Chapter Five
Ryder
Exercise has always helped me take my mind off of whatever’s bothering me.
Something about wearing myself out physically puts me at ease mentally, so I spend the sixth morning of my vacation in the hotel gym, letting the steady rhythm of my feet pounding against the treadmill distract me from intrusive-ass thoughts of wicked green eyes and black ink tattoos.
Maybe if I exhaust myself enough, I can even sleep peacefully tonight, without the dreams that woke me up drenched in sweat at three AM this morning.
Dreams of flowing lace and spells chanted in an Irish accent, dreams of being pinned up against a wall in a frustratingly erotic way.
My playlist is interrupted by an incoming call, and I slow my speed to a walk before double tapping my earpiece to answer.
“You must be real bored to be calling me this much,” I say with a grin.
“No, this US Government desk job is so interesting,” Nix says from the other end of the line. “I’m replying to your text, dumbass. You know I hate texting.”
“Oh, right,” I say. The text I sent her last night, right before The Hallway Incident. “I wanted to run something by you.”
“You already said that in the text. Spit it out, Flórez.”
“I heard that Ash is on her way out, which means there’s an opening for… what was she again?”
“AEAD. You don’t want that job, so why are we talking about it?”
I press the “stop” button on the treadmill and step off.
Nix is clearly not in a very open-minded mood, which makes it a shitty time for the conversation we’re about to have.
But I might not have another opportunity to bring it up before the position gets filled, and I made a promise. “I was talking to Paige yesterday—”
“No.”
“Just hear me out!”
“ No, Ryder. I know she’s your friend—”
“She’s not just a friend, she’s family!”
“I don’t care if she’s your parasitic twin, she’s not ready to move up!”
“She’s worked in the Bureau longer than Ash did—”
“It’s not about time, Ryder, it’s about confidence. Everything she does, she asks for permission six times each step of the way. I don’t need someone following me around like a puppy, begging for validation, apologizing constantly—”
“How many have applied?”
Nix goes quiet.
“It’s a shitty assistant job, Nix, we both know that. How many have applied?”
“Two,” she says reluctantly. “It’s between Paige and Ryan.”
“Is Ryan qualified?”
“I was going to make an exception…”
“Look at her qualifications. Objectively. She can do the stupid job, Nix, I’ve known her my whole life—more responsibility will give her more confidence.”
Nix is silent again, then, “I’ll take another look at her application.”
I punch a celebratory fist silently into the air. “You’re the best, Nix.”
“No promises, you understand?”
“No, yeah, of course! Thank you.”
“Anyway,” she drawls, and I can hear her leaning back in her leather desk chair, “on to fun stuff. How did things go with ‘Interview With the F-slur?’ Did you make a move?”
Right. That. I sigh heavily as I make my way to the rack of free weights on the other side of the room. “You’re not gonna believe this…”
“Oh, there’s tea!” Nix says, elated. “Hang on, hang on—” There’s some bustling at the other end of the line, followed by the sound of a closing office door. “Okay, what happened? Is he married?”
I’m usually not one to indulge in theatrics, and neither is Nix, but I allow myself a pause for effect before I answer. “He’s a Witch.”
“Uh-huh?” she prompts. Then, nothing but silence, like she’s waiting for me to continue. Like she’s waiting for me to tell her what the dramatic-pause-worthy gossip is.
I blink. Did she hear me? Of course she did, she wouldn’t have gone to the effort of closing her door for privacy just to not pay attention to the sordid details of my personal life.
But that really wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.
I’d prepared myself to be scolded by Nix for letting my guard down, or, more likely, to be laughed at.
But she barely reacted at all, as though a Witch Hunter fooling around with a Witch is downright banal.
I’m honestly not sure how to respond. Nix fills in the gap herself.
“So did he fuck some Magick into you or what?”
“Wh—no! No, I didn’t hook up with him!”
“Why not? Was his wand too small?”
“No—”
“Too big?”
“ No!”
“Okay, then what’s the problem?”
I am literally dumbfounded by the nonchalance. “It’s—Nix, he’s a Witch.”
“Yeah, I heard you the first time.”
“Okay, and I’m a Witchfinder,” I remind her. “Like, a professional Witchfinder from a thirteen-generation-long line of Witchfinders.”
“So?”
“So…” I scramble mentally for a way to explain exactly why that’s a problem. “Isn’t that an, I don’t know, a conflict of interest or something?”
Nix groans into the phone. “For fuck’s sake…
you know, this kind of shit is the reason I don’t fuck with men.
Y’all will bitch and moan about how you don’t get laid often enough, then when an opportunity falls into your lap, you’ll look for any excuse not to follow through.
‘Waah, she’s taller than me!’ ‘Waah, he doesn’t have a dick! ’ ‘Waah, he’s a Witch!’”
I can feel myself turning red, and it’s not from the exercise. “When have those first two ever stopped me?!”
“And, for that matter, how have you never hooked up with a Witch before when I only ever see you flirting with fruity goths?”
“‘Fruity goths’ seems redundant—”
“Regardless, you have a very clear type, and I think your subconscious is trying to tell you something about letting go of your family-legacy-driven hang-ups.”
“Are you really this invested in my sex life or are you trying to live vicariously through me because you haven’t been on a date since Jen moved out?”
Nix sighs. I’m pretty sure I can hear the sound of her carding her hand through her short hair in frustration.
“Look, you do whatever you want. Fuck or don’t fuck whomever you want.
I’m just saying your entire social life revolves around a bunch of lesbians and you’ve installed and uninstalled and reinstalled Grindr half a dozen times now. ”
I frown. It couldn’t have been more than three times, could it?
“And you’re on vacation, dude. You’re there for two weeks. It’s the perfect time to fuck someone you never want to see again.”
I stare down at the rack of weights in front of me.
Is this prejudice I’m exhibiting? Maybe.
Probably. But it’s not as though it’s my fault—a lifetime of seeing Witches as a threat, consciously or not, is bound to put me on edge around them.
But maybe I did overreact, just a little.
Maybe I met a good-looking Witch who really is on vacation, and maybe it makes sense for a Witch to get defensive about a government agent following him around.
Maybe a teeny, tiny element of risk isn’t a terrible thing to have in a summer fling.
I shake my head and bend over to pick up two dumbbells, if only to have something to do. “Doesn’t matter anyway,” I say as I start on some bicep curls, “He already hates me.”
“Oh God, what did you do?”
“Nothing,” I say defensively. “I just… treated him like a suspect, I guess.”
“Ryder. That is not ‘nothing.’”
“I tracked him around the hotel a little bit, it’s not like I handcuffed him or something!”
“That might have helped, actually.”
“Anyway, we confronted each other, and he made it very clear he wants me to leave him alone.”
“Confronted? Confronted how?”
I hold back a grunt on my final rep, then set the weights down to rest, wiping sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. “I followed him down a hallway and he… He kinda threw me up against a wall.”
“Sounds to me like he wanted to continue that confrontation elsewhere.”
I laugh and take a moment to scope myself out in the wall-length mirror nearby.
Nix has a habit making the men around her feel emasculated (whether that’s intentional or not is anyone’s guess,) and although I’m usually not bothered by it, combine that with the fact that I think I’ve fucked up my chances with what could have been the first good lay I’ve had in ages…
Well, it’s left my ego feeling a little deflated, so I indulge in flexing at my reflection to give it a boost. “That’s really not the vibe I got from the interaction, Nix.
Pretty sure I killed whatever chance I might have had. ”
Something in the mirror catches my attention—a flash of gleaming light on silver, and my eyes dart to the source.
Here’s the thing about this room: The hotel’s gym is on the ground floor, and most of the light in here is coming from a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows.
Those windows face the pool area, and because of that I can see, through the reflection in the mirror, a puddle of black fabric, slivers of tattooed skin, and green eyes watching me from underneath a wide-brimmed hat.
Huh. My back is facing the window—is it possible that the Witch doesn’t realize that I can see him in the mirror?
I flex again, testing. The Witch keeps staring.
I turn around to face the window and the Witch looks away quickly, back to his book, with the kind of feigned disinterest that makes him appear more guilty than if he’d just kept on ogling me.
“Actually,” I say to Nix as I turn to face the mirror again, “maybe not.”
“Oh shit, is he there?”
“He’s looking at me.”
“What are you doing?”
“Lifting weights.”
“Bro, get off the phone and put on a fucking show!”
“I’ll do my best,” I chuckle, and hang up.
I turn to one side and flex again, showing off a tricep, and glance at the Witch’s reflection in the mirror. He’s pretending to read his book, trying to be less obvious about it now… but I can still see his eyes and he’s definitely staring.
“So, you’re an arm guy, huh?” I say to myself quietly. I pick up a new, heavier set of dumbbells. “Okay, Witch Boy. I can work with that.”
Well. I guess it’s Arm Day now. I wasn’t planning on pushing myself too hard, but my plans change when I see the way the Witch is looking at me over the rim of his dark glasses.
I increase the weight for my next set of bicep curls, and I’m grunting into each rep by the end of it.
I move on to overhead presses, pulling off my tank top halfway through.
I’m not normally one to go for floor work, but push-ups seem like a good idea today, and I even do a few one-handed.
Go big or go home, right? Sure, I’m gonna be sore as hell tomorrow, but that’s a problem for Tomorrow Ryder.
And it’s paying off. Every time I check the mirror, I can see the Witch watching me more intensely, so I keep pushing my limits until finally, fully exhausted, chest heaving, and drenched in sweat at the end of my workout, I turn away from the mirror to face the window.
This time, the Witch doesn’t look away. He just glares at me, clearly aware of the game I’ve started.
I smile at him, walk out of the fitness studio, and stroll out to the pool deck.
I stretch luxuriantly, exaggerating the movement—it’s not like I’m conceited or anything, but I’m self-aware.
I know exactly what sort of sight I am right now, damp with sweat, workout-swollen muscles glistening in the sunlight, and I am absolutely oozing with satisfaction when I see the Witch glowering at me like I’ve just won a bet with loaded dice and he has no way of proving it.
The Witch holds eye contact for a few more seconds, then closes his book, stands from his lounge chair, and saunters to the bar. Naturally, I follow him. I don’t have a plan, exactly, just an idea. But I’ve never really been one for plans.
“You know, they’ve got waiters here so you don’t have to slink up to the bar every time you want a drink.”
The Witch stiffens his posture and refuses to look at me when he replies. “Well, I would have ordered from one, but I know how much you love to watch me minding my own business.”
I hold back a laugh, barely. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”
“I’m sure you do,” he mutters.
“I wanna offer a truce.”
The Witch turns sharply towards me, looking at me like I’ve just offered him a free pet elephant. “A truce?”
“A truce,” I say again. “An armistice. A compromise to end this never-ending game of cat-and-mouse so we can actually relax and enjoy our respective time here.”
“Who’s the cat and who’s the mouse, then?”
“Truce,” I say for a third time, “yes, or no?”
The Witch eyes me shrewdly, sizing me up. “I don’t make a habit of agreeing to truces,” he says after a moment. “They never seem to work out in my favor.”
“A truce doesn’t work in anyone’s favor,” I counter. “Nobody wins, that’s the whole point.”
“What I mean is that I find they tend to favor the one offering them, not the one accepting. The one offering is the one who wants the war over because they’re the one with the most to lose.”
It takes a little work not to let my smile grow. The Witch is smart. I like smart. “You don’t even want to hear the terms? Sounds to me like you’re the one with something to lose.”
He scoffs and rolls his eyes, and I can already tell he’s taking the bait. “Alright, then… What sort of ‘truce’ are you offering?”
“Simple: we leave each other alone.”
The Witch raises his eyebrows incredulously. “Oh, you mean I carry on exactly as I have been, and you’ll quit stalking me?”
“Seems like this truce will work in your favor, then.”
I maintain my calm, polite smile, though I’m not sure I’m doing a very good job at keeping the smugness out of it. The Witch narrows his eyes, clearly aware he’s missing something and trying to figure out what it is.
“So what you’re saying,” he says slowly after a moment, “to be clear, if I agree to your ‘terms,’ is that once I walk away from this Goddess-awful conversation and continue on my merry way, business as usual, let you do whatever the hell it is BS Agents do with their free time, just as I have been since before you were born—”
“I’m saying,” I interrupt, “we ignore each other and go back to enjoying our vacations.”
The Witch laughs, abruptly and humorlessly. “Ignore each other? Love, you couldn’t ignore me if your life depended on it.”
“Try me,” I say. “Unless… you think you’re not up for it?”
The Witch glares at me again, but I just keep smiling.
“Deal,” says the Witch.
“Deal,” I reply. “Our truce begins.”
The Witch smiles in a way that’s half menacing, half annoyed. “Hmm. I’ll see you when you start missing me.”
And, with a dramatic flounce of black fabric, the Witch turns and leaves. I give him a few seconds, then call after him, “Forgot your drink.”
A lithe, ring-adorned hand reaches out and snatches the gin and tonic that was left momentarily abandoned on the bar.
“Forgot your bath, ” the Witch hisses, then makes his exit.
I rub my mouth against my hand, trying not to laugh. This is going to be a very, very fun game.