had no fucking idea what it meant, but it looked like things were going to be fine for Quinn and Lilith.