"You," I eyed Lucifer unbelievingly, "Need me to be your date?"
He raised an eyebrow, as if he couldn't see anything preposterous about his statement, and I scoffed.
"Why do you even need to enter a bargain for that? I mean," I looked around as if we were on a prank show and the camera crew was about to jump out any second, "You could clearly get anyone you want with those looks. Someone way better looking than I do!"
I stopped at that and scratched the top of my head.
Where was this self-degradation coming from?
He simply nodded along to my words, making me angrier with each passing minute.
This was his opening to say something around the lines of 'oh, but you look beautiful' or 'you're the only one I see' being the charming devil he was known to be, but he didn't say any of it.
Instead he said, "Well, it's just more convenient. It's a date to an ex-girlfriend's wedding, and she has very politely asked me to bring someone along who isn't a threat, you know."
My fists clenched and I spoke through my tight jaw, "And I am the most non-threatening person you found?"
"Darling, I absolutely love pissing Lilith off," he ran a finger across my cheek and tugged a strand of hair behind my ear, "I'm doing the exact opposite of what she wants me to."
"So, I am threatening?" I asked, trying my best to ignore the flight those damned butterflies took in my stomach.
He grinned, as if entirely aware of the effect his actions had on my body, "You are human, sweetheart. That is threatening enough for her."
I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to be pitted against another woman. (specially not the very first woman ever created, if legend was to be believed) However, my brain kept replaying Lucifer's words.
I was convenient. I was the closest option at the moment. And I was a threat because I was a human woman- one of the billions currently inhabiting the planet.
A part of me felt angry that I wasn't chosen for something a little more romantic and dramatic. The rest of my brain, however, rejoiced at the fact that I wouldn't have to give away my firstborn child in exchange of attending a family function with the devil himself.
"When is her wedding?" I asked.
He gave me a devastating smile, assuming that I had agreed to his terms.
In all fairness, I wasn't going to deny them, anyway, so his assumptions were as accurate as they could be. I wasn't going to get a better deal anywhere else.
"It's in two weeks-"
"Two weeks! That's like almost here!"
"-and I shall be by your side through it all, so you do not need to worry about the other demons."
I hadn't even considered the potential threat of going to a demonic wedding. I would definitely stand out as the only human in attendance.
No wonder Lilith didn't want a human at her wedding. It was the one time that the spotlight should entirely be on her, and the feeling that I would be responsible of turning her special day into one she did not want didn't sit very well with me.
"I don't want to ruin her wedding," I said at last, not meeting Lucifer's eyes.
All I could think about was Paris, and how excited she had been about being a bride. If someone tried to ruin that for her, I would ensure a one-way trip to hell (and now, I knew for a fact that it did exist) for myself with the actions I would take against them.
How could I possibly act in a similar fashion to destroy someone else's happiness?
Lucifer rolled his eyes, "What makes you think this is her first wedding? Ever since this wedding business came into existence, particularly the massive celebrations held for the royals up here on Earth, Lilith decided she would orchestrate her own weddings every few decades, with a new entity on her arm every time."
Oh.
I was still uncomfortable at the thought of being used against her, but the knowledge that this wasn't her only special 'big' day did help alleviate my previous worries.
Maybe the situation wasn't as bad as it seemed.
"What do you say?" He asked, almost seductively.
For some reason, Lucifer had begun to sound exactly like the Brazilian model I had been crushing on for the past few months. His English was impeccable, and yet, the pronounced accent was almost certainly there for all to hear.
What did the Bible say about demons from Brazil?
Lucifer patted my shoulder lightly, shaking me out of my thoughts about demons yelling in Portuguese while wearing colourful skirts and massive ornamental headgears, which was an unfair stereotype in all honesty, but the only one I had at the moment that did not involve a flashback to the Rio Olympics.
Apart from offending the mother of all demons, I did not really have much to loose.
"If we do this," I started, "We need to establish a few ground rules."
His hands went back to the remote.
I was about to throw another dramatic fit at his reaction, but he distracted me by searching 'To All The Boys I Have Loved Before' and clicking on it.
However, he paused it on the very first minute and turned his head to his right, facing me.
"They have a scene about rules, right?" He inquired, "We could create something similar if that is what you want."
I stared at him.
The amount of media in circulation about fake-dating tropes and never-sticking-around-for-too-long contracts was humongous, to say the least. Despite that, I could not think of a single one and figured I could give him credits for coming up with at least some suggestion.
I still wondered, "You have seen this movie before?"
He groaned, and I speculate about how sensitive of a topic this could be for him.
Maybe I am not the first person he has approached about this idea. He was perhaps turned down by another 'human-woman' at this point. Why else would the Lord of Hell spend his time watching high-school rom-coms?
"I had lost a bet."
"What kind of a bet led you to watching this particular rom-com?" I pried further.
It was fascinating to learn all these things about Lucifer. Every thing that came out of his sinning mouth only made him sound more and more human.
"The kind that actually made me watch the top hundred rom-coms of the past decade," he replied through gritted teeth. His tone indicated that he would much rather offer himself up to be boiled in hot oil than talk about this topic any longer.
"To All The Boys I Have Loved Before made the cut?" I wondered. It wasn't as if it was a bad movie. Hell, I had enjoyed it enough to able to re-watch it during girl's night with Paris and London. It was just that the early 2010s had pumped out a lot of romantic comedies.
"I did not really bother to check and just saw whatever was next recommended, darling," He said, rolling his eyes, "I wanted to go through that torture just once, thank you very much."
Torture?
I felt like pouting at his choice of words. Romantic-comedies often made me melancholic, and reminded me of happier times when my sisters and I lived together and bonded over illegally downloaded sappy films, and neither of them forced me to bring a date to their wedding which in turn made me get into the dark arts.
While I could understand not being overly fond of them, calling them downright torturous seemed excessive.
He seemed to gauge my mood accurately, "Watching a hundred films with the same four plots being overused around variations of the same ten names can make anyone loose their mind. Trust me."
Considering that even I liked to mix my watchlist up with occasional true crime documentaries, I figured I could let this slide. Despite his complaints, he clearly must have enjoyed a few of the movies he saw if he remembered enough to bring this particular film up.
I decided to move on, "Well, I don't think watching a couple of teenagers draft up a fake-dating contract will help us in anyway, but we'll keep the essence of it."
Getting up from the couch, I decided to pull out a notebook from the bookshelf, and pick up a pen from the pen stand on the coffee table. I heard Lucifer mutter, "I only turned on the movie to help you refresh your memory. I remember everything I ever see."
Of course.
Sighing to myself, I decided to sit down on the rug, across from Lucifer and facing my back to the TV screen, and kept the notebook on the coffee table, opening it up to an empty page.
"Let's get started, shall we?"