Page 97 of Hopelessly Teavoted
“All right, come on, lovebirds,” said Priscilla. “Let’s go see a waterfall.”
This time, Vickie took the rear, and it was all she could do not to watch the back pockets of Azrael’s jeans like the miserable, frustrated creature that she was.
She thought she had known what it was to pine, but this, this was what it meant to burn for someone.
CHAPTER 31Azrael
The alarm rang, and for a brief moment, Azrael remembered only what it was like to watch Vickie in the shower. To hold her hand, even if gloved, on the trail.
That he loved her.
Then sleep cleared from his eyes, and he rolled over to empty silk sheets, dark underneath him in the canopy bed, and the torturous dream, the one where they were together and he was curled around her like a cat, slipped away.
He sighed, and a low purr beside him told him that at least he was not completely alone. Threads of white fur speckled the otherwise spotless fabric beneath him, and he smiled.
“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet,” Az murmured to Emily Lickinson. There was despair in losing the ability to touch Vickie, but sweetness, too, in at least knowing that there had existed moments in which he’d had a place in the universe. A home without loneliness.
The cat, too, though he had protested adopting her, was a comfort to him.
Emily rubbed her white fur against his arm. She was a contrary, ornery creature, but she had a knack for knowing when he was in pain. She surprised him by curling up next to him when things were at their worst.
He’d been following Chet home since Monday, andnothing. The man had gone home to his apartment and emerged only to go to the gym Tuesday and Wednesday. Az had been busy setting up Vickie’s baking to happen via magic even when he was not there, and between that and getting off together from a safe distance, he had been working himself to the bone.
He’d fallen asleep not sure if he was swollen and stretched taut with the despair of losing the ability to have her the way he used to imagine just as they were finally ready to come together, or if it was desire lingering from the way her hands had gripped his neck before the curse had ignited. Or the way his name had sounded on her lips on that shower bench, across her couch from him, or on her bed while he leaned in the doorway. So close and yet so far away.
He’d been a wreck. And since then, Emily had wound about his ankles. Prowling. Waiting.
Staring at the pictures the house had plastered on the walls for him now, he recognized melancholy watercolors it must have dug up from the basement to match his mood.
Could cats appreciate paintings? The sorrowful brushstrokes made him feel for Vickie, an achy longing that he wasn’t sure was healthy but wasn’t willing to give up.
He loved her. And he was pretty sure Vickie loved him. Sitting up, he snapped his fingers, magicking allergy pills and a glass of water into his hands.
Would it be enough to live loving her from afar, at least with a pet now to keep him company? Could they spend moonlit nights like that hike, at arm’s length, and sleeping with walls between them, always only almost touching? Mornings in the shower, watching each other get off, slick with finishing but also with longing, not able to finish the other the way they each wanted to? Could they do it without seeing each other, phone sex only, conversations separated by never beholding each other so that he wouldn’t immolate? Wondering if she would eventually move on, or if he would, or both of them, knowing they might always be a little bit wistful, and yet finding solacein the wideness of a world sure to hold other people who could make them at least somewhat happy.
Or would she decide to choose him completely? Solve the problem of her curse’s deadline with a seal that bound them forever.
Either way, he couldn’t decide for her. After the shower, he had almost asked her to be his. Asked her to go through all the ways they could be together. They could use gloves and great caution, or continue to kiss through plastic wrap like that old show with the pie maker who could reanimate the dead. It had seemed so cute and kitschy on television, as though it was charming and inconvenient but possible. Not deadly, like in real life, when the looming expiration date of Halloween in a little less than a week put a damper on all the possibilities. He had almost offered on the hike to touch her with clothes on, but his sister was there, and that was, quite frankly, an important safeguard that Priscilla was maybe aware of. She had insisted on coming along, even though she tended to curl up in designer pajamas and drink expensive sauvignon blanc when Evelyn flew back to England.
He had wondered if maybe it would be a good way to go—burning to death to touch Vickie. Priscilla had coolly reminded him that this would be much more injurious to Vickie than it would to him, since she would have to live on to deal with the guilt and repercussions.
No, his self-immolation would involve Vickie facing a Witchery Council investigation, on top of the terrible heartache of killing the person she loved.
No one should have to do that.
The best thing—the only thing, really—was to get up and go on with his life and keep it friendly unless she decided she was ready to stop pretending too. They could be friends. Colleagues in supernatural investigations, even. Occasional partners in shower fantasies, though that wouldn’t stop him from loving her forever.
He had driven back to the old church with Priscilla theprevious weekend, but they had found nothing but broken stained glass and the remnants of a few wild break-in parties.
That left Chet. Az was so tired, but he resolved to follow the man, one last time, after school today. After all, the full moon had been last week, and the month was dwindling.
CHAPTER 32Victoria
It had been Az the whole time. It hadn’t ever been Natalie, or Robbie, or any of the other people she had dated who were terrible for her in the end. They had all been distractions.
The universe had a sick sense of humor, and she’d known when he texted her last night about tailing Chet. They were close enough to the deadline for this to be dangerous, and when he said he saw Chet go into the Brethren of One Love building Friday night, she realized, with a whisper of intuition, that none of them should confront him alone. She made him promise not to go in without them. They needed Evelyn, who returned this afternoon, and Priscilla, and now she needed to get through this Sultry Sunday.
Vickie knew, the second she realized how close Az could have been to death, tailing Chet, that she did not want to just pretend anymore. And this morning, having admitted it to herself, she realized she had never actually been pretending.
