Page 40 of Cat’s Guide To Romance

Gabe nearly chokes on his drink. “You work in a club. And you don’t think running one keeps someone busy?”

Lark snorts because he and Pike own Flutter and Fangs. Of course, I know running a club keeps someone busy. I hear about it from them. I shove another piece of muffin into my mouth so I don’t have to answer.

The bell jingles again. I don’t look. I do not fucking look. Fine. I look. Still not Lucien. Ugh. I’m not chasing a demon. I want that established. I’m checking on someone who has been hanging around me every day and then mysteriously disappeared. That is a perfectly reasonable thing for a friend to do. Are Lucien and I friends? I don’t know. Whatever. But now I need to investigate what’s going on with Lucien.

The Rot isn’t open yet when I get there, but that doesn’t stop me. I knock on the heavy door and wait. When no one answers, I knock again.

Eventually, it cracks open, and Lars peers out at me. His eyebrows shoot up. “Sparkle?” He looks behind me like he expects someone else to be standing there, then back at me. “What are you doing here?”

“Wow. What a warm welcome.”

“No, I didn’t mean...” Lars shakes his head and opens the door farther. “Come in.”

The energy of The Rot is completely different without hundreds of bodies filling it. The main lights are on instead of the colorful club lighting, and someone is cleaning behind the bar. Ryan sits at one of the tables with his headphones around his neck and his laptop open in front of him. He looks up, glances at Lars, then back at me.

“Oh. What’s up, kitty?”

I narrow my eyes. “Only Lucien gets to call me that.”

Ryan’s mouth drops open, and Lars makes a choking noise beside me. It takes two seconds for me to realize what I just said, and heat rushes into my face.

“Shut up. Both of you. Where’s Lucien?”

Their amusement fades so quickly that my stomach flips. Ryan looks at Lars before Lars finally answers.

“He had to take care of something.”

“What kind of something?”

Lars shrugs. “Demon shit.”

“He’s fine,” Ryan says, turning in his chair to face me. “Or he was last time we heard from him.”

My ears flatten. “When was that?”

“Yesterday.”

Okay. Yesterday is fine. Yesterday means Lucien hasn’t fallen into a demon volcano or been eaten by something horrible. Does the demon realm have volcanoes? Not important right now.

“When is he coming back?” I ask.

Lars shrugs. “Hopefully today.”

They both cringe. That does not sound good. I look around the empty club, then back at Lars. There’s no reason I have to stay here. I can go home and text Lucien like a normal person instead of lurking around his workplace waiting for him to magically appear.

“Can I wait?”

Both of them smile, and I immediately point at them. “Don’t.”

Ryan holds up his hands while Lars gestures toward the bar. “Want something to drink?”

“Yes, please.” I climb onto a stool and make myself comfortable.

Waiting is boring. I don’t know how Lucien sat in Wick’s for hours waiting for me because I’ve only been at The Rot for an hour, and I’ve already spun around on the barstool enough times to make myself dizzy.

Eventually, I help Lars restock the bar. Then Ryan asks if I want to hear the new mix he’s working on, so I awkwardly wear his headphones and listen while he messes with something on his laptop. After that, I wander around the club and look at things I’ve never really noticed when the place is packed. I even go outside and stare at the building again. Lucien really does need to repaint the fucking thing. At least a repaint because everything’s starting to chip.

By the time the club opens, he’s still not back. I should leave, but I don’t. I have nowhere else I need to be.