Page 32 of Witch You Would

on the wall. I felt spiky myself, but Isaac looked like he’d just finished a massage and facial, or possibly smoked a shitload

of weed. He sat on his couch, an arm stretched along the back, one foot up on the clear coffee table. A smile spread across

his face as I sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs near him.

“Hey, Leandro, how’s it going?” Isaac asked. “Good, great. Listen, I wanted to have a little chat with you about something,

mano a mano.”

That’s not what “mano a mano” meant, but okay. “Sure, yeah, what’s up?”

“I’m putting a new show together,” he continued. “It’s kind of a street magic thing, sort of like what you do already, showing

up in random places and grabbing people to do tricks. Very fun stuff.”

Okay, that did sound fun.

“We’ve got a few potential options for talent, keeping an open mind right now, you know, but . . .” He tapped the side of

his nose. “I think you’re it, guy. I’ve seen some of the dailies of you doing your thing, and you’re smooth. Funny.”

“Thanks.” He’d said a lot of the same stuff when I was asked to be a Spellebrity. I kept my derpy grin on and nodded along.

“We want you to come in for a screen test. Not today, but soon.” Isaac raised his arm and waved it around, and moments later,

Mary handed him a bottle of something bright orange. Neither of them offered me anything.

“You know where to find me,” I joked. “I can do the test whenever.”

“Excellente.” He chugged some of the carrot or whatever smoothie and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I don’t have

to tell you to keep this hush-hush. We’re still putting the package together, feeling out money options, you know the drill.”

I mimed zipping my lips and locking them, like Grandpa Fred always did.

“My people will call your people, et cetera, et cetera.” Isaac pointed at me with the bottle. “Speaking of your people, nice

work with your partner. You’re really selling the fake-flirting stuff.”

I kept my himbo grin going, but inside I flinched. “That’s good to hear. We, uh, weren’t sure.”

“If you do end up with this show,” Isaac said, “you’ll need to ditch her.”

What?

“She’s fine for Cast Judgment , but she doesn’t have the ‘it’ factor, you know what I’m saying?

You have to level up your pussy game. And anyway you’re going to want to fly solo for a while.

” Isaac made an airplane motion with his hand.

“Let the press see you with a few different people—the hotter, the better—get them talking about you as much as possible. New week, new flavor.”

Bad. This was bad. Assuming Penelope and I—

“We’ll cross that bridge when we burn it,” Isaac said. “For now, keep doing what you’re doing, or should I say, keep doing

who you’re doing?” He cracked a laugh, and somewhere behind me, Mary cackled like a cartoon hyena.

I guess Isaac was all funned out, because he got up and left the room without even saying goodbye.

That worked for me. I had nothing to say to him, either.

On the way back to the hotel, I frantically texted Sam and Ed that I needed to talk to them ASAP. I wanted to do a video call

from my room, but Sam insisted we should get together in person, which was ridiculous. I’m pretty sure she was having major

FOMO and wanted to get close to the fun times. We agreed to meet at the hotel bar for happy hour once they made it through

traffic.

Plenty of time for me to get Penelope alone and finally explain everything. Unless... Maybe I needed to talk to Sam and

Ed first?

The stuff Isaac had said kept repeating in my head, making me second-guess my plans from this morning. Would I really have

to go around fake dating random people as part of my image? That sounded awful. When would it end? Would it ever end?

Not that I was rushing to get married—look how my parents turned out.

But Grandpa Fred and Grandma Louisa had been happy for so long, and so were my abuelos on my dad’s side.

I guess I always assumed that would be me one day.

A husband. A dad. Backyard birthday parties with croquetas and pastelitos and grocery store cakes.

Family vacations to overpriced theme parks. Enchantment lessons in the kitchen.

That was definitely not the future Isaac pictured for me. But what did I really want?

Right now, I wanted to hide in my room and pace. So I did. I took off my mustache and glasses, fixed my hair and changed into

normal clothes. Better to have this conversation as me than as Leandro.

Forcing myself to answer emails for another hour might possibly have been a special circle of hell. When Sam finally texted

that they were downstairs, I was ready to crawl out of my skin and eat it like a bug.

I used the camera on my phone to make sure the hallway was empty, spy-movie-style, then ran for the stairwell with my head

down. It dumped me out on the sidewalk, and I casually walked over to the bar like I was some rando from one of the condo

buildings.

Sam and Ed had grabbed a table against the wall and were checking out the menu. Sam wore one of her usual T-shirts—a stylized

samurai cutting a film strip into pieces—while Ed had on a pale blue dress shirt and gray tie like he’d just come from a business

meeting and left his jacket in the car. I threw myself into an empty chair and put my face in my hands.

“Hello to you, too,” Sam said. “I see you’ve temporarily abandoned your secret identity.”

“Shh!” I said. “Please don’t start with that.”

“Okay, then let’s start with why you dragged us all the way out here.”

I gaped at her. “You’re the one who—”

“Incoming,” Ed said.

The waiter arrived to take our orders. I got a beer, Sam got a whiskey sour, Ed got a soda. We decided to share a plate of egg rolls.

“All right.” Ed folded his hands and looked at me over the tops of his glasses. “We know you can’t talk about certain things

due to your NDA, so I assume this isn’t related to any of that.”

“No, it’s totally separate. Well, some of it is.”

“Is it good or bad?” Sam asked.

“I’m not sure. It’s a secret, though, so cone of silence.”

Sam mimed dropping a cone over the table.

“I had a meeting today with”—I dropped my voice—“Isaac Knight. He wants me to do a screen test for a show.”

“Fuck yes! What kind of show? Deets!”

“Shh!” I explained briefly. “It’s not a sure thing.”

“It’s still exciting,” Ed said. “It means you’re doing something right.”

“But what about us? Our... everything?”

“We can manage it,” Ed said. “It’s just logistics.”

“What he said.” Sam wrinkled her nose at me. “There’s something else bothering you, though. Spill.”

“I don’t—”

“Incoming,” Ed said. I shut up.

The waiter dropped off our drinks. I sipped my beer as I tried to figure out how to get through this part without making Sam

screech like a raptor.

“Maybe we should talk about the rest in your car,” I muttered.

Ed raised an eyebrow at Sam, who made a who, me? face.

“I’ll be cool,” Sam said.

“I could get in big trouble,” I warned her.

“Come on,” Sam whined. “When have I ever told anyone—”

Ed cleared his throat. “Is there a way you can explain without violating your NDA?”

I thought about it. No, nothing would make sense if I tried to be vague. I shook my head.

“Sam will be good,” Ed said. Sam nodded. In a way, that made me relax a little. As wild as Sam could be, she hated to disappoint

Ed. It was like upsetting your favorite teacher.

I leaned closer. “Penelope is here.”

Sam clamped her hands over her mouth to stop her scream. Ed and I both looked at her.

“I’m fine,” she said through her fingers. “I’m good. Continue.”

“She’s my partner.”

Sam bit her fist.

“Isaac asked us to pretend to flirt with each other, for drama.”

Sam groaned and closed her eyes.

“We’ve been sort of hooking up for a few days now.”

Sam buried her face in Ed’s arm.

Ed smirked at me. “I think you broke her.”

“It gets worse,” I said.

The waiter appeared bearing food gifts. I dipped half an egg roll in spicy plum sauce and stuffed it in my mouth, delaying

the inevitable.

“Isaac told me,” I said, “that if I ended up on this new show, I’d have to drop Penelope because I need to ‘level up my pussy

game.’ Direct quote.”

“What the fuck?” Sam asked. “That’s disgusting. He’s disgusting.”

Ed made a face. “I can see where he’s coming from.”

“You what?” Sam exclaimed. “What the fuck, Ed!”

“Shh!” I said.

“I’m not saying he’s right, or that you should listen to him,” Ed said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “But if Gil does end up doing this new thing, how is that going to change his personal life? What is he going to have to compromise for his career?”

“Yes. That. It’s not just Penelope. I don’t know what’s going to happen with her.”

“You know what you want to happen,” Sam interrupted.

“Yeah. It’s more... do I want the future where I have my own TV show, but the only dating I ever do is fake? As Leandro?

And how long will that go on?”

“It might not be like that,” Ed said.

“It might not,” I agreed. “And this is just a screen test. It isn’t a contract. Lots of shows die before they go anywhere.

But I need to figure my shit out, you know? Get my priorities straight so I can set boundaries.”

Ed popped shredded carrot garnish into his mouth. “You don’t have to rush anything.”

“I need to talk to Penelope, though,” I said. “Before things go any further with us. I can’t keep messing around with her,

pretending to be Leandro. I want her to like me, not a character.”

Sam took a big gulp of her drink. “So, just curious, what’s she like?”

“Here’s the wild thing: you met her at the park.”

“Angry girl, right?” Sam asked.

“Yeah! She’s not actually angry. She’s really smart, and fun, and—”

“She’s right over there,” Sam said.

I turned so fast, I knocked my drink into my lap. Penelope stood near the doorway between the hotel lobby and the restaurant,

staring at me like she’d seen a ghost. But she couldn’t have figured out... could she?

She took one step back, then another, her eyes locked on mine. I stood up, wet beer soaking my jeans. She spun around and ran for the elevator.

“Shit, shit, shit!” I muttered, tripping through the crowded restaurant as I hurried to catch up. Behind me, Sam yelled, “Don’t

fuck this up!”

Had I, though? Was it already too late?

I bolted through the lobby, past Alina at her desk, my heart pumping faster than my legs. The doors of the elevator were starting

to close when I threw myself between them, and they opened again. Penelope stood inside, backed into the corner, hugging herself

tightly.

“Hey,” I said.

She just stared at me.

I took a deep breath and let it out. “I need to tell you something.”

The doors slid shut behind me.