“Okay, you could.”

“Then while we were standing in line, I asked her why she was buying three boxes of Summer’s Eve in the middle of winter.”

I set her at arm’s length. “Wow.”

“I know, right? I had no idea a person could turn so red.”

“So, we’ve established that, yes, you could indeed embarrass me. But you didn’t. I’m sorry that you know so much of things no twelve-year-old girl should know about.

“I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

I looked over to see what the chefs were doing. When I saw that they were busy, I leaned in to her. “What exactly do you know?”

She smiled. “I know you’re the grim reaper.”

That realization knocked the wind out of my sails.

“And I know Reyes is the son of Satan.”

“H-how do you know all of this?”

“I have really good hearing. And I can listen to all kinds of conversations even while I’m doing my homework.”

“Really?”

She snorted. “I swear, you guys act like I go deaf every time I open a book.” With an evil cackle, she headed toward the door. “I can hear other things, too. Before you came around, I had no idea a man could make a girl scream like that. Reyes seems very talented.”

Certain my eyes resembled tea saucers, I took a quick peek at Cookie to make sure she wasn’t paying attention to us. While I’d never had relations with Reyes other than in my dreams and once while he was incorporeal, those relations were … very satisfying. And apparently Amber knew it.

“Don’t worry. Mom doesn’t know.”

“That Reyes is very talented?”

“Oh, no, she’s extremely aware of that part. She just doesn’t know that I know that Reyes is very talented.” She giggled again, a sound that conjured images of a mad scientist in the making, and just before she closed the door behind her, she said, “But don’t stop on my account.”

Oh. My. God. Cookie was going to kill me.

“So what were you two talking about?” she asked.

I jumped, then smoothed my pajama bottoms. “Nothing. Why? What do you think we were talking about?”

She frowned at me. “Do you think she’s okay?”

“Oh, I think she’s just fine.” The little smarty-pants.

She went back to whisking some kind of batter as Gemma dumped in a powdery substance. I could only hope they were baking brownies. Brownies were like spare batteries. One could never have too many in the house.

“I’m going to sleep with you,” Gemma said as she eyed the concoction and rationed in a little more powder.

“You’re not really my type, but okay. How kinky are we talking?”

“Do you think it needs more?” she asked Cookie, inspecting the bowl.

“One can never have too much powdered sugar,” Cookie said. Then she pointed a whisk at me. “I think you should bottle Reyes and sell him on the black market. We’d be rich.”

I stepped closer. “Dude, what are you whisking?”

“Having recently been in the same room with the hottest man on the planet, I’m probably whisking my virtue.” She chuckled. “Get it? Whisking my virtue?”

Gemma laughed as she measured in more powdered sugar. I took a gander at Cookie’s bowl and scooped out a dollop of white heaven. “So, icing?”

“Yes, we’re trying out your new cake pans.”

“I bought cake pans?” That was so unlike me.

She wriggled her brows. “And you bought a margarita mixer.”

Uh-oh.

* * *

I soon found out Gemma had ulterior motives in hanging with me and drinking like a fish on dry land. I could read it in her body language, in the shifting light in her eyes, but mostly when she said, “I have ulterior motives.”

She was determined to help me sleep if she had to get me plastered to do it. So she and Cookie were trying out a frozen margarita mixer I’d ordered during a low point in my downfall. For one week, all I could think about was drinking margaritas—well, that and running my tongue along Reyes’s teeth—but I didn’t have salt—or Reyes’s teeth. I’d also lacked the energy to leave my apartment to get some—or the desire to stoop low enough to beg Reyes to let me lick his teeth after what he did—so I could only wish for a margarita. And dream of Reyes’s teeth.

I’d secretly hoped a margarita would magically appear in my hand, but that would mean I would have to put down the remote, and God knew that was not going to happen.

It was a vicious circle.

But Gemma rarely drank. Maybe a glass of wine with dinner. And I drank only on special occasions. Like Fridays and Saturdays. Cookie on the other hand …

“Wooooooohooooooo!” Cookie raised her arms in triumph. No idea why. “I haven’t had thith much fun thince … thince…” She seemed at a loss for coherent words, but she recovered quickly and pointed toward the door. “Thince Reyeth Farlow walked through that door!” She turned back to me, her expression full of awe. “And, my god, doeth that boy know how to walk.”

Cookie stood on the other side of the breakfast bar, trying to bake brownies in my new electric pressure cooker. While the apartment smelled really good, I didn’t have high hopes for a chocolate fix anytime soon. The cooker beeped and she turned to check it right before she disappeared. It was weird. She was there one minute and gone the next. And her disappearance was quickly followed by a solid thud, the sound echoing off the kitchen floor. I thought about hurrying to her rescue, but didn’t trust my own legs at that point. Gemma was draped over the arm of my sofa—which might or might not go by the name of Melvin—and Aunt Lillian, who swore those were the best margaritas she’d had since that beauty pageant she entered in Juárez, was facedown on my floor. No idea why.