Page 31 of Witch You Would

I sat in the chair next to Penelope, the armrest between us. Everything I wanted to say fell right out of my head like I’d

fumbled a tall stack of files as soon as I was looking into her clear brown eyes.

“What’s up with Amy?” I blurted out.

“We were going over what happened with her spell,” Penelope explained. “I wanted to take notes while it was still fresh in

her mind.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s two spell disasters in a row. It has to be sabotage.”

“Yeah, no, totally. I was only wondering about the notes part.”

“Oh.” She frowned at her notebook. “I guess... I like fixing things. And figuring out how they went wrong. I thought maybe

I could do that for Amy, or prove that she didn’t mess up. To help her feel a little better, you know?” She took a deep breath

and looked at me. “Speaking of mess-ups.”

Oh no. My whole body tensed.

“I know this is getting old,” Penelope said, “but I’m really sorry. About yesterday.”

She was?

“I know you didn’t spill that potion on purpose.

You wouldn’t do that. You didn’t deserve to have me bitch at you about it.

And the pressure cooker . . .” Penelope slouched down in her seat and looked up at the ceiling.

“It doesn’t matter. I was an asshole again.

I’m sorry. I just wanted to say that up front.

And I understand if sorry isn’t good enough, especially since this isn’t the first time. But I am. Sorry, I mean.”

That was a good start, I guess. My hurt feelings weren’t gone, but they felt better. Something she said snagged in my brain,

though.

“What about the pressure cooker?” I asked.

“It’s a story. You don’t have to hear it. I don’t want it to sound like I’m trying to excuse myself, you know?”

“Do you want to tell me? No pressure.” I paused. “Pun not intended.”

She snorted a laugh. “I wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t said anything.”

“I’m not kitten around right meow,” I said solemnly.

Her shoulders dropped an inch, but she fiddled with the straw in her drink, swirling the ice around inside. The plastic lid

creaked.

“I always used to help my abuela with her spells when I was little,” Penelope said, staring at the blank screen like she was

watching a movie of her memories. “She met my abuelo when they were both in college; she was studying magic theory, and he

was going to be a doctor.”

“Not a curandero?”

“No, he was getting his Doctor en Medicina, though I think in Cuba the program covered some healing magic, too? I’m not sure.

Anyway.” She sighed. “They fell in love, they graduated, they got married. My aunt was born, and my abuela pretty much became

a housewife.”

“Pretty much?”

Penelope grinned, a quick flash of teeth.

“The wife of a doctor, working? No me diga. She never stopped learning, though, and making spells for people. When they moved here from Cuba with my aunt and my mom, they lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Hialeah, and she supported the family with her magic while my abuelo struggled to get a job. He couldn’t be a doctor here unless he did his residency again, and took all his exams, and they couldn’t afford it. Eventually he sold cars.”

“Wow. That’s a big change.” And here I’d been complaining about being an adjunct-slash–internet celebrity.

“They made it work.” She sipped her drink. “Anyway. My sister and I grew up learning spells from my abuela. There was always

a language thing because I was born here, speaking mostly English—both my parents learned young, and we spoke it at home more

than Spanish. I sometimes had trouble understanding her directions, or figuring out which reagents she wanted, but she was

always super patient with me.” Her voice cracked, her eyes watery and her nose turning red.

Quietly, I asked, “When did she die?”

Penelope sniffled. “She isn’t dead. She has dementia. For years now. She’s there physically, but otherwise she’s gone.”

God. I could only imagine.

“When I was sixteen,” Penelope said, “I was more... I don’t know, confident? But I procrastinated a lot. I wanted to cast

a spell on my own, for my abuela’s birthday, but I left it to the last minute. It was a simple soap enchantment. I’d done

them so many times...”

“You tried to pressure-cook it.”

“Yeah.” She rubbed her face with one hand. “It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t mixed up an ingredient. Put in a teaspoon of spearmint instead of bay leaves for the catalyst.”

Ouch. “It grew too fast.”

“It grew too fast,” she agreed. “If I hadn’t gone to the bathroom when I did, I would have been in the kitchen when it exploded.”

Holy fuck. “You could have died.”

“My abuela almost did. She ran into the kitchen to... she thought I was still there, and it was burning, smoke everywhere...

and then something under the sink went up in a huge fireball... She was in the hospital for two weeks. Even with healing

magic, she needed skin grafts, and her lungs were never the same.”

Penelope turned her face away, like she didn’t want me to see her cry. She shivered, but didn’t make a sound. Nothing like

my mom, who went all out with big sobs and dramatic wailing. I moved the armrest up and scooted closer, gently wrapping my

arms around her.

This explained so much. Why she triple-checked all our ingredients. Why my little fireball had freaked her out, and Amy’s

spell explosion had given her a full panic attack. And most importantly, why she was so angry at Leandro Presto for messing

up his spells and acting like it was no big deal.

Was I encouraging my fans to do things wrong as a joke, when they might get hurt? I always explained, always showed the correct

way, but if Sam was right, most people didn’t care about anything but the fuckup.

Shit. Maybe Penelope was right about Mage You Look . Maybe something needed to change. Possibly a bigger issue was, would she ever be able to accept me being Leandro if I kept

doing what I was doing?

Penelope blew her nose on a napkin and swallowed, her face splotchy. “Like I said before, I don’t want you to feel like this is me trying to make excuses. It’s just . . . reasons.”

“I get it,” I said. “We’re both stressed out.”

“Are we... good?” she asked meekly, looking at the space movie carpet.

“We’re good,” I assured her.

“Okay. Okay. That’s good.” She paused, then said, “I also wanted to talk about... us?”

My heart sped up like a car in the HOV lane. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. As in, not our team, but our... vibe?” She laughed and shook her head. “Why is this so hard?”

“That’s what she said?”

Penelope smacked my arm lightly. “I’m just trying to figure out what we’re doing here? And the thing is...”

When she didn’t keep going, I said, “The thing is?”

“The thing is, there’s this guy.”

My racing heart crashed into a highway wall. “Oh. Okay.”

“It’s not what you think,” she said quickly. “It’s... This is probably going to sound super ridiculous.”

“I’m ridiculous professionally, don’t worry.” I was worried.

“So. I’ve been emailing this guy for, like... months now?”

Oh my god.

“I’ve honestly had a huge crush on him the entire time, but I never said anything. And he’s been friendly, but he never...

He’s been nice. Possibly flirty, but I’m not sure.”

Oh my fucking GOD.

“I emailed him right before we started here, because... I don’t even want to explain because it’s more ridiculous than

anything else, but I sort of asked him out?”

My brain had climbed onto the roof of my crashed heart car and was quietly screaming. “So you . . . have a thing for this guy and don’t want to keep, um. Doing anything. With me?”

Penelope waved her hands in front of her. “Yeah, no, that’s not what I mean! I just wanted to be up front about why my feelings

are a mess? And you made me think, when you talked about people not really knowing you... maybe I don’t know this guy as

well as I thought. Maybe I was crushing on a version of him that was only real in my mind.”

Everything I had imagined about this conversation seemed like a weird dream now.

“So the thing is,” Penelope said.

“The thing is?” I repeated, my mouth dry.

“You’re real,” she said. “And you’re here. And I don’t want to miss out on where this could go, with us, because I’m waiting

on someone who might not even be who I think he is.”

She couldn’t know she’d managed to hit me in the exact right spot to ruin me. But I could fix this. I could make it right.

All I had to do was confess.

“I have to tell you something,” I said.

The door to the theater room opened and Mary, Isaac’s assistant, walked in.

“Hi hello!” Mary said. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

I couldn’t even respond. Neither could Penelope, apparently.

“Awesome great so I’ve been looking for Leandro because Isaac wants to meet with him right now about something super important.”

Mary inhaled. “So if you could please follow me out to the car outside you don’t need to bring anything except yourself okay

great!” She stared at me, her eyes big like a lemur on cocaine.

I found my voice. “We are in the middle of something, actually.” Was I growling? I might have growled.

“It’s okay,” Penelope said, putting her hand on my arm. “We can finish talking later. You should see what Isaac wants.”

Isaac could eat my balls. “Are you sure?”

Penelope smiled, and my heart melted. “I’m sure. I’m not going anywhere.”

God, I wanted that to be true in so many ways. “Later. For sure.”

“For sure, for sure.”

Kissing her was not an option yet. Not in front of a random almost-stranger. But soon, I promised myself. Soon, and a lot.

I followed Mary out of the dimly lit theater and out of the hotel, and blinked at the sun shining overhead, impossibly bright.

Nothing felt real. I didn’t know what Isaac wanted, but it had better be good, and fast, because I had to get back to Penelope

and finish what we’d started.

There was no sign of the vulture on the balcony of Isaac’s fancy room, possibly because someone—Mary?—had put a spike strip