"Uhh, friendship and more, sir," I saluted the hulking demon that took up the hallway, having bent down to prevent ceiling holes.

"Hey, Lee, can you-" my date, Raquel, said, before stopping. I couldn't see her face, but as she spoke, the voice grew chill. "Dad, what the fuck have I told you about harassing my dates? This is the fifth time this year! I want to have some fun nd maybe make new friends, but you always ruin it! Now get the fuck out of my house."

The demon shrank and tried to speak, "But Princess, -"

Raquel growled, "NOW." and I swear the lights went out for a second. The demon slunk away, before dissolving into a pinprick and a pop at the door.

I waited a minute, and then chuckled. "He seems nice," I mused.

Raquel slumped onto the breakfast bar, gently pounding the table section. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" She swivelled towards me and leaned back on it, grimacing. "I actually like you, Lee, but now I think you'll just be scared off, like the rest of the assholes. FUCK!"

I smiled, and cupped her cheek, looking into her blue-grey eyes. "Hey, at least I only said 'friendship and more'. I could have told him about the condoms, lube and flare gun." She laughed, a witchy sense to it, and I shivered. I pulled her close, feeling her push herself a touch into me. "There we go, now let's put on a schlocky horror film and critique them amusingly. And hey, maybe we could do this again, complete with demonic shouting match."

/ / / / / /

That had been six months ago.

Raquel had no right being this normal, compared to her hyper-religious mother Susan and her overprotective demon father, Myxng'hrtk. He was a chill demon, well worth putting up with the occasional intrusion. We all spend one night a month watching demon-based shows, mostly to see Myx rant on about how poor demon representation is - they're very funny rants, and I need to record them sometime, if only for Raquel and I to listen to.

So far everything has gone pretty well. I’d met Vikki at a conference at the university, she was closer to my age than a lot of the college age students-me being just out of the Army, and she’d spent time doing archaeological digs in Greece.

We got along well with some of the projects, and she suggested we get together after the semester ended for drinks. We hit it off fairly well, and after the first ‘date’ we scheduled a real one. It had gone pretty good so far, and we were tentatively probing when we could squeeze in a third date.

I was feeling pretty good as I went to wash my hands. Pizza is tasty but messy. I was just about to head back to the table when I smelled brimstone. The room seemed to spin and get smaller-no something much bigger was attempting to squeeze into the mens room. I turned around, staring at the chest of a hulking demon, arms like tree trunks, and eyes blazing.

“Just what are your intentions with MY daughter?!” he yelled, loud enough that I knew others outside the restroom had heard it. I was generally an intelligent dude, but at times, wasn’t smart. Plus I made this same mistake before.

“What the hell dude?” I yelled back at him, the demon blinking in surprise. “Look, she’s a lovely lady, but one, my intentions are totally honorable, and two, if you’re looking to ruin your relationship with your daughter you’re doing a bang up job of it!”

“What in the infernal do you mean-”

I held up my hands placatingly “look, I know you care about her-but I made the same mistake with my sister, and someone dating her. It took her almost five years to talk to me again, now how pissed is she going to be if she hears you yelling in here?”

The demon frowned.. “A lot. Look-”

“It’s only our second date. She’s got an early class tomorrow, I was going to drop her off at home soon. If you want to grill me without her finding out, I can meet you later.”

That was probably even dumber than telling him off. But I recognized the concerned look on his face. He crossed his arms, “the address is on your phone-be there no later than an hour after dropping her off.” with that he vanished with another stink of brimstone.

Crap. Fortunately this was one of the fancy Italian places that had lots of scent soaps..though it took me another five minutes to get enough of it on me. Still she kind of gave me the side eye as I came out. “Anything wrong?”

“Nah” I said, truthfully enough. Either it wasn’t gonna be wrong, or it wasn’t gonna matter afterwards.

45 minutes later she was home and I was pulling up to a Denny's about 20 miles outside the city on the interstate. The town Didn’t have a name, and oddly enough for a place like this, there was quite an assortment of vehicles outside. Harleys, sportbikes, an old BMW with a sidecar, Fords, Toyotas, even a horse and buggy and a 39 Packard. My Civic didn’t look too out of place, though

I figured it was the right place when I noticed the hostess working the register was slightly transparent, and dressed in a uniform that looked like it was from the early 70s. The decor matched at least, and Vikki’s father was easy to spot, looking comically large sitting in a booth at the end, the coffee mug looking like a kids cup. His horns almost hit the cheap chrome light fixture over the table

He looked up as I approached. “Wasn’t sure you were gonna show.”

“I’m a man of my word” I replied, taking the seat across from him.

“That's good, I hate having to chase down mortals.” he replied with a very sharp toothed grin. The phantom waitress drifted over, and I ordered coffee and a Superbird. She drifted off towards the kitchen ,and I waited for my coffee. It was a long day after all.

“So,” he finally said “you were right-if she kenned me there, she’d probably have thrown me through the wall.” he took a sip of coffee and chuckled “just like her mother.”

I simply nodded, as the waitress brought my own mug. “Like I said, I made that mistake myself. Sometimes you can’t save someone from bad choices. At least my sister realized hers was a bad choice after a few years.”

The Demon smirked “Before or after she forgave you?”

“Before, obviously. Some things mere males were not meant to poke their noses into.” I replied.

He laughed, his booming voice rattling the pans back in the kitchen, and causing some of the other diners to glance up at us. Our food came and we came to an understanding while we ate. I could date Vikki, but if I cheated on her, my soul would blister for a thousand lifetimes. Good thing I'm not a cheating type. We parted ways, and he paid for my meal, before climbing into the Packard and driving off.

I drove home in silence, pondering. Yeah, she was a literal half demon..but she did say her family was complicated. I guess we’ll hit a movie or something this weekend and see how it goes.

The man blindsided me, even through the flickering lights of the dingy bar I could tell he was one of them, but I respected the effort to blend in. In my defense, it’s virtually impossible for a human to be seven and a half feet tall with glowing eyes. He was impeccably well dressed, wearing a three piece suit that put anything I owned to shame. It was the kind of suit that was itself intimidating, even disregarding the fact that it was a demon wearing it, like he had specifically chosen the one that would make him look the most like an ‘I could off you whenever and wherever I feel like it’ mafia boss.

“Well sir,” I drew a shaky breath of suddenly frigid air, “I’m not entirely sure where it’s going, but ideally this’ll grow into a proper relationship. She’s just… I can’t describe how being close with her makes me feel”

“Very well, mister Banks. I have heard some about you from her, however I mustn’t tell you what. It’s more interesting that way, for us both.” An appropriately devilish grin crossed his face as the man faded from existence.

I wandered back to where Miya was sitting, apparently shaken as I sat at the counter and took a long sip of my drink. My date looked me up and down before putting a hand on my shoulder

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just a little tired”

“Did someone come up and hassle you?”

“Not exactly”

She was unsettlingly, unnaturally perceptive, but I guess I should expect that.

“Fuckin’ A, dad.” she groaned, barely audible over the music and chatter

I finished up my last round before heading out, while she pulled up in front of the bar. I hopped in, relishing the new car smell as it surrounded me. Resting my head against the window we set off, allowing me to drift into my own thoughts. I thought back to when I had first met her, how we got closer, and how I actually managed to ask her out. My train of thought was suddenly derailed by her asking me

“What’re you thinking about?”

“Eh, not much.” I replied, “Should we… make this like, a regular thing?”

“I’d love to~. Related, you wanna come back to my place?”

“Sure, why not”

Other cars zipped past on the other side of the highway, only given away by their headlights. Eventually we arrived at an apartment building, stepping into the elevator and making our way to the eighteenth floor. I threw some popcorn in the microwave as Miya scrolled through various movies and shows on Netflix, quietly swearing now and then since she wasn’t finding anything satisfactory. Eventually she landed on something, a favorite of mine. Sitting on the couch next to her, bowl of probably carcinogenic popcorn in hand, she rested her head on my shoulder as we watched. At that moment, all I could think of was that I didn’t want this feeling to end. A while later, she whispered “You’re really cute for a man~” and I was left wondering which meaning of ‘man’ she was going for

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