Page 31 of Hopelessly Teavoted

On Monday morning, he stood in front of a mirror, running a hand through curly hair, and he suddenly couldn’t stand it.

He snapped his fingers a few times, and then a few more.

A simple suave barber spell, one that Priscilla had perfected years ago and taught him as an alternative to spending hundreds of dollars at the salon.

The trick was to think of a few sensations you loved while you did it, and the magic did the rest to craft the art of the haircut.

He had tasted strawberries and felt the soft fuzz of that pink jacket, and smelled the lemon scent of his own soap, the kind he’d used since his mom started ordering it from a witch a few counties over and stocking it in her shop when he was a teen.

A few blinks later, and the haircut was good enough that he felt camera ready, the sides of it trimmed close to his head, and the top an inch or so longer.

He smiled as he shrugged on a dress shirt, chinos, and a blazer.

Azrael had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about teachers who boasted that they were unapproachable, especially if they were white men like him.

They always seemed to be assholes, and he didn’t think there was any merit to pretending to be what he was not.

Teaching was not sitting at the front of the classroom; it was active motion, and it required authentic attire.

He’d known plenty of people who rocked pantsuits naturally, but he was not one of them.

Casual professor chic, he decided, looking in the mirror.

If he knew anything about teaching, it would be such a busy, exhausting day that he would not have time to consider Victoria and his longing.

The redbrick exterior of the high school looked drabber than he remembered from the week of staff orientation, but he swallowed the thought and walked through the double glass doors, swiping his badge to get through the secure outer door.

Tan linoleum stretched out in front of him.

Dust bordered the floors and the crumbling corners, and he felt overwhelmed at the prospect of doing this for the next thirty years until he retired.

Alone and dreaming of her. Remembering the squandered years they could have been together.

Would it be better or worse if she paid her debt and the curse couldn’t kill him by Halloween, and he ended up watching her, from afar, never being able to touch her, for years, stretching into decades?

He pushed the thought aside and focused on the present.

Out of courtesy alone, he said hello to Chet.

Devil damn him, Azrael already hated his department chair.

Chet Thornington was an absurd man, shirt buttoned up all the way to his neck, shoulders slumped downward.

He was always wearing a formal shirt, a thick tie, and a Fabio haircut that hung past his ears.

He was even worse here than he was yelling at coffee shop employees and clinging to a dead aesthetic, with his hair slicked back in a futile attempt to mirror a trend that hadn’t been popular for a decade.

He looked like a has-been, a rejected regency romance cover model out of work and left with nothing better to do than talk smack about current authors. It was Prufrockian, really.

Chet was arguing with a younger woman Az recognized from orientation as another teacher in his department. Aurora. She had to be no more than twenty-one. Maybe twenty-two.

Far too young for the way Chet was looking at her.

Yeah, judgmental, or not, Azrael hated this guy already.

“It’s the first student day, Aurora. You won’t have grading yet. We’ll be done early. Are you sure?” Chet was stepping toward her, and her body turned toward him, but she flinched a little as he drew closer.

Whatever was between them danced on a line of attraction and pain, and Azrael cleared his throat, not wanting to intrude but also not comfortable walking away.

“No, I’m busy. I can’t.” With a small wave to Azrael, she grabbed a stack of papers off a copier that was still spitting a few of them out, leaving him alone in the room with the man.

“Chet Thornington,” he said, holding out a hand. “Just got back from the leadership retreat.”

Azrael considered refusing the man’s hand after what he had seen. This was the third time he’d met Chet, but being cold would be a bad start to the year.

“Azrael Hart. We met briefly last week at the first day of orientation. And via video call when you hired me.” The man’s hand was just a trace clammy, and Az resisted the urge to recoil.

“Right. Right. My new teacher. The same Harts as the weirdo family with the manor on the hill?”

“Yes,” said Azrael, keeping his anger and magic in check. He was good at it, after so many years of denying himself.

“Sorry about your parents. That was unfortunate.”

“Thank you,” Az said, unsure of how else to respond. He stood awkwardly for a moment.

“Hey, your sister is hot, though. Is she single?”

Azrael glared at the man, who five minutes earlier had been clearly intimidating a much younger woman who, if he was a betting man, Az would be willing to guess Chet was fucking.

“No. And you’re not her type either.”

“What precisely are you trying to imply?”

Azrael stared. This was getting out of hand.

“Just that it looks, from an outsider’s perspective, like you, a man old enough to have a specific and clear memory of the Challenger explosion, are messing with a girl young enough to have been your student, if not your kid.

” Az ground his teeth. There was the lingering effect of gravedirt, days later, threatening his job already.

Or maybe Chet was just too much of a tool to ignore.

“I don’t pretend to know what you’re talking about. But watch it,” said Chet, glancing around nervously. “She’s from Scarsdale, not here, and she was never my student.”

Azrael snorted. “Does saying that make you feel better about it?”

“Look. We won’t have to like each other, Hart, but I’ve been teaching English here almost the longest. Which means I am the most experienced, and therefore the best at it. From what I hear, you’re taking some of the most crowded class sections. So you need me. You’d do well to keep that in mind.”

The logic didn’t even make sense. Azrael ground his teeth, resolving to cool Chet’s temperature a little, maybe make his shoes more supportive.

Something that should make the man just a little kinder.

He snapped, but it did nothing. Azrael frowned and looked at his fingers.

Was there such a thing as being too big of an asshole for magic?

Azrael knew it was a low blow, but as Chet stormed out, he snapped his fingers again in the empty staff room, and the stack of sticky notes next to him was one shorter. The missing note slipped itself onto the back of Chet Thornington’s shirt, with the word asshole scrawled on it.

He grabbed Aurora’s papers off the copy machine. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let a human monster ruin this poor woman’s life.

This close to a dosing of gravedirt, anger still pushed him over into abject honesty, and he was certain that the effect of his anger toward Chet would last a few more days.

Fortunately, he knew better than to be angry at any children he taught.

He’d been a substitute long enough to know that drama and rudeness from teenagers was about what they were going through more than what the person instructing them was going through, and that it would pass if he waited patiently and checked in about what they needed.

No, he would not be angry at the children, but Chet was another story.

When he walked into Aurora’s classroom, the first thing he noticed was her last name, Schumacher, stenciled across the wall in glittering rainbow, she/her pronouns underneath.

A giant Black Lives Matter Pride fist hung on her wall, reminding him of his mom and the posters and flags decorating Hopelessly Teavoted, which of course reminded him of Victoria.

“You left these on the copier,” Az said, and she looked up, sniffling a little like she had been crying, quietly, alone in her classroom on the first day of school.

“I—thank you. Dust got caught in my contact.” Her expression was defiant, and he nodded wordlessly. “Welcome to Hallowcross High,” she said. “Sorry your first interaction was with Chet. He’s not exactly our most pleasant department member.”

“No,” Azrael said slowly. “I imagine not. Listen. It may not be my business, but anyone who is going to talk to you like that is not worth your time. You don’t deserve that.”

Aurora stared at him, and Az wondered if he had overstepped. They had only spoken briefly at orientation, but he hated the idea of the first friendly face he’d seen here being trampled by the first unfriendly one.

Aurora’s eyes snapped shut, though, and she sighed. “I know. We aren’t even a thing anymore, but he keeps texting and calling.”

“Don’t pick up.”

“It would be rude. We’re colleagues. He’s kind of my boss.”

“ He’s rude. I’m telling you. Don’t pick up. Don’t answer his text messages. Don’t argue with him, just stop responding. Block his number if you have to.”

“Why do you even care?”

Her words were more curious than accusatory, but Az was angry.

“Because I have a person I love, who loves me, and we wasted years—almost a decade, in fact—dancing around instead of being honest with ourselves and each other. And now things are complicated, but I would still do anything, anything , to fix my relationship. You clearly know Chet is not that person for you. Go find your person. Don’t waste any more time.

There could be thirty perfect partners out there for you, in fact.

Thirty not-Chets, or even thirty fun flings.

Just, life is short. Don’t waste it on the Chets of it all. ”

Aurora’s mouth opened in surprise.

“Wow, new guy. Out the cut with the serious opinions.” Aurora paused for a moment, and he was pretty sure she was going to laugh at him.

Then she said, “That’s cool, though. Do you want to tell me about your partner at lunch?

I eat with some of the other teachers. I’m the disaster youth who keeps them entertained with my bad choices.

” She looked at him and smiled. His first real work friend.

“They’re about your age, too, so you’ll have things in common.

There aren’t any other people in our department my age, but I sometimes hang with the math teachers.

There’s one, Kelley—she’s really nice. Her husband died when she was like three months pregnant, and she has the most adorable little baby. ”

Az noticed that Aurora blushed when she mentioned the math teacher, and he smiled.

He’d accidentally adopted a cat and a work friend now.

At least it would keep him distracted from Vickie while they figured shit out.