Page 81 of Witch You Would
Gil was facing me, so he didn’t see Quentin coming up the hallway behind him. I jumped to press the button for the third floor, then held the one to close the door. Quentin was far enough that he’d never make it, but near enough that his confused expression made me feel guilty for shutting him out. No way did I want this conversation to be public, though.
“What...?” Gil started to turn, but I grabbed his face.
“Quentin,” I explained.
His eyes got big. “Thanks.”
“Where’s your room?” I asked. I hadn’t wanted to go there the other night because it felt too... bed having? But I wasn’tgoing to do this in the restaurant, not in front of his friends or anyone else, and I had a feeling that the two of us beingseen together might make other people connect the same dots I had.
“First one on the left,” he said.
The doors opened. Nobody there. I pushed him out backward and toward what I assumed was his room. He pulled his key card fromhis back pocket and struggled to get it to work. I’m glad it wasn’t just me with those damn things. The “Do Not Disturb” signhung on the knob, and I had a ridiculous image of a housekeeping person dusting his fake mustaches.
His room was nicer than mine, with an enchanted painting and more space and even a bigger bed. A peek at the bathroom saidthat was also extra classy, but I wasn’t going to explore.
Instead, I stood in front of an overstuffed chair and crossed my arms. “Do you need to tell your friends? Where you went?”
“I’m pretty sure they’ll figure it out,” Gil mumbled. He’d shoved his hands in his pockets and stood near the wall just pastthe door, shoulders hunched like he was waiting for me to yell or get violent.
Was I going to yell? Probably not. I sorted through the snakebasket of my feelings. Anger was there, yes, but mostly I was . . . sad? Disappointed? Hurt? I’d be lying to myself, though, if I ignored that I was also at least a tiny bit relieved.
Gil was Leandro. In some ways, it made things so much easier; in others, extremely harder. No pun intended.
Okay, smol pun.
“I was going to tell you earlier,” Gil said. “It’s why I was looking for you. To tell you. But you were with Amy, and thenI didn’t want to interrupt all the stuff you were saying, and then Mary dragged me off...”
And I’d told him it could wait. “Right. Okay.” My brain shuffled a whole deck of questions and started pulling random cards.“Did you get my email?”
“This morning. I, um, already knew your name, by the way. My friend who recommended your store told me about you. All goodthings,” he said quickly.
Considering I’d stalked him online, I couldn’t really get mad about that, I guess. I mean, I could, but it would make me ahypocrite. “So you knew it was me the whole time here? Since the first day?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know at the park, but I knew as soon as I read your bio, before we started filming.”
Puzzle pieces started clicking together. “You didn’t say anything because nobody knows you’re Leandro, except your friends?”
“Only the friends who work on the videos with me. The ones you saw today. And my agent. And my grandpa Fred.”
Only four people? Seriously? “Not even your parents?”
He looked away and said softly, “Especially not my parents.”
That sounded like a bruise I wasn’t going to poke. “How did youeven start being Leandro Presto? It seemed like you went viral out of nowhere and then you were all over the place.”
“That’s pretty much what happened.” Gil’s shoulders relaxed and he took his hands out of his pockets. “It’s kind of a longstory. I should, um . . .” He gestured at the beer stain on his pants.
“Yeah, no, for sure.”
He pulled folded jeans out of the dresser and took them to the bathroom. “Do you want a drink?” he asked through the door.“My minibar stuff is free, or I can get you something from the vending machine?”
“Wow, celebrities living it up, huh? I don’t even have a minibar, just a fridge.”
“I mean, I’m not like everyone else here, but I do get some perks.” He came back out, crossed the room and opened a door thatlooked like a regular cabinet. “Options are bottled water, soda, beer, tiny rum, tiny vodka, tiny whiskey, and tiny wine—redor white.”
Was it too early for a tiny Cuba libre? Probably. “Caffeine me.”
He passed me a soda—regular-sized, thankfully—and opened a beer for himself. We both sat down, me in the comfy seat, him ina wheelie desk chair.
