Page 35 of The Entanglement of Rival Wizards (Magic and Romance #1)

We’re back in that state of professionalism.

For the next few days, we work around each other, talking only to share ideas or ask about progress.

We don’t discuss our hookup Sunday night or how we decided we’d be fuck buddies but haven’t taken any further steps toward that, and I think some of the energy that swirls around us is sexual tension.

But neither of us makes a move or invites the other to his apartment; is it another challenge? Horny chicken?

It doesn’t have that challenge feel though.

The way Thio watches me, concedes to me in our conversations and interactions—is he waiting for me to initiate it?

Since he initiated it the first time. And I’ve been nothing but hesitant from the start, so yeah, it makes sense he’s hanging back, letting me be the one to confirm that I do, in fact, want this.

Oh gods. We’ll be waiting forever.

By the time our check-in meeting rolls around on Friday, it isn’t a surprise that my knee’s bouncing while Thio and I give Davyeras, Thompson, and Thio’s advisor the spiel we came up with.

In a conference room in Bellanor Hall, we ensure they know that Thio and I are working together now, and how we’re incorporating conjuration ideas into my project while I’m starting to do the same for his.

We talk about our future plans, and when I’m midway through a run of word vomit about potential tests we’ll do, Thio kicks my foot to get me to stop fidgeting.

My face heats. “Um, yeah. That’s where we’re at,” I finish. Then realize we should’ve had more flare, maybe? I spread my fingers and give them jazz hands. Because that’s collegiate.

Thio drops his chin to his chest with a soft moan.

But Thompson is smiling across the long table. “Very good, Mr. Walsh. Mr. Tourael.”

Davyeras hums agreement, looking far more pleased than he did at the mixer a few weeks back. “Indeed. This is the progress the committee has been hoping for. And what would you say has been the most beneficial tool towards your reconciliation?”

“I—” Do not say sex, do not say sex . “We—”

Thio glances at me, and my thoughts must be clear on my face, because his eyes bug out.

“We—” he starts, then his mouth hangs open, and I swear I can see the same words rolling through his head: Do not say sex.

Yeah, not so easy to answer that question, is it?

But I think about Thio counterspelling my dad. Telling me about his family. Introducing me to his mom.

“We realized we have more in common than we’d expected,” I say softly.

Thio’s face relaxes, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth.

I catch myself the moment I start to lean forward, like I’m going to kiss that spot.

It’s been four days since Thio and I have so much as touched each other. And that’s entirely because I’ve been overthinking it; he’s following my lead. He’s giving me the reins and I can’t decide whether I like that.

I slam back in the chair, posture straightening, to see Davyeras and the advisors making notes and nodding at each other.

Next to me, Thio clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair. Is it me projecting, or can I feel more body heat coming off him than normal?

He noticed I leaned toward him while looking at his mouth.

I clear my throat, too.

Davyeras smiles to his notepad. “I’m glad to hear it. That’ll come in handy for our Founder’s Day challenge.”

I frown. “Uh—what? Why?”

Thompson grins. He’s got the same energy as a mother trying to convince her child that going to the dentist is, in fact, like going to an amusement park.

“You and Mr. Tourael, along with myself and Dr. Narbeth”—Thio’s advisor—“will be competing in teams of two. The Founder’s Day coordinators heard about this grant and thought it’d be a great draw, along with the ever popular student-versus-professor head-to-head.

” He winks. “You’ll have to take it easy on us old-timers. ”

Thio winces, but recovers and asks, “What’s the challenge?”

“Oh, that’d hardly be fair for them to give us time to strategize, would it?

” Narbeth says as he closes his leather folio, and Davyeras and Thompson follow suit.

The tension in my muscles goes out, knowing the check-in meeting is over, and we didn’t fuck it up.

“We’ll find out what the challenge is the day of.

I’ve been told we’re to wear clothes we don’t mind getting messy. ”

Thio stifles another low moan.

My smile is more than a little stiff. “Fantastic.”

Davyeras, Thompson, and Narbeth file out of the conference room with wishes of good luck, leaving Thio and me to gather up our materials.

Which we do.

In that professional silence again.

Only it’s strained more now, drawing between us like fishing line, tangling us up, too, tighter; I’m losing feeling in my extremities.

Just say… something.

Gods. Why isn’t this simple? It should be simple. I’m overthinking it. I need to talk to Orok—no, fuck, any more talking to him about this and he’ll have to start charging me by the hour.

A knuckle raps on the door and I look across the table while hooking my messenger bag over my head. Thio’s gathering the printouts we made of our planned schedule, so he doesn’t turn right away.

I don’t recognize whoever is at the door. But—he’s familiar? Short and compact, with receding brown hair, pale skin, and pointed ears.

“We’re clearing out. The room’s all yours,” I tell him, assuming he’s come to use the conference room after us.

But the guy gives me a cold, flat smile and tugs the hem of his beige suit coat. “Ah. I was rather hoping you both could stay a bit longer.”

At the guy’s voice, Thio whips his head up, papers clutched in his hands.

His entire posture changes. What tension had been brewing between us is nothing compared to the crystallizing brutality that takes him now, his jaw hardening, face blanking. He’s shutting down. Shutting out.

“Myrdin,” Thio says. “What are you doing here?”

The defensiveness in Thio’s tone has my spine popping upright. My eyes go from him to this guy, Myrdin, my gaze narrowing.

Myrdin’s cold smile doesn’t change. “Arasne expects a report.”

Arasne. He works with Thio’s cousin?

My mind fits together a missing piece: I have seen this guy before. He was at the grant award brunch, sitting at Thio’s table. Making sure, I know now, that Thio lived up to their Tourael standards to determine whether his mom gets the care she needs.

I curl my hands into fists around the strap of my messenger bag.

“And I’ll see her at our lunch meeting next week,” Thio says through his clamped jaw. “You didn’t need to show up here to—”

“She heard your first check-in for the grant was today,” Myrdin interrupts, pulling a tablet out of his jacket pocket.

He starts tapping on the screen and poises over it, like he’s waiting to take notes.

“She has been… less than pleased with your updates and wants a recap of the presentation you just gave. Which shouldn’t be hard, should it? ”

Thio deflates, his focus dropping to the table as his knuckles go white on the stack of papers he’s clinging to.

“Fine,” he relents laconically, an inevitable exhaustion sweeping over him.

I can’t immediately tell why I hate seeing him like this. But it is that, hatred, and a sharp, ravaging “ No ” cuts up out of me, drawing both Thio and Myrdin’s attention.

“We have, uh—” I fumble, eyeing Thio. “That thing. We have to do. You don’t have time for this now.”

There is no thing . It’s the end of the day.

Thio briefly gives me a look of gratitude, but it’s resigned.

Myrdin’s head tips. I swear his nostril curls, but he resets and smiles that flat smile. “This won’t take long. Provided you are both forthcoming in the details of this project.”

Confusion has me shaking my head. “Both?”

“What?” Thio frowns at Myrdin.

Myrdin sighs impatiently and lowers his tablet. “Yes. Both . The family is concerned that this partnership will not bear the fruit we expect, and as such, Arasne has requested that you both begin reporting your progress. Until such a time as we can be assured of your success.”

My body goes numb. Inside and out.

The Touraels want me to start reporting to them, too.

I stand there, gawking at Myrdin, some part of my brain screaming at me to react, but I can’t.

Until Thio slams the papers onto the conference table.

I jump at the impact, my heart restarting in a painful hammer against my ribs.

“Myrdin,” Thio barks. “Leave.”

Myrdin startles, too.

“You had no right coming here,” Thio tells him, redness rising across his face, shoulders arching like he’s one wrong move away from leaping over the table and tackling his cousin’s go-between.

“I will see Arasne at our regular meeting next week, where I and I alone will tell her what she needs to hear to satisfy the terms of our arrangement. This? You showing up on campus? You barging in, demanding Sebastian report to her, too? This does not happen .”

Myrdin blusters. I swear he’d clutch pearls if he was wearing them. “You are making this out to be something it isn’t, Elethior. This is so unlike you.”

Breath hisses through the seam of my lips.

Stop being so dramatic, Sebastian.

I look at Thio. Fuck Myrdin. My whole focus is on Thio, the vehement scarlet on his cheeks and the rage in his eyes and the way he’s barely clinging to decorum.

“Leave,” Thio says again. No, he commands it, the walls rattling with the force of his shout. Somewhere beyond this conference room, I hear a passerby gasp, but I can’t look away from Thio.

Myrdin huffs and there’s rustling; he must put away his tablet. “She won’t be pleased.”

“She never is.” Thio shoves back from the table. “And Sebastian is off-limits. To you. To Arasne. He isn’t part of this. Do not approach him, do not speak to him. Do you understand?”

Holy shit.

Myrdin mutters something else. I don’t know what. I don’t fucking care what he says.

Thio’s radiating fury and I’m hypnotized.

Then we’re alone.

I only know we’re alone because Thio turns his focus to me.