Chapter 19

19

A fter several hours of discussing home improvement, I said goodbye to my sister and let out grandfather take me back to Hell. The gym was busy when we arrived, and I nearly stumbled over three demons working out. They apologized to me for not realizing the portal had activated, and we were in the middle of a friendly chat before I felt arms wrapping around me from behind as a familiar voice cut in. "Hey, I saw him first. I have dibs."

My face was up in flames again as I looked over my shoulder to see Stefan plastered to my back. "Um, hi?"

The vampire grinned at me. "Hi. Stan and Gabe are in a meeting, so I volunteered to come get you."

Beelzebub snorted. "I could have brought him up to the top floor. You're just looking for an excuse."

"Obviously," Stefan said. "It worked, didn't it?"

I didn't get him. He said he was a flirt and wasn't interested in me that way, but then he'd do things like this and I couldn't help hoping it had been a lie. I could tell he was going to break my heart without even trying someday.

"Anyway," the object of my unnoticed affections continued, "they said they'd be done soon, which could be anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour, so either we can wait for them here, or I can take you back to my place, and we can wait for them there. Though if we go to my place, we're in charge of ordering dinner. They already vetoed pizza, which I think is a travesty, so we'll have to figure out what we want."

"Stef, you should probably let go of him," my grandfather suggested. "If any more blood rushes to his face, he's going to pass out."

It was probably good that Stefan was still plastered to my back because he was the only thing stopping me from taking a swing at Beelzebub right about then. I lost that urge when Stefan laughed practically in my ear. Seriously, he was going to kill me. At least I was already visiting the afterlife, so that was convenient, but still ...

My feelings must have been evident because my grandfather just snickered and mussed my hair. "I'm going home. Try to stay out of trouble."

"Have you not met Gabe?" I asked him. "Telling me to stay out of trouble when I hang around him is futile."

Beelzebub grimaced. "Yeah, okay, that's fair." He ruffled my hair again, mumbled a good night, and left.

"So," Stefan said, finally letting go of me to stand before me with a smile, "what do you want to do?"

I thought about that for a moment, then had an idea. "Do you think the hour is more likely than the fifteen minutes?"

He snorted. "Of course I do. They're a couple of workaholics."

"Well," I said slowly, "what do you think of going to your place and making that cake? I mean, I never even got to try it."

Stefan grinned and pointed a finger at me. "You're a genius." He pulled his phone from his pocket, started tapping the screen, and then paused to look at me. "Do you like root beer?"

I grimaced. "Probably? I don't know? Soda wasn't permitted."

The vampire gave me a look of disbelief. "Are you fucking serious?" He started tapping on his phone again. "Yeah, fuck that shit. I'm ordering stuff for root beer floats." He paused again, narrowing his eyes. "You know what goes with root beer floats? Hot dogs. I have a grill on the balcony, we could do that for dinner. I make a great potato salad that your brother likes because there's no mayo in it."

Hot dogs, I'd had, though I imagined the ones I'd had were the cheapest my mother could find. "I trust your opinion," I told Stefan, because for all I'd seen him devour a crepe that may as well have been pure sugar, the food he ate that wasn't pure sugar was all delicious. Or at least, the food I'd eaten with him had been tasty. I could probably trust him not to feed me something that tasted horrible.

The grin he gave me, though, made me worry. I put that aside when he pocketed his phone again. "I told Gabe I was kidnapping you," he said. "The delivery should be there shortly after we get to my place, and we can get to cooking." He looked at me like he wanted to say something else but hesitated. Then he leaned in and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. "That's for trusting me," he said before taking my hand and dragging me to the elevators.

Honestly, even looking back now, I'm still amazed my face didn't set off the fire alarms.

I let myself be led out of the building and to a golf cart that was far less colorful and fancy than Gabe's was. It also looked like it belonged to someone who hadn't quite figured out parking, if the front bumper's dents were any indication. I climbed into the passenger seat wordlessly, still dazed, and watched the world go by. I knew the guy was a flirt. He'd told me so. I supposed kissing someone on the cheek could be an everyday occurrence for him. That meant his gesture had probably meant nothing, at least nothing beyond friendship, and I was freaking out for nothing, which kind of bothered me. I needed to get my act together and stop reading into it too much.

"You okay?" he asked, startling me out of my thoughts.

"Um, yeah," I answered, still staring at the scenery as we drove. That was a bad idea, considering we'd entered a scene that reminded me of a drawing I'd seen at some point with doorways in ceilings and windows in floors and stairs that go nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. It hurt my head to look at it because I kept trying to make sense of it, so I shut my eyes.

"You sure? You're awfully quiet."

"O-oh," I stuttered, then willed my face to stay a normal color when embarrassment flared within me. "No, just thinking. Also, can you tell me when the world is right side up so I can open my eyes again?"

He chuckled, and I smiled a little at the sound despite myself. "Sorry, I forget it tends to be disturbing to people who aren't used to it."

"No, it's fine," I told him. "Just...dizzying." I paused, trying to think of something to talk about to take my mind off things. "So vampires don't know if the sun will actually turn them to ash or not?" Good job, me. Try to forget about the hot vampire flirting with you by asking him to tell you about himself. That's just genius. I felt an urge to bang my head against the dashboard.

"Nope," Stefan said, sounding way too cheerful for the topic. "Not that it matters. None of us are all that interested in going upstairs or to the living world. We're content to stay under the black void sky. It might be interesting to see, but isn't that what pictures are for?"

"I dunno; I think it's kind of sad that you have to limit yourself like that," I told him. "I mean, even if you never went anywhere, it would be nice if you had the choice."

"Sure," he agreed amiably. "But life—or whatever you want to call it for those of us who've never technically been part of the living world—is rarely that kind."

"You move, you think, you feel," I told him. "You eat, and I assume you breathe to some degree. I don't see how that isn't being alive."

"It's a conundrum. I'm not sure there'll ever be an answer, but that's okay. I suppose instead of calling it a life, you could call it an existence."

"I guess, but that sounds sad for some reason."

He gave a thoughtful hum before saying, "Oh, here we go. Open your eyes. You'll probably like this."

I did as he suggested and was stunned to find myself in a field of beautiful flowers. "Wow," I breathed. "This is beautiful."

"Oleander," Stefan said, pointing to a section full of pink flowers before pointing out different areas. "Lily of the Valley. Lantana. Foxglove. Jimson weed. Rhododendron. Azalea." He smirked at me before pointing to one more location. "Deadly nightshade."

I rolled my eyes, assuming he was trying to scare me. "I'm surprised to see that Hell has such beautiful flowers."

"They're all level-one toxicity," he told me. "They all cause severe illness and possibly death. You'd be surprised by the uses we get from them."

I frowned at him. "I'm still alive," I pointed out. "At the moment, anyway. Is driving through here going to kill me?"

He laughed, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening with his amusement. "Are you planning on getting out of the cart and making a salad out of them? Because that's pretty much what you'd have to do." His expression immediately turned into a frown that I recognized as one of thought. After a moment, he amended his words, "Actually, that might not be true. I forget you're half-demon, so it might not affect you. I mean, I don't suggest trying that out, but..."

"Like vampires and the sun, huh?" I asked with a grin.

He grinned and pointed at me. "Yeah, exactly like that."

We made it to his apartment before the grocery delivery because otherwise, Stefan explained, there would have been a bag waiting by the door. "It's just as well," he said. "I get weird about perishables sitting out too long."

"Okay, explain this to me," I said. "We're in the afterlife, and food still goes bad? So you can scorch your sinuses with scalding hot coffee and have it heal without medical intervention, but what, still get food poisoning?"

"Not exactly," he admitted. "I think it has to do with how fast our bodies heal. By the time it would make us sick, our bodies would have already taken care of the problem. I mean, after weeks of being starved to the point of skin and bones and having his heart continuously ripped out, your brother was back to normal within two days. Maybe if he'd eaten rotten food just after we'd brought him back, it would have made him sick for a short time, but the rest of us, nah. That said, rotten food is gross, so I ain't eating it." He paused and smiled at me like he was about to share the answer to one of the mysteries of the universe. "I have a theory about why food goes bad in the afterlife. I think the ancient gods wanted to remind immortals of the passage of time. Or maybe that's how we stay immortal. I mean, I was born a baby and stopped aging when I was in my twenties, same as everyone else. Vampires aren't like demons, so I couldn't change my form to look older even if I wanted to, but looking older than a certain point here is purely cosmetic. Maybe the food raised down here takes our aging for us. Kind of a whole Picture of Dorian Gray thing."

My face must have given me away because before I could tell him I had no idea what he was talking about, he grinned and said, "To make a long story short, a guy has a painting of himself in his attic that does his aging for him. There's more to it than that, but that's what I was referencing."

"That makes no sense to me. Not the story, just...why rotting food?"

"Why would it make sense?" he asked. "This is Hell. There's very little about Hell that makes sense. Or Heaven, for that matter. That place makes even less sense in some ways. It is what it is, and the ancient gods probably had a reason for it that even they've forgotten. Try not to put it in terms of logic. You'll only break your brain."

He wasn't wrong; it was making me feel a little cracked. I let it go to preserve my mental health. Luckily for me, I was saved by the bell. Or, rather, the knock on Stefan's front door. Groceries had arrived if the bag he picked up from the doorway was any indication. "Can you shut that for me?" he asked, nodding at the door as he carried the heavily laden bag to the kitchen in both arms.

I shut the door as requested and found him in the kitchen, sorting through the bag and either setting things aside or putting them away.

I looked around. Yep, his kitchen was still very busy and very green, covered in the same multi-shaded green tiles and palm-front wallpaper I remembered. I tried not to stare at the walls for too long lest they make my eyes cross. For all I gave Gabe a hard time about his decorating choices, at least they weren't hard to look at. On the other hand, walking back into Stefan's kitchen felt a little like coming home, though I tried not to dwell on that.

Stefan opened the fridge and set a few things inside, then held out a carton of eggs to me. "Here, set these by the other things, please."

He said please, so even though it sounded more like an order than a request, I took the eggs and set them next to a box of cake mix, a couple of boxes of pudding mix, another box that was labeled as 'whipped topping mix,' and a bag of nuts. When Stefan joined me, he set a half-empty bag of shredded coconut and a can of soda on the counter. He opened one of the cabinets above us and reached up as he stood on tip-toes, his shirt lifting just enough to show a sliver of his pale stomach, and I looked away quickly, my cheeks once again warm. I wish I hadn't been cursed with such an easily-activated blush reflex. I'd always gone red if I was embarrassed, mad, or frustrated, but being around Stefan seemed to have kicked it into overdrive, and I didn't like knowing I was wearing my heart on my sleeve. Or on my face.

I heard the cabinet shut and looked over to find Stefan firmly back on his feet and his shirt back in place. He set down a bottle of vegetable oil, then grabbed some measuring cups from a drawer before turning on the oven. "Okay," he said. "I think we're ready. I don't know how much you remember, but this is easy, so there's nothing to worry about."

"Well, at the time, I thought I was dreaming," I pointed out. "So I wasn't big on catching the details." Not of the cooking, anyway. I'd been too busy memorizing his face, but I was never, ever going to say that out loud.

He laughed as he pulled the stand mixer closer to the counter's edge, where we could reach it easier. "Well, that's understandable," he admitted. "But like I said, this is easy. Dump in the cake mix, the pudding mix, and three of those eggs while I measure out the oil and soda."

He wasn't kidding when he said it was easy. Not five minutes later, he greased a cake pan and dumped in the fragrant green batter. "This'll take forty-five minutes," he told me as he slid the thing into the oven. "And we won't bother with the icing until it's cooled down. Want to watch something while we wait?"

"Sure," I said with a shrug. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well, given that you have a lot of pop culture to catch up on, I say we start with Firefly."

We were partway through the first episode, cozy on the couch, when the front door opened, and my brother and Stan walked in. "What, not even a knock?" I asked, earning a soft chuckle from Stefan. "Do you live here?"

"Oh please, like Stefan knocks when he comes to see us," Gabe said with a smirk before noticing what we were watching. "Oh nice, Firefly. What do you think of it so far?"

"Not sure," I said. "It seems interesting, but I'm confused."

"It'll make more sense later," Stan assured me.

"Where's Tempest?" I asked Gabe, noting the distinct lack of hellhound in the room.

"Next door," my brother told me. "He said he'd wait there until we're ready to go."

I sighed and looked at Stefan. "Seriously, what is up with the two of you?"

"Hey, look at the timer and see how much time is left," Stefan told Gabe and Stan, completely avoiding my question.

I wasn't sure which one of them he was talking to, but Stan stepped into the doorway to look into the kitchen. "Six minutes," he said. "Cake? It smells like cake."

"Cake," the vampire confirmed. "Though Zeke and I need to make the frosting still, it'll be a while until the cake is cool enough for that, so there's no point in doing it right this second. We have hot dogs, potato salad, and root beer floats for dinner. Anyone want to chop and boil potatoes for me?"

"I'll do it," Gabe volunteered. "Two pounds, right?"

"Yeah," Stefan confirmed. "Thanks. I'd get up and do it, but I'm comfortable."

"You're snuggling with my brother, so you'd better be comfortable," Gabe huffed before heading off to take care of the potatoes.

I frowned and looked at Stefan. "Are we snuggling? I thought we were just sitting next to each other."

"I think you're right," he agreed. "Snuggling involves more body contact, but I'm pretty sure Gabe would have my head if we were cuddly."

Stan gave a wicked grin I'd never seen from him before and dropped down on the other side of me, turning just enough to rest his head on my shoulder, lean against my side, and drape an arm over me.

"Yeah, like that," Stefan said. Then he moved to mirror Stan's actions, so I had both of them leaning into me, their arms around me.

When Gabe eventually came back into the living room, it was to find me half-melted between them. I'd started with a red face, but eventually, I'd just gotten so comfortable that I was a puddle of Zeke on the couch. He raised an eyebrow and gave me an amused smirk. "Comfy?"

"I'm so cozy," I drawled, drawing out my words to make a point of how comfortable I was.

He shook his head as he laughed. "Well, I'm glad you're enjoying yourself," he said as he peeked into the kitchen, probably keeping an eye on the stove.

"We made a cake," I told him.

"I heard," he answered with a grin as he wandered back into the kitchen. "You should have him teach you cookies, too. He has at least one nearly foolproof recipe."

Stefan made a groggy noise of assent. It sounded like he'd started dozing off. "Cake mix," he said. "Eggs. Oil. Extra stuff if you want. Super easy."

"Wait, seriously?" I asked. "You seemed to enjoy baking."

He raised his eyes to look at me. "What, because of the mix?"

I nodded. If someone really wanted to bake, wouldn't they want to do things from scratch?

"I do enjoy it. What I really enjoy, though, are simple methods that allow me to play with variations while still providing consistent results."

"Stop playing with your food," Gabe called from the other room, making the three of us on the couch laugh. "Actually, no, wait, don't stop playing with your food because I get to eat the results."

"And he calls you a glutton," I said to Stefan, who chuckled.

Once Gabe declared the potatoes cooked, Stefan got up to do whatever he needed for the potato salad, telling me to stay where I was and continue to wallow in coziness. I was okay with that because I didn't have the will to move.

"How are you feeling?" Stan asked. "We haven't heard anything about your trip upstairs, but I'm guessing it went well."

"Oh!" I sat up quickly, startling Stan. "Right! I didn't get to tell you!"

"Tell us what?" Gabe called from the kitchen. He'd said he would help Stefan, but from the grumbling we'd heard for the past ten minutes, it sounded more like he was annoying Stefan.

"The house Grandpa bought is the house from my dream! Like everything I'd cleaned in my dream was still clean, and the photo and the owl were still on the wall. Isn't that insane?"

"Wait," Gabe said from the doorway, looking directly at Stan. "Can he even do that?"

Stan gave him a look that I couldn't decipher. "I mean..." He gestured with one hand, indicating something I clearly didn't understand.

"But wow, that's crazy," Gabe said before returning his attention to me. "Do you like it?"

"I love it," I corrected him. "The real thing needs just as much work, but we walked around the house figuring out what all needed to be done. Thankfully, it mostly seems cosmetic. I even get to figure out what color I want my room painted, which sounds ridiculous, but I'm way more excited about that than I thought I'd be."

"It's not ridiculous," Stan said gently, ruffling my hair. "You're finally getting a say on things in your life. That's a big deal."

I smoothed my hair back down and smiled at him. "Thanks. Oh, but I guess there's a big important meeting tomorrow with the person who set this up. Do you know anything about it?"

Stan frowned in thought, then turned his head to look at Gabe. "Do you know anything about a meeting?"

"The old man told us to keep the hour directly after work free," my brother said. "Maybe that's why." He sighed and shook his head. "He could have just told us."

I glared at both of them. "I'm getting tired of being kept in the dark."

"Sorry," Stan said, pulling me into a hug. "We do want to tell you, but he's one of those guys that sulks for eons if his surprise is ruined. Trust me, you don't want to be on the other end of that. None of us do. It sounds like you'll find out the truth tomorrow, so can you hang in there a little longer?"

"Fine," I grumbled with a heavy sigh. "But for the record, I don't like it."

"We'll do our best not to do it again," Gabe promised. "We won't even hold a surprise party for your birthday if you don't want us to. Speaking of which, though, what do you want to do for your birthday?"

"Don't know, I've never done anything for my birthday," I answered immediately without thinking. Gabe's expression immediately crumbled into one of sadness and regret, so I quickly said "Which means I'm happy I get to spend my first proper birthday with you. What do you suggest?"

Gabe brightened, and Stan chuckled before whispering, "Nice save."

"What about an amusement park?" Gabe suggested, clearly having not heard Stan because there was no way he would have let that comment slide if he had. "You have a few choices in the afterlife. It could even be a water park, though we'd have to go to Heaven for those." He made a face and shuddered. "Trust me, you do not want to visit a water park in Hell."

"Why not?" I asked, thinking that maybe the pools were full of man-eating sharks or something.

"Remember the field of yellow snow?" Stefan called from the kitchen.

I made a face of complete and utter disgust. "Okay, yeah, no. No water parks in Hell."

"Good plan," Stefan agreed with a laugh. "Would one of you go out and get the grill started? I think we're about ready for dinner."

We had dinner on Stefan's balcony, where he had comfortable patio furniture and a nice view of the vampire district. It was still a little weird for me to have a meal with people who wanted to have a conversation, and even stranger that once the food was gone no one wanted to leave, so we ended up sitting there until well past sunset. One of us would occasionally get up and refill everyone's drinks—root beer floats are amazing, incidentally—but otherwise, we just sat and talked about whatever came to mind. This was what I'd always dreamed of when I thought of what I'd like a real family to be like, and I had to will myself not to tear up more than once throughout the evening.

"Oh," Stefan said, looking at his phone after the third or fourth round of drinks. "It's about to start."

"What's about to start?" I asked, curious. I wondered if there was a show or something he didn't want to miss.

Instead, to my surprise, he pointed out toward the vampire district. "Watch over there," he instructed.

I looked where he indicated, not seeing anything. Then, a bright spark flew into the air and exploded into a thousand shimmering lights. "Fireworks!" I exclaimed, my eyes going wide as I immediately stood and went to the edge of the large balcony in an effort to see better. Gabe, laughing, joined me, standing to my left with Stan. Stefan was almost immediately to my right. Seeing this fantastic thing I'd rarely experienced in person, surrounded by people I knew without a doubt cared about me, was overwhelming.

"Do you see that mountain-looking structure over there?" Gabe asked, pointing.

I squinted. "Yeah, what is that?"

"It's a roller coaster," he said with a grin before pointing to another spot. "Do you see that kind of retro-future-looking building?"

"Retro-future?"

He nodded. "Like how people might have pictured architecture of the future fifty years ago."

Oh, that made sense. I squinted again and nodded. "I see it."

"Another roller coaster. Remember when I said the vampire district was based on a city in Southern California?"

I nodded, and he looked at me expectantly as if waiting for me to get it, but none of the pieces were falling into place.

"It's okay if you don't get it," he said as the fireworks continued to explode overhead. "It's Anaheim."

I looked away from the fireworks to gape at him. "Wait, is that Disn?—"

Immediately, three hands covered my mouth. "Don't say it," Stefan warned me. "The lawyers will eat you alive, and I'm not sure I mean that metaphorically."