Page 67 of Hopelessly Teavoted
Always just a friend, though, and wasn’t it better that way? What would happen if she let herself feel for him fully, if she bound herself to him and then he found her wanting later? How would he feel, waking up ten years from now, or twenty, or thirty, if she agreed to solve the problem with the sort of magic that would take away their future choices to look elsewhere if it didn’t work out? Vickie feared that choosing him, in that way, might mean losing him if they forced something neither of them was ready for.
The way she had lost him, for years, after that ill-advised incident. Which it turned out, had been even more foolish than she’d realized.
These problems were for later Vickie.
Azrael was pouring the contents of the potion over a map he’d set on a carpet near the hearth. A few droplets hit it and disappeared; the thick shag seemed magically resistant. The liquid settled and swirled, and drifted in giant blue and gray waves to the northern corner of the map. Havenwall. She frowned. She had been expecting the church, or the high school. Something to lead them directly to Chet.
Not this, which suggested that maybe Azrael’s boss was justa jackass, after all. It meant a three-hour drive, and there was no way they could do it tonight. Maybe Hazel could handle the shop, or she could open late. Close for the day if she had to. It wasn’t ideal, but it would be all right.
“I’ll scry again later, but I think what we need is in the graveyard there. You can stay here, and we can leave first thing in the morning,” he said. His pupils were blown wide, but under his eyes, shadows lingered, purple and blue traces of restless nights.
Grief had hit Azrael Hart, and she ought to respect that too. Give him time to process. To protect her own heart by leaving. To avoid taking advantage, as much as she wanted to see if he still had those velvet curtains around his bed, and if they could be magicked to be the only things between them.
He pulled her hand away when she went to touch. Like he didn’t need her the way she needed him. Before she remembered that what he rejected, with her touch, was sudden death.
Vickie shook her head. “I can’t. I have to work in like four hours, Az. I need to go home and change. Can I borrow your bike?”
“I can drive you again, or put you up in a guest room and take you early. I wouldn’t assume anything, and the house made you welcome here before.”
She shook her head. “I need some time to process. This has been a lot, with the break-in and the scrying. And the news about our options. Good ‘a lot,’ too, with the dancing and what not. But I need to clear my head and I need to sleep on my own pillow.”
Azrael’s eyes clouded and he opened his mouth, but then shut it again, whatever words he had in response dying on his lips. He shook his head.
“I get it. Maybe another time. Wednesday? When you’re closed? I can call in sick. We could stop by the hospital too. Check on Madam Cleopatra.”
She nodded, unable to find the right words to bridge the gap between the past, the impossibility, and what was now reality.
“I’ll drive you back. Seriously,” he said. The shadows under his eyes were deeper than she remembered.
“No thanks, Az. I’m good on the bike. Really.”
“Are you sure?” He sounded uncertain.
“Please.” She needed solitude and the chill of the night air against her face. The space to think outside of the spell of his nearness.
Az’s face softened. “Of course.” He snapped his fingers twice. “The bike is sitting out front with a helmet. There are jackets in the hall closet if you need. Text me when you get home, though?”
“Always.” It had become an unspoken tradition, sometime in early September. They texted when they went places. When they woke up. Before they went to bed.
He snapped his fingers and the remaining potion vanished. Rubbing his temples, Az said, “I’ll pick you up early Wednesday. Maybe seven?”
She nodded. “Text before you leave. I’ll be ready by the time you’re outside the shop.”
“Vickie.” Az looked at her, searching her face for something, and settled on a gesture instead. “I don’t want to give up just because it’s complicated. I want you. I want to be with you. Whatever this looks like. I’m all in.”
She sighed. He deserved her certainty. “I want to be with you too. But we need to be reasonable and think it through here. I don’t want to slip up and kill you. And I don’t want to jump into something permanent just because our choices are limited. We’re friends first, always. We have things to do. Feelings, for sure, but also a mystery to unravel. Jobs to think about. Death to avoid. We can take a beat. See where it takes us. While we figure it out, whenever either of us needs to, we call a pretend.”
I can’t afford to lose my best friend again, she thought to herself. To heartache, or worse, to murder caused by her own hands. She didn’t want to rush into forever with the person she loved most, not when the consequences of one stumble, one misstep, were too great. She held her tears. She held them long enoughto hug Azrael—a careful, chaste, gloved-riddled, arms-only affair of a goodbye—before stepping away. She moved quickly, the physical distance between them an effective barrier for her sneaking feelings.
“Vickie,” he said, scrubbing a hand over his face and striding toward her.
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “I just need a few moments on my way out to collect myself. Please. Stay here.” She stopped hard on the last word, and he opened his mouth as if to argue, but then closed it again, shoving hands into his pockets.
Good. It was better this way. It gave her a moment to clear her head if he didn’t fight her on it.
He mumbled about cross-referencing the location with a few other maps in the library, and she let the door slide shut behind her, shoving it back closed when it tried to reopen and invite her in once more.
Faking nonchalance, Vickie darted through the foyer to say goodbye to Priscilla and Evelyn. The pair sat at the dining room table, a magical whiteboard between them with numbers and words and symbols spinning in Priscilla’s looping, thin script, and Evelyn’s near-perfect round letters. The were splitting several bottles of wine over the Council business on the board.
