'The Snow-Devil' by Amanda Jones

 

Snow. By the time they’re seated, it’s full-blast. When Sophie swiped right, she hadn’t envisaged this. Dinner in a Michelin-starred restaurant, miles out of town. He offered to pay for cabs so she could travel separately. She said they would go together, so he collected her in his Daemon.

 

The restaurant is one she would have conjured herself – paneling gleaming in the lamplight, crisp linen, smiling staff. He orders Bloody Marys, shrimps and turbot for her, oysters and rare steak for him, insists she tries the dripping meat when it arrives. When he goes outside to smoke, she follows him for air, breathes in the bitter aroma and coughs, even though he has put the cigarette out. They take their time over dessert and coffee, and, when they go back to the car, it is entirely white, a coffin-shaped hump amongst more rounded ones.

 

He says that they are stranded, he’ll get rooms, don’t worry, he’ll pay and, of course, they will be separate, but she still goes with him to check. The receptionist smiles knowingly and offers them two separate keys, saying the numbers under her breath, and they have a final brandy and go up in the lift together.

 

When they get upstairs, Sophie realises the numbers are meaningless -  they are adjoining rooms with a connecting door - and she sees his smile and wonders if he knew. At least there is a key to the connecting door, so she locks it, thinks about moving something in front of it, but decides that’s overkill,  that it will be fine.

 

Next door, he blows lazy smoke rings and laughs, glad there’s no cigarette, glad he doesn’t need one, because devils don’t, and he decides to wait an hour before going next door.