Page 31 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
Mateo checks his phone. “Twenty-seven minutes. You’re lucky I’m still upright.”
“I dunno about that,” Ethan says, smile sharpening.
Mateo finishes off his second drink so he doesn’t have to formulate a reply to that really good but unmistakably sexual setup he’d accidentally provided.
“Let’s grab a table,” Ethan says, then knocks on the bar top, slick as shit, and catches the bartender’s attention. “Another of what he’s having.” He scans the bottles neatly lined up behind the bartender. “The Gordon & MacPhail for me. Neat.” Ethan doesn’t wait for the bartender’s agreement, just turns and heads to the closest open spot.
Is this annoying or charming? Mateo can’t focus correctly beyond the Prada boots. He doesn’t even care about Prada, but they’re chunky-soled with a pouch above the ankle and he’s trying to gauge Ethan’s shoe size. Shit. Now he’s too aware that he’s being seduced by clothing and he’s not sure what to do. Go with it for authenticity in exploitation-flirting, he guesses.
“If that was a really impressive whiskey you ordered, it’s totally lost on me,” Mateo admits as he slips into a velvet half-circle chair around the high gloss table Ethan moved to.
Ethan smiles. “It is a really impressive whiskey.” There are three seats to choose from but Ethan takes the one next to rather than across from Mateo. They’re both tall and the table isn’t meant to hold more than a couple drinks and a bowl of expensive artisanal pistachios, so their legs are crowding the space beneath and are right up against one another’s. Which is probably flirty too. “It’s one of those bottles old guys buy to impress a table of other old guys.”
Mateo makes atskingsound. “See. Your first mistake. I’m only a little old. I could see if that guy wants to come over?” He gestures with his chin at a booth across the room where an ancient man talks too loudly to a woman who looks to be smiling indulgently.
“Give me a few minutes to work up the nerve,” Ethan says as a waiter drops off their drinks. Ethan pushes the whiskey across the table at Mateo with a lifted brow. “Try it.”
Mateo wants to chug his rum and coke but the rules of polite society dictate he mustn’t, so he’ll gladly taste the expensive stuff. “What’s each sip run? $5?”
“Might even be $10.”
Mateo sips then pulls a face as a cloying yet smoky taste burns his throat.
“What the hell was that?” Ethan asks, mock-offended as he takes the glass back.
“Tastes like every whiskey I’ve ever had.” Mateo lifts his own glass slightly. “I’ll stick with my low-to-mid-shelf rum and coke.”
Ethan pretends to look around for the waiter. “Just going to call the waiter back so I can send a bottle to that old guy and be properly appreciated.”
“If you wanna impress me, let me try on your jacket.” The sincerest thing Mateo’s said all week. He’s pretty sure it would fit.
Ethan stops pretending to look for the waiter and focuses on him again. “Maybe in the morning.” He’s just tease-flirting and Mateo knows it, but his face must have done something because Ethan leans back slightly. “Too far?”
Shit. Mateo sips his drink. “It’s fine.” He knew he’d be bad at this and he’s being bad at this. “How was work?” The urge to slam his head into the table is strong.
Ethan leans back all the way and allows the blatant redirect. “I actually got out of my meeting early. Christopher was even more worked up than usual. Made me wonder if it had anything to do with my new favorite occult specialist.”
That’s interesting and conveniently the point of why he’s here. “What’s he usually like around the office?”
Ethan seems to consider as he takes a sip of his whiskey, but then he sets it down, folds his hands in his lap, and levels a more pointed look at Mateo. “I’ll answer that, but then you have to answer one from me.”
Ophelia’s faith in his wiles has been poorly placed. Ethan clocked this for what it is. A ruse to gain information. He doesn’t seem annoyed, though. “Okay,” Mateo says dubiously.
“Christopher Nystrom’s an asshole who baselessly thinks he’s the smartest person in every room he enters because he’s made a few good investments. If he had a heart attack and died, I’d have a little party in my office. With balloons and everything.” Ethan says it without heat, but Mateo believes him. It’s the bone-deep hatred only people forced to work alongside assholes can manifest. Rage and exhaustion all mixed up. Also, he’s met Christopher.
Ethan leans close again. “Now tell me, what’s baby Nystrom hired you for that you’re so interested in daddy?”
It’s a completely fair question but he needs to reestablish some sort of confidence level here because this guy is seriously shrewd and Mateo’s like a dipshit lamb trying to seduce a wolf—and the wolf keeps clocking all his bullshit. “Doctor-patient confidentiality,” he tries.
Ethan leans toward him, smile flickering. “Play fair.”
Mateo struggles for the least informative thing he can say. “Trying to pinpoint the cause of some bad energy. Christopher seems like a bad dude.” This close he can smell the whiskey on Ethan’s breath. It’s not unpleasant. Also not helping. “Ever met Mrs. Nystrom?”
“She’s, like, an eleven and he’s a six, tops,” Ethan says, picking up his whiskey again. “I don’t get it. Money, I guess. She doesn’t come around a lot. Haven’t seen her in a while.He definitely cheats on her. Pretty sure he hits her. Baby Nystrom’s basically a poster child for abusive parents. A stray “boo” might kill him. Christopher seems like that kind of asshole. Controlling, overbearing, bad temper. Flies off about any and everything.”
It’s the kind of salacious office detail he’s after, and a completely fair deduction of Topher’s disposition and the likely cause of it, but Mateo doesn’t want it to be true, and hearing it adds the weight of reality. And to the idea that this curse is the dad’s fault—if not his actual doing. The thought of that jackass hitting Topher makes that earlier fury threaten to seep into his brain again. He shakes some ice into his mouth, crunching to force focus around his newly bleeding-heart demon.
Ethan’s watching Mateo over the glass. It’s an interrogating look, not terribly different from Ophelia’s. He’s going to ask something Mateo would rather not answer. “Can you do magic?”
