“Sure. I’ll see you later, then.”
“Okay! See you at lunch!”
When he was finally back in his office alone, he leaned against his door with a long sigh. The morning had been beyond chaotic. He needed a project to work on to get his head on straight.
Determined to get back to work and put all the distractions aside, he marched over to his desk, only to stop cold when he noticed the spread on top. Someone, he assumed Peri, and made him breakfast, with a toasted bagel and cream cheese, a muffin, and even a yogurt. The coffee was probably cold at this point, but there was also a bottle of water and a cup of what looked like juice. It was a lot, and he wasn’t sure what to think about it. No one had ever gone to that kind of effort for him. Especially when he hadn’t exactly been that nice since meeting the fairy. If anything, he’d been standoffish and a little awkward. He wasn’t used to people doing nice things for him.
Unwilling to let the kind gesture go to waste, he sat down to eat, using a little demonic magic to warm things back up. The meal improved his mood, and he made a mental note to say thanks when he met up with Peri again. Because apparently he was enough of a sucker for a pout that he’d offered to go to lunch when he really should have been putting distance between them after what had happened that morning.
He’d need to come up with some way to keep his distance without upsetting the sweet man. He got the feeling that would be even harder to figure out than any of his past projects combined.
He was still tryingto come up with an excuse when the lunch hour rolled around and Peri knocked on his door. Wash appreciated that he never entered without permission at least. When he opened it, Peri was waiting for him, bouncing on his toes and smiling brightly. He looked better than before, the tear tracks gone and his clothes back to rights. Even his hair was styled to perfection, curling by his ears and shimmering in the sunlight.
“Hey. Is now a good time?” Peri asked hopefully.
“Now is fine,” he grumbled, closing his door and locking it behind him. Ever since the coup, he’d been overly vigilant about his office. Not all of his projects were for clients, and he didn’t trust people not to steal his ideas.
The elevators were crowded, as usual, so Wash decided to skip them, heading to the attached balcony instead. The research floor was high enough to allow anyone with the ability to fly to launch and land from the balcony. He didn’t use it often, he teleported between home and his office to avoid the crowds, but he had a limitation with teleporting where he could only teleport to somewhere he’d been before or was summoned to. He had no idea where Peri wanted to go, so flying was easier.
“Um…” Peri looked a little uncertain when they stood near the edge of the balcony, frowning at the distance to the street below.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing…” Peri’s frown deepened. “It’s just… I’m not sure my wings can handle this height. I’m worried I wouldn’t be able to slow down.”
Ah. He hadn’t considered that. The fragility of fairy wings wasn’t something he’d looked into before. He thought he remembered someone mentioning a project for it, but it wasn’t one of his, so he didn’t do the background research on it.
Unwilling to face the crowds, Wash instead offered to teleport them to the ground. Peri looked curious, taking his hand when Wash offered it.
“Really? You can do that?”
Wash shrugged. “All demons can. Some mages too, with the right spells.”
“Wow, I didn’t knowthat–” He squeaked the last word when Wash teleported them to the ground floor, plastering himself against Wash’s side in shock. Wash winced. The first teleportation could be a little disconcerting, so he’d thought it would be easier to do it without warning. He hadn’t meant to scare the poor fairy.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
It surprised him when Peri started to laugh, eyes wide with a huge grin on his face. “That was a shock! I thought you’d need more spell casting or something. You can really just teleport with a thought?”
He seemed excited instead of upset, and Wash’s shoulders came down as he relaxed again. “Yes. As long as I’ve been there before, I can teleport wherever I want to go.”
Peri pursed his lips thoughtfully before asking, “Have you ever been to the starlight realm? I’ve always wanted to go but it’s too far away.”
Wash felt his lips twitched as he fought off a smirk. “No. But I’ve been to the station with the portal to the starlight realm in it.”
Peri’s eyes lit up, and Wash could tell it was on the tip of his tongue to ask to go, but before he could, a golem came out of the main door of Spellbound, getting a little too close to the both ofthem as he headed down the street. With Peri already clinging to him, it was easy to teleport them out of the way, and Peri was laughing when they popped up closer to the parking lot and out of the way.
“That makes my stomach flip every time. I’m a little jealous, teleporting is fun.”
Would he admit out loud that he preferred flying but avoided it because of the ridicule he received in the past? Never. If Peri preferred teleporting, it only worked out for Wash.
“We’ll teleport back upstairs after lunch,” he promised. “Where is it that you wanted to go?”
Peri finally pulled away, which was disappointing, but he didn’t go too far, one hand still resting on Wash’s chest as he looked around. He pointed across the street kitty corner to where they were standing at a little shop with a line out front.
“That one. Apparently it’s really popular.”
Wash tried his best not to grimace. That was clear just by the line. He wasn’t a huge fan of lines, he had too much to do to waste time waiting when a microwave meal was faster and easier, but he’d promised Peri they’d go to lunch, so instead of heading back upstairs, he trudged across the street to join the long line. He kept an eye on Peri, making sure no one got too close, but Peri seemed oblivious, smiling and waving at everyone he recognized on the way there.