Page 126 of Witch You Would
For one thing, we were both stuck in the middle of arbitration with theCast Judgmentpeople. They’d ended up canceling the season, possibly even the show, and totally buried the whole federal-crime thing somehow—mustbe nice to have expensive corporate lawyers—but they couldn’t get away with doing literally nothing for us when the wholecompetition had gone to shit. They owed us big fat checks, for sure. Like, so big.
And it wasn’t just us, it was the charities they’d promised moneyand publicity to. Doris might have sabotaged spells in every round because she was salty about getting fired, and Charlotte might have been the one to pay her for it, but proving any of that was hard. Gil and I had the best case of anyone thanks to the bribe check and freezer charm, plus Gil’s dad was a total shark of a lawyer, telling us what to do and say at every step.
Yeah, I’d met his parents, though he hadn’t met mine yet. His dad was a typical macho Cuban guy, living in a ridiculouslyexpensive condo in Coral Gables with his latest novela-hot girlfriend. His mom was a total drama queen; she offered me a glassof wine as soon as I walked in and then drank half a bottle before dinner was ready, complaining about random stuff the wholetime.
I understood why he avoided them, and he understood why I barely talked to mine. Some scars kept hurting long after they’dhealed.
His grandpa Fred was great, though. Alan Kazam! So cool. He loved to talk about magic stuff as much as Gil did, plus he wasfull of awesome stories.
My phone buzzed. Gil, texting that he was outside. I grabbed my purse and ran out, waving goodbye to Tati in the gift shop.She pointed at my dress and gave me two thumbs up as I passed.
Still hot, still sunny, typical Miami at six o’clock. Gil parked on the side street a little ways up, next to someone’s driveway.He saw me coming and got out, and if I hadn’t been wearing heels, I probably would have run so I could hug him faster. Hewas wearing a dark red button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and black pants, and he’d combed his hair but left itin messy curls, just how I liked it.
He pulled me in for a kiss, his hands around my waist while mine reached up to his neck. Mmm. Kissing him was like reading my favorite book and watching my favorite movie and casting my favorite spell all rolled into one. Magic, every time.
“We match,” he murmured against my mouth.
We didn’t always, and that was okay. It was nice when it happened, though, and it did happen a lot. Today I was wearing ablack dress with dark red lace over the top. Perfect.
“So where are we going?” I asked.
He put his finger against his lips and grinned. “Let’s go and you’ll find out.”
We went. Rush-hour traffic sucked, but it wasn’t so bad when you had someone awesome to talk to and weren’t stressed aboutgetting somewhere on time. I told him about my day, he told me about his—college students were way less adorable than kindergartners,but such was the life of an adjunct. He’d gotten hired back for the semester, though the pay was a giant fart noise. Betweenthat and hisMage You Lookmoney, two unstable jobs made one decent living.
We talked about his next spell request, mango-flavored snow, and how to make it go wrong without ending up with a huge stickymess. I hadn’t known it before, but he also recorded how-to videos that used to only be released to certain subscribers; afterthe competition comemierdería, he talked it over with his friends, who had wanted to stop doing them. Now they got releasedalong with the oopsie-doodle version, which had the surprise side effect of bringing in new subscribers happy to see a moreserious side of Leandro Presto. Who knew anyone wanted that?
Besides me, I guess. But I’d liked his serious side first.
“Are we going to the beach?” I asked when he got into the lane for the exit.
“Maybe,” he said, grinning.
We parked at a garage on Collins and started walking. I wished I’d worn better shoes, but such was the price of fashion. After a few blocks, Gil stopped in front of a neon-signed building that looked vaguely familiar. Oh!
“Is this the bar we went to the first night of the show?” I asked.
“It is. I got the deets from Little Manny. Come on.”
The place was full of people tonight, but otherwise it was how I remembered. Same huge mirrored wall of booze, same big stagesurrounded by lights, where someone was setting up for a show. Gil kept one arm around my waist as he led me through the crowdto the bar and got us both drinks. I sipped my mudslide and snuggled up on him, mellow and happy and wondering what else hehad planned.
“Oh, selfie,” I said, pulling my phone out.
We held up our drinks and made duck faces, then took a nice smiling one. I posted both to the private Jive server we’d madefor us and the other contestants from the show—except Felicia, who’d ignored the invite. Quentin almost immediately reactedwith a heart-eyes emoji and asked, “Where are you? What are you drinking?” I told him, he awwed, and I put my phone away tofocus on cuddling.
Since our season didn’t air, none of us had gotten any of that magical exposure we’d been promised as a perk of the show, but we’d done okay. I got a dream job, obviously. Amy had almost finished recording a solo album of piano songs she hoped she could license for commercials and stuff, plus one of her recipes would be appearing in a spellbook Jaya was releasing at the end of the year. Quentin had started a side hustle making cute magical automatons, and was quietly working with Tanner to sell them through the Spell Rehab store in Chicago and online. Zeke was mentoringDylan through the process of setting up his own magical baking business, though he had to start smaller than he would have if he’d gotten the prize money. Felicia, according to some light internet detective work, was still designing stuff and selling houses, but she had gotten engaged to her personal assistant, who I assumed loves sarcasm and K-dramas and being stepped on by statuesque blondes.
Our dreams hadn’t died, they’d just changed. Así es la vida, as my abuela always said.
Since I hadn’t eaten, I got tipsy fast, which made the show even better. We were seeing an illusionist-singer who called herselfBelle Nocturne—nobody famous, but hey, that was Miami. Full of talented people trying to catch a break.
She was really good. Started slow: changing her own appearance, creating mirror images of herself mimicking her movements,then dancing independently and even singing backup. By a few songs in, the entire stage was changing as she sang, and evenparts of the room, becoming dark bedrooms and neon-bright city streets, moonlit castle ruins and caves filled with gemstonesand luminescent moss, complete with sounds and smells and the feel of each place on our skin. Gil held me the whole time,sometimes swaying with me, sometimes resting his chin on my shoulder. Finally she sang a capella standing on an ocean of starswith the Milky Way overhead, and it was so beautiful I had tears coming down my face when she finished.
I fished some tissues out of my purse and blotted the mess, hoping my mascara hadn’t run. “Wow, that was great.”
“Right?” Gil said. “Can’t see the illusions on video, but I heard a song of hers online and thought you’d like it.”
“I did. Thank you. Super great surprise.” I couldn’t wait to tell the people at work.
