Lovers & Devils [BxB]

Date?

Day twelve.
      Bang.
A strident noise jolted me out of my attempted doze, leaving me startled and frustrated, socked foot slipping off the pewter couch and hitting the ticklish rug. What was that? My eyebrows squished together as I sprang up, eyes frantically bobbing around the conjoined room, accusing the vase of roses on the television stand, but everything seemed tranquil. I exhaled loudly. Mammon must have been messing in his bedroom—curiously, he hadn't brought anyone over since our chat. I tottered forward, hissing when my thigh collided with the sharp corner of the glass coffee table. The remote jarred like it was sniggering. God damn it. I scoured the painful line with my joggers and limped dramatically out of the sitting room.
     A card was in front of the nutty door, emulating a doormat. I quirked an eyebrow—was that the noise? The door didn't have a mailbox, so whoever sent it was eager for us to receive.
     I knew I shouldn't meddle, but still I snuck over, surges in my thigh magically ceding as if the card healed it. It had a mawkish picture of coffee beans and sprinkled macarons. I flipped it over and was met by capitalized letters: "A surprise awaits you at Café Bliss."
     I assumed it was addressed to the demon, until I noticed my name at the bottom with a winky face. I focused and refocused on the note. Well, wasn't that just ominous? I thought I would have learned something after the woods, but I was actually considering going. I was an angel. I could handle myself.
      The note creased brutally and I stuck it in my felted pocket. I pulled the middle cubby of the shoe cabinet and it dropped open like a jaw and there was a stench of dirt. I took out the black runners, looking oblique when I heard footsteps.

      "Where the hell you going?" Mammon had a yellow toothbrush in his hand, a thin white foam outlining his scrubbed plump lips.   

     "I'm going out."

     He stopped brushing. "What? You finally got a date?"

    "No I didn't..." I jigged my feet inside the shoes. "Do you know where Café Bliss is?"

     His toothpaste-glazed lips contorted to a smirk. "So you did get a date!"

     I rolled my eyes at him and turned the lock.

     "Pass the petrol station and just go straight!"

      Bam. I shot a smile at the nailed fancy four whilst the tiles beamed at me, mucky as if the teeth of smokers. Mammon should be christened a parasite how he dwells in my brain but that was much too mean—rather, he was a...crystal. No, that's too nice. I glided my palm across the railing. Whatever it was, he lit a match in my belly that I didn't know I had, that I didn't know I could feel. The feel of his fingers, the fresh image of his lips. I flared my nose and shook my head. Stop this inanity. You're a guardian angel.
      I tripped along the wet pavement, hoping vehicles didn't splash me with rainwater collecting at the curb. Rain lashed like a biblical calamity on White-Carrick the entire night. The sun was nowhere in my peripheral, a general hiding behind his soldiers of clouds, now and forever in this sad town. I whipped up my brown hood for good measure, trying not to walk with swagger—that I knew I had—lest I looked like a thug. I occasionally smiled at the dogs that gambolled behind their phone-absorbed owner, tongues hanging out of their mouths. Some wanted to come closer but were swiftly yanked away—which I was grateful for. I preferred cats.
Though, there was one dog in particular. It scurried behind their owner, its cracked tongue lolling out. It looked exactly like Arlo—fawn fur that faded white, alert ears that rounded at the top. I knew it was a corgi because my brother had the same breed. Mikkel hated our corgi at first, would rather eat mushy peas than play with him, but that changed when the dog found his favourite toy train. Then, I would find him cuddling the dog in the miniature playhouse.
When the woman with oil-and-water blonde highlights wasn't looking, I settled my eyes on a puddle far from the corgi, the clear liquid then forming a bone-shaped dog treat. It raced over clumsily before devouring the treat whole, making me feel bad for only creating one. Poor guy, must have been hungry. The movement rattled the stout woman, and I quickly lowered my head, ghosting past the acquainted detached houses.
      I glanced up from the defiled path when I had to cross, feeling the bumps for the blind under my soles. Yellow lines hemmed the pavement. In front was a flemish brick building, big with white sash windows and coloured shops on the ground floor. Loading bays heeded the red stop sign and I jogged across. Shiny black rods with spirals holding lights and iron posts on the path followed, but couldn't come inside the camel-coloured café. Café Bliss. I was greeted, not by the staff, but the smell of warm coffee and flurry of work and purpose in the air. It was typical. Rectangular wood grain tables were lined up along the windows, stripping the customers of any privacy. Black bowl-shaped lights hung above the tables low, though not low enough for you to wack your head. I removed my hood.
A wide chalkboard—fairy lights around it—was mountain on the wall, with different types of coffee and other treats for people to choose from. An emphasis was on autumn and pumpkins, since Halloween loomed.
I looked to the other side of the cafe, eyes alight on someone waving at me. I rolled my eyes, a smile cracking. It was Ezekiel, thumbing over his lustrous pendant. It made sense! Only he'd send a note like that.
     I walked over to him. A girl sat at the table behind ours, ogling the cherub and practically drooling over him and not the powdered scone in her hand.