Page 45 of Hopelessly Teavoted

“I do, yes,” said Vickie, brushing a little bit of dust off her fluffy pink coat.

He sighed, running a hand over his face, and then regretting the nervous tic when his fingers smelled of stone and metal. He paused for a second, collecting himself with the story.

“It was senior year. Alison Price.”

“Alison Price? When did you hook up with Alison Price?”

“You remember the ill-fated Halloween party?”

“Ah yes, Anya Stein threw up in my hair while I was going down on them,” said Vickie, brushing at her hair now and grimacing.

“Yeah. That one. Anyway, before shit got out of control and it shut down, I was all emo.”

“Typical,” said Vickie solemnly, hands on the hips of her high-waisted jeans. Her little rhinestone belly button ring glistened in the stream from the flashlight, which she was spinning in one hand.

“Shut up,” Az said. “Yes, okay, I stormed out after some slight or another.”

He avoided mentioning that it was because he had lost courage, again, and hadn’t told Vickie how he felt.

And then, the next thing he knew, they were switching beer pong partners and Vickie was slipping her arm around Anya, picking them, even though he’d been magicking her balls into the cups that night, hoping that he could at least get a congratulatory hug.

Like the lame creep that he was.

Before he knew it, he had been sulking off behind Danny Nguyen’s house and away from the bright lights of the party, up toward the gazebo on the edge of the property.

“I went for a walk and Alison followed me. We were both a little tipsy, and she kept telling me I was like Mr. Darcy because I was cranky, and we were in a fancy garden.”

“Oh my goddess. How did I never know this? Did you Bridgerton -style fuck Alison Price in the Nguyen’s fairy garden?”

“It was a gazebo, and no, I, at age seventeen, was not doing anything with the finesse of a reformed rake. I had very awkward sex with her in a gazebo, and the sex involved stealing a condom because I didn’t bring one.

When she wasn’t looking, I magicked it from someone else in the house.

I truly hope it was from a box and one of many, or else I ruined someone’s night. ”

“I’m sure you weren’t half-bad.”

“That’s actually very similar to what Alison said afterward,” he deadpanned, and Vickie’s laughter pealed across the mausoleum.

Az had forgotten he was even in a house of the dead. It was so easy to forget everything else when he was with her.

Vickie stepped closer, though still at arm’s length, and he could smell her now—strawberries and lavender.

“Don’t worry, Az. I’m not sure if you’re not giving yourself enough credit, or if you’ve learned a lot in the years between, but everything we have ever done, or almost done, has been fucking fantastic.”

Her cheeks colored, the heat stretching tightly between them. He wanted all sorts of totally inappropriate things now. To distract himself, he snapped a final time, and the stone loosened enough that he should be able to pull it off. He tried, but it was still stuck. Must be screwed in.

“That was years ago, and you may be remembering things as better than they were. Or better than I was, at least. Besides. We have a coffin to break into,” he said, not proud of how strained his voice came out. It was bad form to be slightly erect while discussing grave robbery.

“Did you know that most American burials use caskets, not coffins?”

He nodded. “I did. Witches prefer coffins. Most magical creatures do, really.”

“Right,” she said, shaking her head. “Based on the vampire romances I’ve read, that tracks.”

Azrael shook his head, forcing himself to think of the body they were about to disturb instead of Victoria, hot and heavy, reading steamy paranormal novels.

The necessary evil of grave robbery chilled him enough to sober the way he felt.

With a snap of his fingers, the stone finally loosened. A second snap would pull it free completely.

The coffin itself would be trickier.

“Better hope this is a burping coffin, or that it was propped open.”

“Excuse me, a what ?” Vickie’s eyes widened at this.

“I did some work for one of those detective procedurals. I’m not proud of it, but I was broke, and screenwriting can be a tough game. I had to learn all about coffin types.”

Vickie’s eyes were glittering now, and the corners of her mouth pulled up.

“Go on,” she said, rubbing her arm through the pink fluffy coat.

“Bodies emit gases as they decompose,” Az said.

She wrinkled her nose. “Damn, and I thought my deep dive into caskets versus coffins was a lot. I am so glad I deal with the noncorporeal part of death.”

A chuckle escaped his mouth. She was fucking adorable. How was he supposed to not be completely in love with her?

Six years of silence between them, a college degree, plenty of failing at screenwriting and substitute teaching high school, and he had learned absolutely nothing about how to stop loving Victoria Elaine Starnberger.

It wasn’t his fault. He studied and taught literature, and that shit was chock-full of unrequited infatuation. It was a dangerous business to be in.

“So, coffins, or caskets, if you seal them too tightly, explode. If you prop them open, it can cause a smell, which is why proper ventilation and drainage are so important. Some companies design them to let puffs of gas out.”

“That’s disgusting, but cool that you know it. And here I was thinking you were nowhere as morbid as good old Benedict and Persephone.”

“You know, I wish I could have been even half as authentic as they were.”

“Yeah,” she said, sounding wistful. “I get that.” She set the flashlight down on a ledge, balancing it on its base so that it shone upward and cast the room in a wide, eerie glow. “Okay, Mr. Hart, let’s ruin Tina Rosehill’s death.”

Azrael scoffed at the nickname, but his heart wasn’t in it.

He reached for the metal handle and pulled, snaking an arm under the stone to catch it, and it came away easily.

He set it aside. He snapped a few times to pepper the area under the coffin—which, thankfully, was unexploded and intact—with ball bearings, and together they slid it out and placed it on the ground.

“Stand back,” Vickie said, and he stepped closer to her. Almost close enough to burn, but he could be careful.

Az snapped his fingers, and the wooden lid groaned, springing open.

Instinctively, he held his breath, as though the air from the sealed death box might release a sinister creature.

Vickie tensed beside him, too, but all that remained in the coffin was a decaying body. A discarded, but mortal, coil.

Witch or not, there was nothing otherworldly about the remains of Tina.

Vickie pointed to a necklace on the putrefying remains.

“There. That should work. Can you, I don’t know, magic it to get rid of the corpse goop?”

“Yes,” he said, trying not to retch at the sight of it. To his deep embarrassment, Az had thrown up while working on the very script he had mentioned to Vickie earlier.

Thank goddess for magic; it was all well and good for him to gag, but he didn’t want Vickie to watch him be sick. He snapped his fingers and the necklace, sans fluid and decay, was in his hands. For good measure, he snapped them again, and the lid closed.

“Rest in peace, Tina,” he whispered, though they were about to disturb that very slumber. “Ready?”

Vickie nodded, holding out her hand for the gold. He snapped his fingers, and gloves covered both their hands.

Az placed the locket in Vickie’s fabric-covered palm, missing the spark of connection that always came with touching her skin, even for an instant. There was no denying it was real magic now.

And unless they fixed things, he would never feel that particular sensation again. Or, if he did, it would be the last thing he ever felt.

The thought of it was more sobering even than robbing a grave to summon a ghost.