Burning Desire

11

"You're so worked up," Lexi said as Winston paced the living room. "I'd say you need to get laid, but even with Tristan's hatred for you, he'd probably be jealous if you slept with someone else."

Winston glared at him. "Telling me that my soulmate hates me really isn't the encouragement I'm looking for right now," he said as Lexi shrugged and drank his iced coffee. "How many coffees have you had today?"

"Not as many as I need," Lexi said, sipping through his pink straw. "Where are you two going?"

"Downtown to the food cart cartel. I figured that Tristan isn't one to obsess over big and fancy dates and would feel more comfortable somewhere where he could be outside," Winston explained, tapping his foot on the ground. "That human takes a long time to get ready."

Lexi looked at the clock. "That makes two of us," he said, finishing his coffee and heading toward his room.

"Do you have somewhere to be?" Winston asked, and Lexi blushed before he nodded.

"Yes, my boss wants to talk to me about a second club that he has and wants me to work at," he said, vanishing before Winston could ask any other questions.

The demon went back to pacing for a few more minutes before Tristan walked out to meet him, dressed in a light blue button up and black skinny jeans. On anyone else the outfit would look weird, but of course Tristan could pull it off without effort.

"You look, uh, g-, I mean, you're-"

"Thanks," Tristan said, covering Winston's mouth. "I'll just assume you were trying to compliment me because listening to you stutter is kind of stressful. It puts me on edge because I don't know whether you're going to insult me or be nice."

Winston pulled Tristan's hand from his face. "It was a compliment," he said, looking Tristan up and down. "You look really nice."

Tristan couldn't help the smile that tugged at the corners of his lips. "You don't look bad... for a demon," he said, choosing to repress his anger and sarcasm for the night so he and Winston didn't end up in a big fight. "Where are you taking me?"

"I was thinking we could go to the food carts downtown and we could explore the city, but if you don't want to we can do something else, like there's a lot of restaurants that are pretty nice..." he rambled on, and Tristan almost found it cute.

"I've never been to a food cart," Tristan said, following Winston out to the front where the cars were. "My friend Amari told me the best food in the world comes from food carts."

Winston nodded. "He's right," he said, opening Tristan's door for him.

Tristan slid into the car, smiling to himself as he locked his seatbelt. He liked the shy and nervous side of Winston; the demon was less intimidating that way and made him feel like he was going on a real date and not being forced into something by an angry demon.

"My friend Amari is staying in Cincinnati for a couple of weeks," Tristan said, referring to the text messages he got the other day. "Would you mind if I went to lunch with him tomorrow afternoon to catch up?"

Winston still wasn't keen on the idea of letting Tristan take off, but ever since he came back from his trip, Tristan had been a lot nicer. Of course, the human was still sarcastic and moody, but he didn't tell Winston he hated him every ten minutes and promised to limit telling Winston that he hated him to once a day.

Which he hadn't yet, so Winston was in a good mood thus far.

"Yes, you can go," Winston said, forcing a smile even though no part of him wanted to let Tristan out of his sight. "Do you need me to drop you off?"