"This is nice," Susan said as she sipped her drink. It was another one of those fancy fruity cocktail things, full of rum and fruit juice with a wedge of pineapple on the side of the glass.

I frowned, "You mean the drink? Or the restaurant?"

She rolled her eyes and her foot nudged my leg under the table, "No silly, I mean the two of us going out on a date!"

My giggle told her I knew what she meant all along. I nodded, "Yeah. Usually it's all three of us. And maybe that'll become all four, if Amber keeps spending more time with us. But you're right, this is nice."

It was Saturday night, Melissa was out on business and Amber was home with her family. Instead of having another quiet night in at the apartment me and Susan decided to do something fun together.

The location wasn't anything special, we were at the same restaurant next to the mall where we had our first date back at the start of November. We were sitting in a small booth in the 'tavern' side, I had a vodka cooler and she was drinking some kind of fancy cocktail, and the two of us were making small-talk as we waited for our food to arrive.

I had another sip of my cooler, then frowned and looked at Susan as I asked "You don't regret becoming part of the group do you? I mean, instead of being a couple? Like if Amber does start spending more time with us, it'll be even more crowded..."

"No Mara," she smiled and shook her head. "No regrets at all. I'm honestly really happy being with you and Melissa. Things were a bit weird with Amber at first, because of our history? But I'm happy I got to reconnect with her and her family, and I'd be happy to have her join the three of us on group dates and outings, if she wanted."

She added, "I'm sure we'll see even more of her after we move and we're living right around the corner."

"But?" I asked. "I feel like there's another but coming. Or something but-adjacent."

She stifled a giggle at my choice of wording, then her expression became more serious. "I guess there is something. Sometimes I feel a little left-out? It's not your fault, or Melissa's or Ambers. It's just circumstance."

After a sigh she explained, "You and Melissa and Amber all go to the same college. You and Melissa are even in all the same classes? So you have lunch with Amber two or three times a week, you can see her before and after classes. You and Melissa have lunch together every day, see each other all day long. Then at the end of the day I get home from university and I find out what you've all been up to, what new trouble you've managed to get the three of you into."

I blushed and quietly protested, "It's not always my fault. And it's not like that sort of thing happens every day."

After a moment of thought I added, "And it doesn't have to be all one-sided like that. You could be filling us in on your adventures and stuff too Susan."

She grimaced, "I don't really get up to anything troublesome or adventurous like you do. You're the unpredictable troublemaker, remember? I'm just a quiet boring student."

"You could always stir up some trouble?" I suggested with a smile. "You're part-succubus after all, you could make your days a lot more interesting if you wanted."

Susan rolled her eyes but her expression became more serious again, "We went a little off-track there Mara. My point is, you and Melissa spend all day together. And the two of you spend a lot of time with Amber, simply because the three of you attend the same college. I'm not really a part of that, and it sometimes leaves me feeling like an outsider. And like I said, it's nobody's fault. I'd never dream of suggesting you spend less time with Melissa or Amber, and I'm not going to drop out of my nursing course and start going to college with the rest of you. It's just the way things are. But because of that, I'm left feeling a little isolated sometimes."

"Susan I'm sorry," I said as I reached out across the table to take her hand. "You're right. And I guess I didn't really notice because me and Melissa have shared all the same classes and stuff for like six years or something now, like we've been best friends for ever. I'm sorry I didn't realize how that sort of thing left you feeling left out."

She shrugged, "Like I said it's nobody's fault Mara. It's just how things are."

I shook my head, "So what can we do to fix it? Because the way things are doesn't work right. It needs to be fixed."

"This helps," she said as she gave my hand a gentle squeeze. "Spending time together doing something fun? If we could maybe do some regular date nights like this, that'd be a start. And maybe the three of us, or even the four of us could do some fun activities together. Maybe this spring, or in the summer? But yeah, having some one-on-one time is good, and maybe doing fun stuff as a group."

"Done and done," I stated. "We'll definitely do more date nights. And we can talk with the others about fun group stuff. I'd love to take you and Melissa to the Science Centre with Amber? I thought about that when she took me there the first time, like it's a really cool place! And yeah in spring or summer I'm sure there'll be lots of cool stuff we can all do as a group. Ooh do you like roller coasters or stuff like that? We could go to an amusement park! I bet there's all sorts of team building exercises we could do!"

I had a wide smile on my face as I started getting lots of exciting and impractical ideas, while Sue just grinned and finished her drink.

Then before I could start telling her all my exciting new plans and ideas, Susan set her glass down and said "I'm glad you're excited about all this Mara but slow down a little ok? It's just the end of February, there's at least two or three more months before things like amusement parks open up. And we're going to be very busy next month with the move, remember?"

"Yeah," I nodded as I let some of my enthusiasm drain away. "You're right. We have a lot of other things going on in the short term that I should probably be thinking about."

She gave me a smile, "I'm glad you're excited though Mara, and so am I. But for now, I think I'll be happy if the two of us can just share the occasional date night. Maybe we can go see a movie or something."

I smiled back, "Anything you like Susan."

At that point the waitress arrived with our food, and Susan ordered herself another drink. I was still working on mine so I didn't need more yet. And after that, the two of us spent the next little while focused on our meals.

Sue got a half rack of BBQ ribs and a side of fries, which looked and smelled pretty good. I had an order of nugs, or 'boneless wings' as the grown-ups called them. It was tasty and fun, but nothing special.

After a couple nugs I looked over at Sue and commented, "Actually since it's just the two of us, there's something I wanted to ask you about in private."

Susan rolled her eyes and shook her head, "Sorry Mara, you're not going to convince me to change my mind. Like I said last night, I agree with Lily and Melissa. Just leave it alone."

"That's not what I wanted to talk about," I said with a grimace.

Last night after dinner me and Melissa told Susan about those guys at college, about the hate-vibes and stuff I was getting. The three of us talked it over and Lily gave her input too, and in the end both Melissa and Susan agreed with Lily. They all told me to leave it with Lily and let her worry about the guys, and they all agreed I should keep out of it and definitely not try doing anything preemptive against them.

It wasn't so much that they didn't think the guys deserved it, or at least Jim and maybe Rahul. But they all agreed that we needed to avoid trouble and avoid drawing any official attention to ourselves. Plus they all reminded me of my knack for getting into trouble, and made it seem pretty clear if I was to try anything it'd probably just land me in a whole lot of hot water and maybe expose myself as part-demon and stuff too.

"Ok," Sue responded, "Then what was it you wanted to discuss?"

"So I remember at one point you mentioned you knew about tarot cards and stuff? Do you know about other stuff like that? Like I don't know, witchy kind of stuff?"

She frowned, "Can you be more specific? I had a lot of interest in the occult back in my late teens, but 'witchy stuff' could cover a pretty wide range of possibilities."

I blushed but nodded. I leaned closer across the table and lowered my voice a little and said, "I'm interested in past-life reincarnation stuff. Like trying to remember stuff from a previous life?"

I was a little nervous she might laugh or think I was kidding around or something, but Sue actually seemed to take me seriously. She got a thoughtful look on her face, and was quiet for the next minute or two as she ate another rib.

Finally she responded, "I vaguely remember reading something about accessing past lives. I'm sure at least one or two of my books mention that, but all my old occult books are packed up in the storage unit. So unfortunately I'm not going to be able to dig through them for you until after we've moved and got everything unpacked."

That was sort of good news but bad news, I didn't want to have to wait that long.

Sue must have seen the disappointment in my expression. She smiled, "I'll search online Mara. Some of the forums and sites I used to visit back then are still around, I'm sure we can find a spell or ritual that'll do what you're looking for."

That brought a smile to my face, "Cool! Thanks Susan!"

"You're welcome," she smiled back. "So why the sudden interest in past lives?"

I hadn't actually told Susan about Lily's daughter yet, Melissa was the only one who knew about her or that I reminded my demon mom of her lost child. And I definitely didn't want to mention anything about that in a public restaurant.

Plus I wasn't sure if Lily would approve of me looking into that kind of thing. I was pretty sure she wasn't paying attention at the moment though, she was asleep or something so me and Susan had privacy on our date. But I had a feeling if I mentioned her daughter's full name or started talking about that connection to Lily it'd probably wake her up or get her attention or whatever.

So for now at least, I just gave Susan a very vague and slightly silly answer. I grinned and shrugged, "It's secret demon stuff."

Susan rolled her eyes but she smiled back at me and didn't press for any more information.

After we both finished dinner we shared a fudge brownie sundae for dessert, then we paid the bill before finally making our way back to the apartment.

Back at home we opened a couple more coolers and relaxed together on the sofa while we put something on the TV. Sue had her right arm around my shoulders and my left arm was around her waist as we relaxed on the sofa, my head rested against her right shoulder.

As usual my horns and tail became visible as soon as we got in the door. And while we cuddled, I gradually moved my tail from my lap onto hers then started gently rubbing the spade tip up and down along her leg. Susan pretended not to notice, but I knew she was well aware of it.

Over the next five or ten minutes I gradually stopped paying attention to the TV while more and more of my focus was on my tail as I tried to get Susan to react or respond to it somehow. She was wearing stretch jeans and a t-shirt, and despite my tail getting a little aggressive about rubbing along and between her thighs she still hadn't reacted.

I was just starting to think about sliding it down inside the waistband of her pants when I felt something snake up under my shirt and push its way under my bra then wrap around my left boob.

"Aah!" I gasped in surprise as I suddenly realized what happened.

Susan burst out giggling as she held me a little tighter, while her tail squeezed my boob tighter as well. I'd been so focused on my own tail I didn't even notice she used the magic Lily gave her to grow a tail of her own, then beat me at my own game.

"You win," I said with a grin. "I give up!"

She leaned over and gave me a kiss, but her tail hadn't released its prize yet. "How about we finish these drinks then go to bed?

I kissed her back and asked "Are you going to let go of me?"

She giggled again and had a gulp of her drink then shrugged, "Eventually, perhaps..."

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