Page 34 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
Her even breathing and warm body curled against him eventually smooths his teeth. Like a hibernating racoon, she can sleep through a car alarm going off, so he slips out from under her unnoticed. Sleep isn’t going to reclaim him—especially now that he’s thinking about Topher’s conceptual freak-out she’d mentioned. The truck accident and the drowning means at least two bodies added to the tally, plus the guilty dad thing. It’s probably professionally courteous to check on him. Or at least try.
The knock Mateo does is reminiscent of Topher’s, barely audible in the stillness of the suite. He kind of hopes Topher’s already asleep and won’t hear it.
But the door cracks open, and then swings wide, Topher in a puffy white bathrobe with the hotels golden initials embroidered on the right chest area in a script so fancy it’s illegible. His hair’s damp but still somehow defying gravity, skin pink from a hot shower he must have just left. The same lavender from Ophelia’s hair is all over him.
Mateo had been trying to rile Ophelia, but suddenly he’s concerned she really was in here seducing Topher.
Which … she can do.
What does he care? He doesn’t care. At all. She can sleep with whoever she wants, and Topher can sleep with whoever he wants. They can sleep with each other and that’s fine. Great, even. For reasons he can’t think of right now.
This last thought jostles any innocuous well-wishes out of his brain, and what comes out is a stilted, “How’s it going?”
Topher’s pale lips purse slightly in what can only be confusion. Instead of slowly closing the door in his face, the other manages a much more normal: “Okay. I mean, kind of. Except the not sleeping part. You?”
“Right. Same.” Zero follow-ups enter Mateo’s brain so they’re just staring at each other.
“You can come in if you want,” Topher says, stepping back and keeping the door wide.
Mateo’s so grateful for a next action that he enters before realizing this is going to prolong the interaction. Too late, the door closes and Topher’s slipping around him, moving to the minibar, opening the small fridge, and picking up one of the bottles to look at the label.
“You can’t!” Mateo says in automatic alarm, hand reaching as if to stop Topher even though he’s already done the damage. Topher stares at him with his round eyes, so Mateo has to add: “It auto charges if you take anything out of there.”
They both realize the absurdity of this concern being directed at Topher—a guy so rich that the concept ofminibar extra feeshas never entered his realm of consideration.
“Right, sorry, that obviously isn’t a worry—” Mateo starts.
“Oh, sorry, yeah, no, it’s okay, I mean—” Topher also starts.
And now they’re both deeply embarrassed in a way that doesn’t entirely make sense, and apologizing over one another.
Topher cuts them off by pressing the small bottle into Mateo’s hand, a premixed old fashioned. “I just thought maybe we could have a drink?”
“I would love to have alcohol right now,” Mateo says with too much feeling, taking the bottle and retreating across the room with it. Desperate for something to do with his body, he takes one of the low oval chairs by the window.
Topher takes another bottle from the fridge and wanders closer, looking out the window.
Neither of them says anything for a few sips before Topher breaks the silence. “Sorry about today. This probably isn’t what you thought you were signing on for.”
Despite the exchange of ten incoherent apologies a moment ago, this one flips the irritated switch in Mateo’s brain. “Nothing that happened today was your fault. Not a moment of it. You’re cursed. And your dad’s an asshole. And whoever’s doing this is the one who needs to apologize and then sit on a steel spike and spin while I kick them repeatedly in the dick.”
Topher goggles at him a moment, and then that baby deer smile flickers and an exhale that sounds suspiciously like a laugh happens. “Descriptive.”
“Ophelia could have done better. She’s the queen of blue humor,” Mateo says. If this thing is happening between Topher and her, he might as well act like a proper wingman.
“You’ve been pretty funny so far,” Topher says politely.
Blessedly, it gives Mateo an avenue of conversation. Flashing his teeth, he says, “I think you’re confusing humor with the affected self-defense mechanisms of the average underpaidretail worker. Perhaps undetectable at your yearly income rate.”
It came out harsher than he’d meant it, but Topher doesn’t look offended as he replies. “What’s the threshold, do you think? Under 80k?”
Surprised and a little delighted that Topher’s willing to joke, Mateo smirks and leans forward. “Wow. 80k? Can’t even guess a low salary. I thought you were good at math. You saw what Doris was offering hourly.”
Topher grimaces, obviously doing that math. “Oh no. Right. Okay. Much lower. Got it.” He takes a sip of his drink, humming a little into it and stepping closer, looking seriously contemplative. “So how does it work? Do you think if I divest enough, at some point, I’ll just become funny?”
“Like a survival instinct?”
Topher nods.
