Page 30 of Hopelessly Teavoted
CHAPTER 9Azrael
He’d insisted on Tuesday. For his schedule, he had told her, but it was really because he didn’t want her to have a late night unless it lined up with the day the shop was closed. He had arrived a little before closing to help her, a few snaps here and there to clean counters and restock.
Az was trying not to be a pervert now, walking behind her up the stairs to the apartment above the shop. He focused on the hardwood of the stairs, and the bat-patterned coffee cup he’d swiped from downstairs, almost empty. It was hard for him to be near Vickie without touching her. The brightly printed sweatpants were flattering, and he had always had a soft spot for that beaver T-shirt.
Az loved her enough to have done her the favor, years ago, of making sure she wasn’t burdened by any strings. By the weight of his useless, unrequited love. Hadn’t someone brilliant once written that it was like bitter almonds? Vickie was tart berries bursting on his tongue, and the knowledge that she would never love him turned the sweetness to dry dust. The bitterness had always been the feeling, not the flavor, he realized, finally understanding one of his favorite books a little better.
When they walked in, he saw that she had not been lying about only organizing in small chunks. He had the sudden urgeto ask if he could stay over, since the shop was closed Wednesdays. Spend the night and help her sort things out.
He’d be lying to himself if he pretended not to be interested in more than just home arrangement. But lying to himself had worked out before.
Though less dusty than it had once been, the apartment looked like it hadn’t been rearranged, other than the bedroom and an overflowing bookshelf. A gray couch with a few cardigans thrown haphazardly across it sagged comfortably against the wall facing a television. Her shut laptop on the coffee table suggested that she curled up like a cat in the corner of that couch streaming things rather than watching them on the bigger screen. Az smiled, ran his fingers over a fleecy throw, and glanced over to the kitchen and the door to the bedroom. Her eyes followed his, and then widened.
Vickie sprinted across the living room to pull the blue door shut, but not before he caught a glimpse of a clothesline spanning the bedroom and drying out some very sexy underthings. Pinks and yellows and purples, reds in many shades, all festooned in a way that made him bite back a groan just thinking about her hands slipping those delicate lace monstrosities on and off.
Az tried not to be jealous of whoever was lucky enough to see those.
He tried, even less successfully, to banish the lust from curling, warm and fog-like, in his stomach, and seeping lower into regions that could cause physical consequences.
One ought not to sport a raging erection in the midst of an important conversation with someone who was very decidedly just a friend.
He dragged the hand aching to touch her down his own face instead, trying to think of anything sobering. His awful former boss. His old landlady’s litter box. The time he’d accidentally trod on Emily Lickinson’s tail and she’d clawed his foot viciously in return.
He drained the last of his coffee, as though he needed theadditional caffeine coursing through his veins along with lust and the magic of her closeness. He set the empty cup down on her counter.
“Hey, Vickie. What do you call it when you steal someone’s coffee?”
The corners of her mouth twitched. She had always laughed at his jokes. Even the bad ones. “What?”
“Mugging,” he deadpanned.
She threw her head back and laughed, a tinkling, familiar sound that made his chest ache. “Your humor still sucks, but I missed that.” Her green eyes relaxed now, looking at him. “I missed you. When you were gone, I missed you.” His heart beat louder, so loud he was pretty sure she could hear it.
“I missed you too,” he said, swallowing. Reminding himself not to get lost. Not daring to hope, but wanting to, a little; the joke was bad enough that he wanted to believe her laughter wasforhim. “The shakers,” he said, swallowing down his wishes.
“I have them,” she said, walking over to the cream-colored island and setting down her bag before rummaging through the navy cabinets. “Go on and look. I don’t have anything embarrassing in the kitchen,” she said.
Azrael wondered what embarrassing things were tucked away elsewhere that he could convince himself not to fantasize about. But opening one of the cabinets, all he found was a blue box of macaroni and cheese and a family package of ramen noodles next to a sleeve of crackers. “Healthy eating over here, huh?”
“Shut up. It’s like college again, opening a business, but without a meal plan or my parents’ credit card. I haven’t even had time to go through all the kitchen things here, and I mostly eat the pastries downstairs.”
Smiling, he could picture her existing on nothing but dessert and instant noodles. She didn’t seem upset about it, so he wouldn’t be either. But hedidwant to clear the air of any lingering weirdness. He might still have feelings for her, every so often, but there was no way she ever had to know about them.
This way, they could at least be friends, and, hell, he would take the agony of her closeness over never seeing her again.
“About college,” he began. They’d both been direct enough in that moment, but letting it sit for years, unaddressed, made it feel unresolved.
Turning around, she held up the box with the small black raven and a white skull. “Found them,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “We’ll talk about the college thing later. First, your parents.”
He needed to talk to his parents, and it sounded like she also had more pressing matters than rehashing their dramatic past. He sighed. What were his midtwenties if not an unresolved checklist of parts of his life that had almost, but not quite, fallen into place?
“Ready?” She was looking at him now, her bright green eyes earnest and worried under the loud eye shadow. He wanted to wipe the slate clean so that no awkward memories lingered, but he also couldn’t bear to lose even the sliver of happiness that had been that night.
And besides, memory magic wasn’t just illegal, it was wrong, and he shouldneverfuck with magic around Vickie without her express permission.
Well, never again.
He needed to focus. He reminded himself of his father’s ridiculous three-piece suits, and the coordinating pocket squares the man had loved so much.
