Teacher

I blinked hard at the regal figure standing at my threshold, the sunlight outlining the oh-so-perfect patrician contours of his face. "You want me to teach you?"

Raw need glittered in Jareth's eyes. "Do you want me to beg you, Sarah?"

I crossed my arms. "The thought occurred. But maybe you'd start by just saying plainly what you want."

His jaw tightened with outraged pride.

I snorted. I didn't have time for this Fae nonsense. "Or I could just shut this door. Your call."

He managed to open his mouth enough to grit out a reply. "You are a cruel, cruel woman."

Ha! "Learned from the best." I made a gimme motion with my hands. "Out with it."

After a long moment, he mutely extended his palm faceup. In it lay a shiny new smartphone glistening like a gem. It had a very slight crack on the edge.

I whistled. "Fancy."

He growled. "Might as well be a rock for all the use I can get out of it." He sneered at the crack. "A slippery rock."

I raised an eyebrow. "You know these things are designed to be intuitive, right? Like, they literally employ tons of people to make the user interface easy to use."

His face could have given a category 5 hurricane a run for its money. "And yet."

"Right. So, what will you give me if I teach how to use your lovely new smartphone?"

And now his face was a match for an apocalyptic cataclysm. "So you want to bargain. After all I've given you."

I shrugged. I'd seen the Stare of Doom before. "Learned from the best, O Generous One. You'd be disappointed if I didn't press my advantage. And you'd tell me so later. At length."

A half-smile burst like a ray of sunlight from him. "True."

"How about if I show you how to work your smartphone, you actually respond to my texts?"

He tilted his head. "That's it?"

"Don't tempt me. And don't you dare lecture me later about weak proposals. You're getting a deal because we're friends."

"And because you don't like using crystals in public for instantaneous communication."

"That too." I moved out of the doorway. "So, are you coming in for your lesson?"

He gave me a jaunty little half-bow and walked in.

I let my eyes drift over the lines of his perfectly tailored pants as he made a beeline for the kitchen. A girl might as well enjoy the aesthetic Fae bounty offered to her if she was going to suffer through a Smartphones for N00bs crash course. "Put the tea kettle on, would you? I've got a great new mint that I think you'll like."

"As you wish."