Page 76 of Grave Humor

“Alas, I do not have freckles he could count.”

“Such a pity. I’m sure you’ll come up with something appropriately alluring.”

“Why are we killing the plants here?” Eoghan asked.

“We’re going to picnic, and we need a cleared space to picnic. This space has been selected. Wait here.” I headed back to the truck, loaded up on as much as I could carry, and dragged it over to the chosen picnic location. Three trips later, I went to work laying out the blanket on the space Darlene had cleared away. “It’s not perfect, but once the back yard is properly maintained, we can just come out here, toss down a blanket, and enjoy ourselves.”

“I see.” After a moment of hesitation, Eoghan joined me on the blanket. “And we do what?”

“Eat food, talk, and be merry. That sort of thing. Mostly, we eat. If we’re lucky, we’ll get some entertainment to go with the food.” I dug through my food purchases and revealed a cutting board and three honey rocks. “It’s not a picnic without honey rocks.”

Darlene killed the motor on the weed whacker, set it down, and stared at me as though I’d lost my mind. “You got one cantaloupe per person?”

I shrugged. “I’m certainly going to eat one by myself, and I will bring severe injury to any who try to take a piece of mine. I made the purchase with the safety of others in mind.”

She laughed. “And I thought I was bad about coffee. That’s adorable.” She brushed the grass off her clothes and joined us on the blanket. “Picnicking in any one of the hells isn’t really an option, although I might have to make a nice space in my snow lounge to do this. He’ll hate it, and as such, I’ll love it.”

The devil popped into being, and he held a tray of iced coffees, which he offered to his wife. “What are you doing to our house now?”

“Figuring out how to picnic,” she replied, smiling as she accepted the coffees. “You had no idea what they wanted, so you got everyone what I like?”

“Precisely. I’m the Lord of Lies, not the Lord of Putting in Extra Effort. You should know this by now, my darling. The only one I put in extra effort for is you, and I do so grudgingly and with the expectation of my good behavior going towards permission to count your spots.”

To some, love looked like roses and sweet nothings. To others, it was bickering and posturing with secret smiles.

To my amazement, I found the devil’s odd brand of love to be far more genuine than the pretty lies.

The devil winked at me. “Just for that, I have good news for you.”

“Must you always read people’s minds?” Darlene complained, reaching across the blanket to smack her husband’s leg. “You’re so bad.”

“In this case, yes. She thought something complimentary about me. You know I need to be praised, my darling. I’ll surely expire if I don’t receive sufficient attention and an opportunity to count your lovely spots. I am ruthlessly using Anwen to secure my opportunity to count spots tonight.”

“You’re obsessed.” Darlene squared her honey rock on the cutting board and slammed the poor knife through it, chopping it in half with no sign of effort. “Just handcuff them together and cheat.”

“They don’t have appropriate living arrangements for that quite yet, darling. We don’t want to traumatize their vampire friend.”

Eoghan raised a brow, but as he looked more amused than alarmed, I decided to say nothing and pretend they weren’t discussing how we should be spending our time together.

Then again, I thought dragging Eoghan to my bed would be a very good use of my time.

I had more problems than I could shake a stick at, but in good news, the decrepit ruins of my parents’ house wasn’t one of those problems.

Darlene scowled and eyed the hole that had once been my parents’ house. “You make a good point. When you cheat, the couple does tend to embarrass anyone who knows them for a few days. But they’d like it.”

“You can also cheat, my darling.”

“You cheat better than I do, and I’m displaying my spots for you right now.”

“I do find the presence of spots to be highly encouraging. You should encourage me.”

“You promised me entertainment today. Until I’m properly entertained, I am not sharing my spots with you.”

“But I want them,” the devil whined.

“So needy. Entertainment first. Those are the rules.”

“That implies I get to count spots today.”