Page 45 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
It’s the least sincere offer he’s ever made in his life, and he’s flabbergasted that it came out of his mouth. He’s not stepping into a police station unless someone’s got a gun to his head. The sentiment is true, at least, that he wishes he had some way to help, but he’s going for the window if Topher says he’d like him to come along.
That little smile flutters and Mateo nearly takes another step back. “I’ll be fine,” Topher says in his rarely experienced level tone.
It occurs to Mateo only then that Topher likes a plan, even if it’s a bad one. He’s a million times more chill when there’s steps to carry out. It’s a useless realization because it doesn’t help him come up with a next thing to say. This conversation is still happening and now it’s his turn to speak, and they sure are staring at each other a lot.
“Cool,” Mateo goes with, and inside his head he’s screaming for Ophelia. What the hell is she even doing, and where is Quincy? Why did everyone leave? Can he leave?
Topher’s phonebings, thank fuck, and frees Mateo.
“Oh, that’s him. My lawyer, I mean,” Topher says, pocketing his phone. “I should go. I’m going to go. He’s gonna meet me there. Quincy wanted to do one last drive.”
Quincy and Ophelia finally come into the room, as if everyone was giving him time to self-inflict maximum damage. There’s a moment where Topher stands, and Mateo should step forward and offer an arm pat orsomething. Would it be weird to hug him? He’s never hugged anyone other than Ophelia. Topher cradled his bleeding body in his lap, and they’ve held hands.
It wouldn’t be weird.
Would it?
Wouldn’t it?
Doesn’t matter. He waits a beat too long and Ophelia wraps her arms around Topher from behind. “Be careful,” she says, on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “And text after it’s done. We’ll text when we’re home.” It’s a lot of civil and even helpful words from Ophelia, and it startles Mateo.
Topher turns around, not pulling out of Ophelia’s arms, and gives her a proper hug. This also startles Mateo, something close to jealousy but without the barbs rising in his chest. Like hewishes he’d taken that initiative, managed the same comfortable interaction, but is simultaneously relieved that someone else did. But also shocked the someone is Ophelia. And shocked again at the easy reciprocation.
As he’s being fivefold startled, Topher leaves, and Quincy gives a nod, then follows.
Alone at last with Ophelia, Mateo collapses onto the couch, head tipped back and arms wide across the back. Ophelia tucks in beside him and neither of them say anything for a long while, dozing right there in their fancy hotel room.
It’s a little after noon when he rouses, blinking slowly in the too bright room. “Are we bad at this?” he asks softly, so if she’s sleeping, she can keep sleeping.
“We’re amazing at this.” Ophelia answers immediately, wide awake and shifting against his side so he looks down and she’s looking up at him. “We found out his mom is missing, found the scene of the crime, found a bunch of suspects, found weird magic shit all over, and flushed out two bad guys. That was in a day and a half. We should both get a promotion.”
Mateo makes a dying sound in the back of his throat. “I wanted to solve a fun death-causing curse, not get lost in a … brokerage firm conspiracy missing mom murder spree … or whatever the fuck.” He jams the palms of his hands against his eyes. “I don’t like leaving this so unfinished.”
Ophelia reaches up and brushes fingers against his cheek. “How you feeling?”
Mateo presses his face into her fingers. “Still tired. Neck’s a little shitty, but it was worse before the nap.”
She stares at him a moment with her pale eyes. “That was scary.”
It’s a lot that she’d admit it—earth-shatteringly devastating, actually. Not to be dramatic. He wraps his arms around her, speaking into her still chlorine-smelling hair. “I’m sorry.” Even though it wasn’t his fault. In Quincy’s car, she’d looked back at his shattered body with such naked fear, a state so unnatural to Ophelia that it was obscene.For that glassy-eyed terror, lipstick smeared just below the quivering line of her hallowed lower lip, someone would be made to suffer.
The theatrics of the thought strikes him as disorienting, but fundamentally correct, so he ignores that it doesn’t feel like it came from him. He’s getting used to that.
They don’t say anything for a bit, holding tightly to each other. And then, because they both lack the facilities to deal with their complex negative emotions in a healthy manner, she says, muffled against his chest, “What’s going on with you and Topher?”
Grimacing on reflex, he admits, “We had an awkward thing the other night when I went to check on him.” She’d see through any lie, but he doesn’t want to tell her the details when he doesn’t really get what’s going on with her about Topher.
She dislodges herself enough to check her texts, taps the ringer a few clicks louder, and puts her phone face up on the coffee table. “Be more specific.”
Stalling, Mateo also checks his phone. Still nothing from Topher, but he has no idea how long filing a missing person report takes. Eyeballing the pod coffee maker, he gets up to fiddle with it—and flee Ophelia’s direct proximity. “The timing was kinda weird,” he begins slowly, nervous that he’s about to upset her. “It was 2AM, and I said I couldn’t sleep, and he offered me a drink, and … and he kissed me.”
A sharp laugh and he turns to look at her.
“Right? Isn’t that insane?” he says, laughing too. “We were joking about—it’s hard to explain—like, it was about retail self-defense mechanisms.” He waves the details away, almost throwing the little pod in his hand with the motion. “Nonsense conversation. Whatever. But he was being kind of funny, which, who knew? Not me. I was reeling about that revelation, and he just went for it.”
“I bet you were surprised even though he’s been tripping over himself about you since second one but you’re too stupid to notice,” she says with the same pleasure she has in her voice when she orders a beer.
Huh. That holds no resemblance to the reality of the past week. Topher’s nervous about everything. How’s she ascribing it to him and not the curse, missing mom, or crap dad? But Ophelia is, despite all odds, better at people-ing than him. It’s not like he thinks she’s wrong, but he doesn’t know how to finish that thought without being the one who’s actually wrong.
