Page 76 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
It takes Mateo a moment to realize what he’s scrolling through. Job listings on a pay-to-play site—the kind of site Mateo’s never seen the inside of. Salaries listed boldly because they’re amazing six figures, and the people who apply for them are at a premium.
Topher is at a premium.
Right. What the hell was he being nervous about? This is a goodbye—of biblical proportions.
He’d done what he’d been paid to do—albeit in a really roundabout way—and he’s going home. Topher’s going to be in San Francisco, hacking things and getting paid piles of moneyon top of his piles of money. This had been … fun. Confusing. Ultra weird. No small amount of traumatizing.
Mostly, it had been temporary.
“Hey,” Mateo says.
Topher draws in a sharp breath as he turns to the right, but his startled woodland creature expression shifts into a smile when he realizes it’s Mateo. He returns a whispered, “Hey.”
Which sands some of the forced indifference off of Mateo’s next words. “Got your stuff. All clean and only sort of stretched out. No demon gunk, at least.”
Bare feet drop to the floor and Topher stands, taking the pile of clothing without so much as glancing at them, dropping them onto the seat he’d been occupying.
They are suddenly way too close. Like Mateo had creeped right up to him without realizing it. So now he’s basically all up on Topher and those massive gray eyes are vibrating, directed up at him, the bruising still stark against pale skin in a way that makes Mateo’s chest hurt.
“Are you leaving now?” Topher asks.
“Just about,” Mateo says, meaning to ask if Topher wants an itemized receipt, or maybe joke about leaving a good Yelp review if he ever gets a website up, but the idea that this is it, the last chance, muddles with the memory of Topher’s head hitting the concrete in Ethan’s basement.
Instead of saying something stupid, he presses the stray hair away from Topher’s bruised eye, coaxing it back behind an ear with a careful touch that he lets linger till he’s sliding fingers to the back of Topher’s neck.
It’s not a decision so much as a necessity, like they were both waiting for this except Mateo hadn’t realized until now. Topher’s gaze steadies, lips parting slightly, and Mateo leans down tomeet them. It’s not a frenzied kiss, though his heart is pounding. He keeps it gentle, like he’s still afraid he might hurt Topher even without the maw of sharp teeth. Really, he just wants to take his time, savor this moment that’s never going to happen again, commit it to memory, and maybe overwrite some of the other stuff. The less good stuff. Anything that isn’t the knee-weakening-ly sweet way Topher’s kissing back, a hand gripping Mateo’s shirt hem, the little sigh he makes, and the way he tastes like sugar and smells like cinnamon and grass.
It takes a delayed moment of more warm kisses before Mateo’s brain drags up the fact that the grass smell isn’t a Topher thing.
“Oh my,” Linnéa says from the door.
Mateo backs up so quickly he rams ass first into Topher’s desk with a swear, scrabbling not to knock the laptop or the bowl of milk off before throwing hands up in surrender. Last thing in the world he wants is for Topher’s mom to think he’s eating her son face-first or something.
But Linnéa’s doing that same patronizingly delighted smile from the book vomit ritual. “I’m so sorry to interrupt you boys,” she says in amusement. Which is the most embarrassing thing she could have said. “Ophelia asked me to find you, Mateo. She’s ready to leave.”
Absolutely one thousand percent did Ophelia somehow do this on purpose.
“Well, I gotta go,” Mateo says as the most inadequate goodbye ever, hands still raised but managing to look at Topher and not his mom. “See ya.”
Topher’s dropped into his rollie chair, haphazardly on top of the clothes, face bright red. “Absolutely. For sure. Yes,” Topher stage whispers, eyes back to vibrating.
Mateo’s desperate to get out of the room before he completely ruins his cool-guy-leaving moment, but Linnéa catches him in a long, awkward—but at least a different flavor of awkward—hug. He manages to extract himself and finds Ophelia, who knows exactly what she did by the smirk on her face as she directs him to help her finish loading up the rental with the stuff they stole from Ethan’s house.
Once that’s done, they’re off.
Ophelia drives, Mateo lying down in the backseat because he’s still pretty run-down—and chest-vomiting a magic book that’s actually part of him hadn’t helped.
The music’s low enough for conversation but they don’t talk for a while.
Not in a bad way.
She’s letting him try to deal with everything, and talking never helps.
Staring at the tops of trees and sides of buildings whizzing past the window across from him, Mateo torturously replays the goodbye. The kiss had been really good. And he’d almost beensoslick, up until that part where he got scared of Topher’s mom and knocked a bunch of shit over and ran away.
This is pointless to worry about. He’s never going to see Topher again.
Which.
