He beat me to it. "Should I be worried about how you got back in here?"
"Hey, no door is truly locked when you have magic."
What a thing to brag about. My magic excelled at petty thievery and misdemeanors. No surprise there, it matched the caster.
Orion righted a filing cabinet near his desk. Then he stopped working to join me near the doorway. “Rob, I’m sorry.”
Ugh, did he have to make this even more uncomfortable? “You don’t have to—"
"Rob.” Wow, a face that chiseled was apparently also capable of tenderness. Or at least less rigidity. “A mage on a power-hungry incubus’s radar? I suspected it was no accident. Yet I was so excited to be getting closer to catching him that I didn’t stop to consider the circumstances that brought you together. They couldn’t have been pleasant."
We needed to talk about this, but unlike him, I wasn’t good at confronting things head-on. I coughed and broke our intense eye contact, ending the moment.
I nodded to the mess on the floor. “Here, let me help.”
He blocked my path with his body, preventing me from getting closer to the mess we created. “That’s really not necessary."
"It’s fine."
"Really."
We were at odds, each politely insisting, probably the only time we’d ever been polite to each other, which added to the bizarreness of the situation.
"Isn’t it polite to help a guy clean up when the spell you’re doing together blows up in your face?” Well, not literally blows up. Huh, it could have been worse. “Hey, a fire is better than an explosion, right?"
Yet he just kept watching me with gentle concern. I had to level with the brick wall of a man in front of me.
"Come on, man, let me pretend to care about having manners and help you clean up. It gives me an excuse to do something instead of standing here feeling like… like…"
"Like?" he prompted quietly.
"I might explode or implode or some other terrible third option."
He finally stepped aside. "Okay, clean up."
“Gee, thanks.” But I went to do what he said anyway. Because I wanted to. Due to the not exploding or imploding thing.
No longer blocked by his impressive body—impressive both physically and as a human shield—I bent over to start collecting the various spellcasting ingredients that had fallen from their pouches. Did he buy a witch’s toolkit from Etsy or something? Like a standard first aid kit with basic ingredients, except instead of Band-Aids and antiseptic there were herbs and crystals.
Orion interrupted before I really started. "No, don’t clean like that.”
"How do I clean up without cleaning up? Dude, I can’t handle any trick questions right now."
"Use magic."
Oh, duh.
With my powers waning, I tended to conserve my magic when I should probably be nurturing my gifts, even if there wasn’t much to nurture.
I directed my focus to the nearest fallen ingredient, purple lavender sprigs scattered over the charred line on the floor. My magic grabbed a stray piece, coiling around it.
Like attracts like,I thought.
The lavender pieces drifted together towards the first piece, moving like magnets on the floor until they found each other.
"Okay, so. It’s summer vacation between seventh and eighth grade,” I began while focusing on my work. “I was a bored kid without enough parental supervision. Even back then, trouble always knew where to find me.” Or the other way around. “I met this guy in a park, and wow, hearing it now, I can already see the classic strangers with candy scenario. I wanna scream, ‘no, Rob, don’t do that, walk away.’ But that didn’t happen. We got to talking…"
I grouped the ingredients into piles on the hardwood floor first before putting them where they belonged in pouches and the toolkit. I kept sorting until some tension loosened from my shoulders.
