Page 37 of De-Witched

Anxiety tickled her throat as she backpedaled. “I’m just saying, I’m more dangerous than I look.”

He didn’t pick up on her slip. Thank God for tequila. “I could tie one hand behind my back and still best you.”

“Now, you’re just being rude.”

“I’m honest.”

She decided not to smack him over the head with a chair and finished the rest in silence.

And yet somehow she still found herself escorting her warlock frenemy home. Her decision was made when he’d been unable to work the bar’s push door, pulling on the handle like it was a game of tug-of-war, until he’d finally lost his balance and fallen on his ass. She might go to hell, but some things deserved to be laughed at.

“Can you make it upstairs?” she asked now as the Uber waited at the curb near his building. When he’d forgotten the address, she’d had to look it up in their records, unsurprised it was in a ritzy neighborhood that boasted spectacular views of Lake Michigan.

“’Course. I don’need help. I don’need anyone.”

In silence, she and the Uber driver watched him stagger up the street.

“I thought you said he lived here,” the driver commented.

“He does.” Leah dug a finger in her temple as Gabriel continued to walk blithely away from his apartment building.

It took her a minute to catch up with him, to steer him around and to usher him past the well-trained doorman.

“Miss,” he said as he held the door for them, unblinking. “Is Mr. Goodnight well?”

“Mr. Goodnight is none of your concern,” Gabriel muttered as he weaved through.

Leah ground her teeth and shot an apologetic smile at the doorman. “Mr. Goodnight is about four-tenths tequila right now,” she explained, not intervening when Gabriel tripped and planted his face into the wall. Karma in action. “I’m sure he’ll be fine in the morning. Thank you.”

“No problem, miss. Have a nice evening.”

“See, that? That was rude,” she hissed at Gabriel as she stood with him at the elevator bank.

“Why? I’m none of his business.”

“He was being nice.”

“Nosy,” Gabriel corrected and even tipsy, he managed to look superior. “I’m not going to provide him with gossip.”

“News flash, you just did. Nothing people love more than to hate on someone.” The ding heralded the arrival of the elevator. She pushed him in. “Manners cost nothing, you know. How you treat people matters.”

“Like I care what people think of me.” He crossed his arms as he leaned in the corner, green eyes boring into her. Pointed.

She scowled at the dig. “You don’t care that you come across as an ass?”

“No.”

“Seriously.”

“There’s only a few people’s opinions I care about,” he said, mumbling his way through the words.

“And how many of them are still around?”

She hadn’t meant his parents, but something dark, raw, flashed across his face until it shut down to ice. She opened her mouth to explain, closed it as he’d closed himself to her.

Sometimes you had to know when to put down the shovel and not dig the hole deeper.

They traveled to his floor in silence.

---