Ella jumped out of the limo and ran into Lux, ignoring all the glitterati in line. The doorman saw her coming and waved her through, much to the chagrin of the other "beautiful" people. She ignored them all.
She ran down the stairs as fast as her heels would let her, and headed straight for the bar. There was Jerry! He waved at her as he filled the many glasses in front of him. Ella looked for a seat but they were all taken. She needed to sit near him! How else could they talk?
Lucifer and Chloe strolled in behind her, arm in arm, as if they owned the place.
Which they did.
Lucifer grabbed a drink from a passing server and looked around him. He saw Ella looking hopelessly at the full bar and caught her eye. He motioned to the table that was always kept available for him, and she nodded gratefully. Ella saw Lucifer motion to Jerry and then a minute later he was at the table with a tequila sunrise and shot of Patron. She smiled at him and then time stopped again as their eyes met, but this time he broke away.
"Sorry," he said, "Gotta work." He hustled back to the bar. It was just after one and Last Call would be in thirty minutes. Ella understood.
Chloe sat down next to her, and a server brought her the usual: Macallan 25 Year. She smiled thanks.
Lucifer headed to the piano and tapped the mic. "Hello, ladies and gentlemen," he said. "Tonight is a very special night for me. I'm getting married!" The patrons clapped and cheered. "So … drinks are on the house for the rest of the night." The cheers grew louder.
Ella looked at Chloe. "Hard to believe this place makes any money, what with Lucifer giving away all the booze."
Chloe smiled. "It doesn't. We never make a profit and Lucifer doesn't care. He just likes having a party going when he wants one."
Ella's eyebrows raised at that. She had always figured that Lucifer made his money from the club; it was interesting to learn that it was a money-loser for him.
Lucifer's fingers started to move along the piano keys. Ella couldn't tell what was coming, and then it was … John Legend's "All of Me." She loved that song!
She and Chloe listened to Lucifer play and sing. He was singing to the house, but they both knew he was really singing to Chloe.
You're my downfall, you're my muse
My worst distraction, my rhythm and blues
Ella saw Chloe tear up. If anybody ever sang that song to her the way Lucifer was singing it right now, she would definitely do the same thing. Dang, that man can sing!
The song ended and Lucifer segued into another one. He is having so much fun tonight, Ella thought. And why not? For him, everything was coming up Chloe. Ella smiled at her little internal pun.
Jerry called Last Call and, as usual, everybody crowded the bar, trying to get their last drink order in. The fact that tonight's drinks were on the house only added to their urgency. Lyft and Uber were going to be busy in an hour.
She and Chloe sat there, sipped their drinks, and listened to Lucifer as he played several of the Standards. They heard "All or Nothing at All," "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered," and "Blue Moon." From the look on Chloe's face, Ella figured that he might have just figured out the best foreplay in the world, because she looked like she was going to show him just how much she loved him as soon as he was done playing.
Finally, Lux closed for the night. The blinged-out patrons finished their drinks and departed, some to go home and others to go to some other place—probably the place where tonight's pick-up lived. Chloe went to join Lucifer at the piano, and whispered in his ear. His eyes widened and he smiled. He looked around him, caught Ella's eye, and tilted his head: Goodnight.
Chloe put her arm around his shoulder, moved his hand back up to her hip, and mouthed goodnight to Ella. Ella wouldn't describe their departure as hurried, not exactly. But their departure was definitely purposeful, with no wasted motion—not unlike a big ship with full sails catching the wind. She wished them well!
As Jerry finished cleaning-up, Ella tried to make sense of her night. What a crazy night it had been!
She thought about what she had learned tonight. First, Rae-Rae was real! Ella had always known she was real but, over the years, a dozen psychiatrists and therapists and counselors had worked hard to persuade her otherwise. It felt good to have her friends—people she respected—tell her that not only had they seen Rae-Rae, but that they'd interacted with her, just as Ella had.
What had Maze said? I don't call her Rae-Rae, I'm not family. What did that mean? As Ella thought about Maze's words, the first answer was that, if Rae-Rae was just a nickname, that meant she had a full, more formal name—and that was the name that Maze called her by. Ella wondered what that name could be.
The second thing Ella thought about was Maze's words: I'm not family. And then Amenadiel had said that Rae-Rae was his younger sister. And Lucifer's sister, as well! The three of them were family but Maze was not. That meant Maze didn't have wings and feathers, Ella supposed. But what else could it mean?
Amenadiel and Lucifer were brothers. They had always said so, and Ella had just accepted their words. Probably adopted, or so she had thought. But now … she wasn't so sure. If wings and feathers were involved, then maybe skin color didn't matter so much to these … creatures. Whatever they were. Creatures not of this earth, or at least not of the terrestrial food chain. The Impossible Feather had proven that.
And Rae-Rae was their sister. She had wings and feathers, too, though she'd never shown them to Ella. What was up with that? Why pretend to be a ghost instead of … whatever she was?
Rae-Rae had claimed to be a ghost because that would be easier for Ella to believe, easier for her to believe than whatever the truth really was. And she wasn't an extraterrestrial. That theory had cratered quickly. Maze falling out of her chair, laughing at Ella, had pretty much put a stake in that theory.
Put a stake in it …
No, this isn't Buffy, Ella told herself. She didn't buy the three of them as immortal vampires, living among humans. Though come to think of it, Lucifer had often claimed to be immortal, and Chloe had bonded to him as if … no, forget it. That's as crazy as the space alien theory!
Lucifer always told the truth, or so he often proclaimed. Especially after spouting one of his crazy assertions. I'm the Devi! I'm immortal! I'm invulnerable! The dude was definitely loco but still, Chloe had fallen for him. Hard.
Chloe was about the most level-headed person Ella had ever met. Maybe Linda came close. But Chloe was always about holding her emotions in check and using her brain. Ella knew that Chloe wasn't as good at pushing her emotions to the side as she pretended. She knew that Lucifer had hurt her plenty over the past five years. What a roller-coaster relationship! But if level-headed Chloe had fallen for Lucifer, that had to say something about him. She must have seen beneath his loco words to see his heart, and found his heart to be worthy of love.
Or maybe she was just horny. The woman hardly ever got any action, despite Ella's encouragement.
Sometimes people just got horny, Ella knew. Hormones plus self-delusion. God knew that she, herself—
"Hey, Ella!" Jerry said, interrupting her reverie. She looked up and there were those deep green eyes, like emeralds. She just looked into them without saying anything. He must have felt the same thing, too, because he sat down without breaking eye contact. He picked up her hand and held it.
"Uh, how was your night? Did you do that thing you had planned after our dinner date?"
Ella kept looking into his eyes while the clean-up crew bustled around them. "Yeah, I went to a small party, you know? Lucifer hosted it. Didn't tell anybody what it was about, just a party. Dress up, he said. And then we got there and he and Chloe came in, along with her mom and Trixie, her daughter. They had just gotten engaged! So it turned out to be an engagement party …"
While she'd been talking, Jerry had been stroking her hand, softly, rhythmically, up and down. Just with the tips of his fingers. While their eyes were locked together.
Ella found that she'd run out of words. Green eyes, stroking her hand with the tips of his fingers, so softly. She was in another place. A place where words didn't matter, only feelings did.
Finally, she found some words. She cleared her throat and said, "Jerry, do you have any birth control on you right now?"
"What? Uh, no. Not on me. Not right now."
"Then you better stop stroking my hand. Because if you keep on doing what you're doing … I'm going to jump you right here and now. Right on the table in the middle of Lux. And that shouldn't happen unless you have birth control. Am I getting through?"
He dropped her hand. "Yeah. Um, sorry."
"Oh, don't be sorry. Just, well, next time be prepared, okay?"
"Right." He paused. "Ella, I don't know what's happening here. With us. I mean, this is crazy, right? You have to feel the same way I do. I mean, we just had our first date a few hours ago, and then our first kiss, and now … well, don't you think we're moving too fast?"
Ella nodded. "I agree. We are moving crazy fast. It doesn't make any sense to me, either." She picked up his hand and held it. "My head is telling me to slow down, but my heart won't let me."
"Mine either. Here's the thing, though. Until I met you, I had my life planned out pretty well. Law school and Lux. In that order. I had my priorities, you know? There really wasn't room for anything else. And now you're here and everything's turned upside down. And it scares me."
"Me too, Jer," she said. "I'm like this dorky science nerd who likes to solve puzzles, usually involving dead people. I've had a string of bad relationships with the wrong people. My last boyfriend was a real doozy, let me tell you!" She started to stroke his hand with the tips of her fingers. "So I told myself to slow down, create some space, and try to figure out what I'd been doing wrong for so many years. And then I met you, and all my stupid plans are suddenly worthless. All I want to do is spend more time with you—"
"Time that I don't have. I don't have time to be your boyfriend. At least not for another year. Maybe a year-and-a-half."
"I get it. I really do," she said. "And I feel kind of the same way. I don't want to jump into a relationship right now. At least, that's what my head is telling me." She kept gently stroking his hand, the way he had stroked her hand a few minutes before.
"Do you think you can wait around for a year, so that I can finish law school and take the bar?"
"Well, I can try. I mean, it's not like you have any competitors at the moment, you know?"
He nodded. "Well, there's one more thing we have to discuss."
"What's that?"
"I have birth control back in my apartment. And if you come home with me, we'll get a chance to see if I have enough in stock."
She smiled, and kept stroking his hand. "What about studying?"
He sighed. "Well, it's not like I'm going to sleep tonight anyway. Either I toss and turn all night, thinking about you, or else …"
She nodded. "I understand. I wouldn't want you to toss and turn all night."
Their departure wasn't hurried, not exactly. But their departure was definitely purposeful, with no wasted motion—not unlike a big ship with full sails catching the wind.
They departed together, hand in hand.