TW: some mild cussing

……………………….

“So,” Rosie started, already embarrassed. “I might have gotten off to a rocky start here,” she said.

Most of the information in the pamphlet was stuff she already knew, either from deliberate research or just picking up tidbits from documentaries. But she had never heard some of it before, and she felt ignorant. Rosie hated feeling ignorant.

Droya was in the oversized chair again, his tail draped over the side. Zete sat cross-legged on a small table, under a silk-shaded lamp.

Rosie considered how to proceed.

“I, uh, didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable,” she said. “I’ll try to do better.”

Droya chuckled, then suddenly slapped a hand over his mouth and his eyes flew wide. Zete turned and shot him a glare.

“I didn’t mean to laugh at you, Miss Everley,” he spat out urgently. “Please do not take offense. I meant nothing.”

Rosie couldn’t help but smile at his discomfort.

“It’s just Rosie. And it’s all right to laugh at me,” she said with a sigh. “I deserve it. I… I honestly don’t know what I was even thinking, coming here. I don’t belong here. I’m going to completely screw up this interview already, I can tell. It’s going to be a disaster.”

Droya and Zete stared at her in shock.

“You…” Droya said, and trailed off. “You are…” then he said a word in Hellish. It sounded like Hellish always sounded to Rosie, half growl and half hiss, with too many consonants.

Zete nodded. “He says you are very candid in your speech.”

Rosie shrugged. “I guess I am,” she said. “Is that bad?”

“It’s… unusual,” Droya said. He tilted his head at her like a dog trying to figure out the source of a strange sound. Then he smiled abruptly, his sharp teeth shining. “I like it,” he said.

Zete shook their head and took flight, hovering a few feet from Rosie and looking her in the eye. “I find it refreshing as well,” they said, “but I would advise speaking in a more controlled fashion at the interview.”

Rosie felt her face reddening again and she hung her head. She had never blushed so much in her life. She thought she might die of embarrassment before she even got a chance to interview.

“You’re right,” she said. She forced a smile onto her ruddy face and looked back up at them. She pictured her mom’s face in her mind and held onto it like a talisman. “I’ve got to try,” she said. “If you don’t mind me asking… have there been many other applicants?”

Zete and Droya shrugged.

“You’re the only one we were hired to serve. If there were others, they had different staff,” Droya said.

“Ah,” said Rosie. She glanced around the room. “Well… should we eat?”

The cart had been delivered while Rosie was still showering, and everything on it was mysteriously covered. Rosie was curious to see what was under the silver domes. She could make out some familiar smells, but she wasn’t sure.

Droya hopped up and brought the cart to the small dining table that Rosie hadn’t even realized was there. She followed him and watched as he placed the trays on the table, and she started removing the covers. There was a little tea light candle in a small silver votive on the cart, and after Droya moved it to the table, Rosie picked it up and blew it out, then put it back down. Droya didn’t say anything.

There was so much food! The biggest cheeseburger she had ever seen, surrounded by a small ocean of steak fries and onion rings. A stack of pancakes as big as her head, smothered in butter, topped with whipped cream and fresh blueberries, with a pitcher of syrup nearby. A whole roast chicken, stuffed with savory bread and vegetables, the skin crispy and golden brown. A large pepperoni pizza. An ice cream sundae.

Rosie started to giggle and couldn’t stop. She doubled over and had to brace herself on the side of the table.

“Ah,” Zete said uncertainly. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I just ordered the human sampler. Is everything all right?”

Rosie couldn’t make words. She had started to cry from how hard she was laughing, and she just waved her hand at Zete, unable to answer. The two othersiders watched her awkwardly as she laughed herself out.

It took a minute.

She grabbed a napkin off the table to wipe her face.

“This is more than I usually eat in a week,” she told them. “I’ve been living off instant noodles and cheese sandwiches for… years, I guess. This is just… it’s so… much. I feel like I’m being tricked somehow.” She looked at Droya with glistening eyes. The dark gray man’s face was frozen in astonishment. “Am I being tricked?” she asked him.

He stepped closer to her smoothly and reached out, seemingly in a trance. His rough, clawed hand cupped her cheek tenderly, his eyes glittering where the silver flecks hid in the turquoise. She could see just a tiny bit of white, like crescent moons, peeking out from the corners of his eyes.

“If you are being tricked, then I am being tricked as well,” he said, his voice low and breathy. Then he fell over sideways as Zete knocked into the side of his head at full speed.

“Inappropriate!” Zete squeaked angrily.

“Hey!” Droya growled, rubbing the side of his head. “Could you please pick a different spot next time?!”

Rosie fell into giggles again and had to sit down. Droya picked himself up and took a seat on another side of the table, apologizing to Rosie again for his bad behavior.

“We’re both learning,” she said, waving off his apology. Zete perched on the back of another chair in a huff. Rosie gave up on not blushing, and just sighed. She ogled the spread on the table, avoiding looking at Droya. She knew better than to get attached to new people so quickly, but she really liked these two.

Rosie picked at the cheeseburger platter, eating some fries and cutting off part of the burger to make it more manageable. She was deep into a big bite of the heavenly blend of cheese, beef, onion, salt, grease, lettuce, and ketchup when she realized that Droya and Zete were both just watching her eat in silence. She coughed a little, trying not to choke, and finished her bite, grabbing a napkin to wipe ketchup from her lip.

“Please eat!” she said. “I can’t possibly eat all this myself.”

Droya couldn’t help himself, he wrinkled his lip in disgust.

“Miss Rosie,” Zete said, “this is human food. It does not taste good to us, at all.”

“Oh,” Rosie said, sitting back in the fancy dining chair. “Well you should order food for yourselves! Aren’t you hungry?”

The two othersiders exchanged glances.

Droya cleared his throat. “We would, but the Cainella House is… expensive. Our meals are not covered as part of our stay here.”

Rosie was aghast. She suddenly didn’t want any of the glorious food in front of her.

“Well,” she said. “That’s ridiculous. That’s… that’s stupid.”

She pressed her lips together angrily and stood up from the table, throwing her napkin on top of the cheeseburger.

“Let’s go somewhere we can all eat, then,” she said.

Droya and Zete didn’t move.

“Miss Rosie,” Zete said hesitantly.

Rosie turned to him sharply, full of indignation at the treatment of her “staff.”

“It’s JUST ROSIE,” she told him, a little too loudly. “And I will NOT be treated like a spoiled princess while you two sit here and watch me eat because of something as stupid as MONEY. Now get whatever you need to get to go out, because you’re taking me out to eat. Now. No more of this fancy bullshit. I haven’t even seen any of Hell yet because I passed out and now I’m in this weird hotel. If I’m going this far out of my comfort zone and this far from Earth just to bomb an interview, I’m damn well going to learn something about Hell while I’m here.”

She finished her tirade glaring at Droya, whose turquoise eyes had become nearly human, with white sclera surrounding a circle of turquoise in the center. There was no pupil, but she could tell now that he was staring directly at her. When his eyes were full turquoise, it was impossible to tell exactly what he was looking at.

Zete noticed the two were locking eyes, and they zoomed over and bopped Droya on the head again, this time on the other side, out of politeness.

“Inappropriate,” they hissed at their co-worker. Droya didn’t even look upset this time, and didn’t apologize either; he just stood up and went to his room without saying a word.

Zete looked at Rosie, who was taking deep breaths to calm herself, and they cleared their throat, but said nothing. Zete wasn’t really sure what to say. Rosie wasn’t anything at all like what they expected upon being hired to serve a human that would be staying at Cainella. She wasn’t anything they ever could have expected.

Droya emerged from his room with his turquoise eyes back to normal, carrying a small messenger bag and wearing a jaunty black hat. He stopped by the door and tilted his head at Rosie and Zete.

“Are we going?” he asked.

Rosie’s electric anger had faded, to be replaced with trepidation and more embarrassment at having gone off like she did. But she didn’t regret anything she had said.

“Let’s go,” she said.