Page 15 of Far From Center
The women giggled. “Oh, that’s so funny. Isn’t he funny? What’s your name, gorgeous?”
Gabriel looked to Nyalla. “Gabriel, arch– just call me G-man.” Then he reached over and draped an arm across Nyalla’s shoulder. “And this is my female woman-type committed relationship person, Nyalla. We aren’t having sexual relations, but we have the emotional connection that human couples have. A bond. An exclusive bond. So I am unavailable to copulate with any other human.”
Oh by the Goddess, he was hiding behind her skirts.
“G-man doesn’t drink,” Nyalla announced. Then she grabbed the angel’s cheek and planted a quick kiss on his lips. “And yes, I am his girlfriend.”
He blinked at her in surprise, but didn’t protest at the physical display of affection. The two women turned around after retrieving their bottle, but still continued to send admiring glances behind them at the angel.
“Humans are very friendly,” he whispered to Nyalla. “Normally I can keep them at a distance, but I can tell that now they want to touch me all the time. It’s very disconcerting.”
“Keep scowling and you won’t have that problem,” she said.
“I’m not scowling,” he scowled.
She giggled. “No. Of course not. Mighty archangels don’t scowl. How silly of me.”
Terrelle and Snip joined in the rum-bottle passing fun, and by the time the bus pulled up at the corner, the two demons were half smashed. The pair barely made it down the bus steps without falling on their faces.
“Your bodyguards are impaired.” Gabriel frowned.
“They’re demons. They can sober up in a blink of an eye. I’d rather they blend in with the other tourists then have the four of us walk off a party bus looking like we were heading into a gunfight at the OK Corral.”
Because that’s how Gabriel looked. Was he always this way? Nyalla remembered Sam saying how humorless he was. Could she get him to smile? Or laugh? That might be her new life’s mission.
“Is this where we’re dining?” Snip clapped his hands together. “I love it. You always pick the best places, Nyalla.”
She smiled and took a notepad from her bag, flipping it to a page with the heading ‘Places to go and things to do in Aruba” and crossing an item off the list.
“They serve food here?” Gabriel asked.
She’d be the first to admit that the MooMba didn’t look like a restaurant. It was two side-by-side giant palapas, with conical grass roofs and thick wooden posts and beams. A circular bar took up the majority of one of the open-sided huts, with high-top tables around the edges of one palapa and low tables under the other. The whole place was lit up with tiny lights, music barely masking the sound of the surf. A few hundred feet of sand separated the MooMba from the water, a pier with shops and a bar visible just to the left. On either side of the huts were tree- and shrub-lined paths leading to the nearby hotels and the street.
“They have live music after sunset,” Nyalla announced. “And I read that their food is pretty good. It’s the atmosphere I was going for, though. Isn’t this cool?”
She watched Gabriel carefully, knowing the two demons would approve, but desperately wanting him to enjoy the evening. He’d probably never done this sort of thing before, and it was oddly important to her that he experience how much fun it could be to live as a human.
“The evening air combined with the breeze coming off the ocean does make it cool,” he said. “Of course, I appreciate the beauty of al fresco dining, especially so close to the ocean. And the primitive palapas with their rustic furnishings and décor give the place a pleasing ambiance.”
Nyalla guessed that was a close as she was ever going to get to approval from the angel. “I’m glad you like it. Now let’s get a table and order.”
Once seated, Nyalla took charge of the food, ordering ceviche to start, Argentinian chorizo for an appetizer, then a mix of seafood entries — grouper, golden snapper, sea bass, and shrimp. Gabriel stared at the table full of food, clutching his stomach.
“You need to eat,” Nyalla told him. “You’ll start feeling weak if you don’t.”
He scowled. “Angels…I mean, I don’t eat. I’m fasting right now. Maybe tomorrow. I just need…time.”
“So just water?” Terrelle waved a piece of chorizo right under the angel’s nose. “What a shitty place to go on a fast. The food here is amazing. I don’t know how you can stand to sit there and smell all of this and not at least take one teensy-eensy little bite.”
Gabriel’s jaw set and he swallowed. “I have incredible willpower as well as the ability to resist temptation. And I don’t need food.”
This had to stop or the stupid angel was going to be dead of starvation before the week was out. Of course, now wasn’t the time to get into a quarrel with Gabriel. She’d wait until Terrelle and Snip were gone and they were alone before she put forth her very convincing argument on why he should give in to his human needs, and how ‘sin’ had very different definition now that he was no longer an angel. With demons, any contract had to be worded just so. She was used to finding verbal loopholes and this would be no different. In the meantime, she intended to enjoy every bite of this amazing grouper.
“So what’s our plan for tomorrow night?” Terrelle asked. The information demon was eyeing Gabriel oddly, as if she suspected the truth. Wonderful. Nyalla would need to bribe her to keep the secret if the demon found out. Not that bribery would be a problem, but Gabriel would no doubt have worries that the demon would let what had happened to him slip out at a very inopportune moment. Honestly, she had the same worries.
“We get to Charlie’s early and get settled in. You two hang out by the bar or something while I speak to the Gormand. That way you’re close enough if I need you.”
“He’ll still sense us,” Snip said. “He’ll know we’re in the bar, and he knows about me. He probably knows about Terrelle, too. Demons do their homework, especially when doing deals like this. We’d need to be halfway across the island for him not to know we’re with you.”
