that had no smart-ass saying whatsoever. But I made up for it with a top proclaiming SARC- was my second favorite -ASM word. Ready to face the masses again, I went back out into the living area.
Cookie and Gemma were in the kitchen, trying out all my cool new gadgets. Hopefully, I’d get a meal out of their efforts. Amber gathered her books when I came out and she stepped over to me. “You’re really loud in the shower,” she said.
I could only imagine what Artemis knocking me into the wall repeatedly sounded like from out here. “Yeah, I tripped.”
“Seven times?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, okay. Well, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, Charley. I didn’t mean to do that. With Reyes. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“Embarrass me?” I gathered her into my arms. “Amber, you could never embarrass me.”
“Never?” she asked.
“Never.”
“One time, I yelled across the store to Mom and asked her if she wanted the regular or the super-absorbent tampons. I added that, according to the box, the super-absorbent were for those heavy days. Then I asked her to rate her heaviness on a scale of one to ten.”
“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