“Ever?”

  The soul stood up a little too quickly, his head spinning.

  “Geez,” Taylor said, crossing her arms, “you look like you’ve been through hell and back.”

  You listen here lass, the Underworld is not the same as hell, for one thing -

  “Good morning,” Ever replied, groaning as he stood up.

  “Good… morning.” Taylor gave him a sniff. “Dude, did you even shower?”

  “Shower? What’s a shower?”

  Taylor gave him a look that said, “seriously?” louder than saying the word ever could. “Just come in first.” The soul trailed his colleague into the ice cream shop. She flicked on the switches on the wall; lights flickered and illuminated the shop.

  She started rummaging through her bag. “What is it with boys and lack of basic hygiene? Here,” she gave him a long, thin aerosol. Ever took it tentatively, rotating it in his hands. It was cold to touch, too round and too straight.

  “Come on, don’t play dumb! I’m not going to work with someone who reeks.”

  Ever ran his fingers along the edge until he found the cap. He grasped it and pulled, exposing the pump. He glanced up at Taylor, who had her arms crossed.

  He brought it up to his face, rotated it a few times, put his palm on top of the trigger and pressed down, spraying his face with flowery deodorant. Ever coughed, hacked and rubbed his stinging eyes, leaving the canister to clatter to the floor and roll away.

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  Ever could hear peals of hysterical laughter from Taylor. “What the hell were you doing? Are you drunk or something? Here, let’s go wash your eyes out.”

  “No,” Ever said, turning away. “I like the smell, it smells like… it smells nice.” He stopped short of saying ‘you.’

  “Yeah well, you’re not going to be of much use to me if you can’t see.” She steered him towards the sink and Ever washed his eyes out.

  —---

  “So if you just look at the labels, I’ve arranged it so that it’s easy to take the flavors out and put them where they belong.”

  Ever nodded. He bent down, pulled out a flavor in each hand, inspected the name and put them in the right place.

  “When I was a kid, my favorite flavor was rainbow. My mom would always get it for me before she…” Ever looked up at her intently. “Now, I like mango sorbet, but it has to be with legit mango. A lot of places do syrup, too sweet. Not my uncle. He insisted on doing things properly.”

  Taylor took a taster spoon, dug a bit of the mango sorbet out and placed it into her mouth. “What’s your favorite flavor?”

  Can’t help you there, bud. Death murmured.

  “I…” Ever looked around at the dozens and dozens of colors and flavors in front of him. “I also like mango sorbet.”

  “No you don’t,” Taylor said immediately. “You’re lying. I can tell.” She grabbed him by his apron. “Don’t lie to me, or I’ll fire you.”

  “I’ve never had ice cream before!” Ever yelped.

  Taylor’s face was inches away from Ever. She searched his eyes for the truth. A customer in a suit came in.

  “Errrr… I can come back at another time.”

  “No,” Taylor said, pretty customer service smile suddenly adorning her face, “now’s fine, what would you like this morning, sir?”