Page 40 of Hopelessly Teavoted

Thank goddess Priscilla had agreed to let him take the Packard. Arriving at a haunted old New England church that had historically been the site of everything from hangings to burnings was creepy enough without showing up in a hearse.

He and Prissy had thought about getting rid of it, but Uncle Larry would roll over in the bed of his retirement home if they sold the old clunker before he was dead.

He always insisted they pick him up in it for a monthly lunch out.

Said it felt like home more than anything, though when his health failed him enough to move out of his own place years ago, he had also insisted on Sunnyhallow Senior Living instead of coming to stay with them like Persephone and Benedict had suggested.

The old man had winked, leaned in, and whispered conspiratorially, “Much more strange ass at the retirement community. Folks are like vampires there, around too long to be picky about who they’re shacking up with.

It’s all love and none of this foolish normie discrimination about the bits of the ones we love.

It’s basically Woodstock, but with pudding. ”

Azrael had recoiled at this particularly gelatinous imagery, and tried to object, but Priscilla magicked an axe at his head, narrowly missing his ear, and insisted that his being a stuck-up prude who kept quiet about his sex life didn’t mean the rest of them had to be.

“Priscilla,” his mother had reprimanded. “Don’t make Azrael uncomfortable. And Azrael, sex is a normal and healthy part of life. If your uncle wants to live in a retirement community to procure it, he has our full support.”

Larry smiled wide, and Benedict slipped an arm around Persephone’s shoulders. “Ah, my darling, you always say the loveliest things.” He kissed her cheek.

The memory was hauntingly honest. That kind of love was eternal.

Maybe he should tell Vickie again. That even if he couldn’t, he wanted to kiss her from her fingers to the top of her head.

Tell her it was more than the magic of their bodies; it was that his skin sang when she touched him. He pulled up next to the shop.

Fuck. The reality of the woman was almost too much. Vickie was standing outside of Hopelessly Teavoted, the sign turned to closed.

Azrael snapped his fingers, summoning a few leaves from his mother’s ginkgo tree.

He rubbed them between his hands, murmured a word for dreams, and snapped both fingers.

There. Now any human who stopped by the store on the days it was closed would remember the next morning, and with any luck, return when it was open.

It was harder to work on witches, but it had been one of his mother’s favorites for aiding the struggling mundane students who sometimes sat studying and leaking stress.

Vickie was texting someone, and the right corner of her bottom lip was tucked ever so slightly under her teeth.

She was wearing high-waisted bleached jeans, a snug peach-colored top that fell just above the sparkling rhinestone charm in her belly button.

That fuzzy hot-pink coat stood out against the bustling street.

Even her rose-colored hiking boots matched, and her hair was pulled up into a messy bun.

Stray strands were held back by rhinestone sunglasses.

Azrael was utterly and hopelessly in love with Vickie in this moment.

He didn’t want to break it by telling her he had arrived.

It didn’t matter that he could never touch her.

He had been down bad, crying, for so many years, and he’d shoved it aside, tried his best with other people.

Each more lovely than the next. All potentially well suited for him.

None of them Victoria.

He’d moped through a parade of paramours intent on cracking that distant, heartbroken demeanor. He’d run through countless hookups, none of them quite right, his friends telling him he was just too picky and that he would have to settle eventually.

Looking at Vickie now, Az decided he’d tell her the full extent of what he felt, that he was still into her.

He’d hinted at it, talked circles around it, but there were three more words he had been holding back.

As soon as they solved this nasty business, they could pretend until it was over, until they solved all this magical mayhem, and then he would let her decide if she wanted to stop pretending.

If he ever bound his soul to Victoria Starnberger, it would be because she wanted to, not because she needed to outsmart a curse.

In that instance, the missing his parents was a little easier to bear.

The atoms in him, still reeling from their loss, still rearranged strangely by a world without them, settled down, soothed by the realization that being with someone he chose for himself who also chose him, wholeheartedly, was what they would want for him.

He felt as though his blood pumped less chaotically through his veins, as though he’d finally caught his breath after the panicked, laborious breathing of grief.

He knew what he wanted. What he would choose to do when she asked him. He would let her decide if she ever wanted it to be for real, but he was done pretending.

Azrael was picking her. Choosing her, whatever complications that entailed.

Her finger slid against the phone screen, scrolling something now.

He would tell her how every beat of his heart was for her.

How he hadn’t been able to fall asleep at night without thinking about the soft gasp of her breath when they had danced or the way he wanted to make her scream in ecstasy when he finished her, a thousand times over.

How complete he would feel, having accomplished it, and showing her, more openly than he had with anyone, what it was to be with him, body and mind and magic and soul.

He had magic, and he could fuck her senseless without touching her.

And he wanted to, he really did. He wanted to bury himself in her, even from a safe distance.

To give her the best version of his whole heart, from afar.

After all, it had been hers, always.

Years of torment and longing and thinking it would never happen again had built to a tremendous crescendo of almost happening and then never being able to happen the way he had imagined it would. He could figure this out before all hell came crashing down on him and Hallowcross on Halloween.

Finally looking up from her screen, Vickie smiled, and Azrael was certain that the very heavens above them parted and glinted off her shiny rhinestone heart earrings. She shoved the phone in her pocket, slung a tote bag over her shoulder, and opened the passenger door.

“Hey, Az,” she said.

Normal. Casual. Like he didn’t want to spend the rest of his day, dick in hand, stroking himself to the memory of the shape of her mouth, the way he had in the shower this morning.

Slamming his hand onto the shower wall, considering the way the fire flicked behind her, illuminating her freckles in licks of pleasure on her cheeks.

Last Saturday was the best night of his life, and he’d spent it cleaning up a home break-in, horny, frustrated, and dancing in a giant metal container.

“Morning, Vickie. You look nice.”

She patted the coat. “Thank goddess I love my Swiftie wardrobe. I didn’t want to take more than I needed, and when my parents threw me out, I got a few staples I wear most, a suitcase full of underwear, and a suitcase of clothes.

My mother sent me a certified letter to tell me she’d donated everything I didn’t take with me as soon as the paperwork went through. ”

The callousness of Amelie Starnberger.

“I’m sorry to hear she did that.” He pulled the car away from the curb, turning onto the winding road that would take them to Hallowcross General Hospital.

Vickie shrugged. “I gave up long ago on the hope that they would be what I needed them to be.” She flipped down her cat-eye rhinestone sunglasses.

It was sunny enough that he pulled aviators out of the cupholder, thankful for Prissy’s good taste. Next to him, Vickie tapped her own glasses, smiling wide in a way that made his heart want to split right open.

“You really got the whole outfit from the video, huh?” he quipped.

“Listen. I was bored, rich, and slow-rolling business school in twice the recommended years while telling myself I wasn’t good enough to stop clinging to my parents and their money.

” She gestured at the jacket and the jeans.

“Think of this as both art and armor, Azrael, like your clothes. There’s a message there. ”

“Really? What is my message?”

She paused for a moment. “It’s broodingly handsome with a sour exterior but a heart of gold.

It’s wealthy enough to own many solid T-shirts that fit in a way to make your arms look godlike, but are still down-to-earth enough to tell us that you’re not that wealthy, because they’re fraying a little bit at the seams.”

“That’s a lot first thing in the morning.” He couldn’t hold back a goofy smile; she had called his arms godlike. Thank goddess for the lonely nights in he’d spent with nothing but free weights and an exercise bike in the height of the lockdown.

Vickie drummed her fingers on the dashboard and dug around in her tote bag, pulling out a bag that smelled like apples and cinnamon. It reminded him of solstice cider and the new year. The scent stoked a feeling of home absent in him for a long, long time.

“Apple pie donuts,” she said, handing him one wrapped in a napkin with little bats printed on it. She was careful not to touch him.

He bit in and wasn’t even embarrassed at the moan that escaped him.

“This is the best fucking donut of my life.” He paused. “It’s a thing of beauty.”

“I know, right? I couldn’t sleep after all last night. I found your mom’s recipe for cherry pie donuts. This is a riff on that. I’m going to offer it with a whipped vanilla latte and call it pie à la mode.”