Chapter 10 #2
Once she’d thought about it, she couldn’t unthink it. She didn’t feel like working out but then again, she loved how she felt after Pilates, all tingly and strong and kick-ass. And the sore muscles the day after, when she got to feel good about her workout.
Plus, there were the mood benefits. She needed Pilates, arguably way more than she’d needed it for the last few years.
How many times had she wondered if her time as a student might have been easier if she’d had this physical de-pressurization valve?
Well, now she did have it so she may as well use it.
She rolled her mat out, already feeling like this was absolutely the correct move, and cued up one of her favorite thirty-minute videos.
She loved Pilates. It was something she could do even though her shape was not skinny or lithe or particularly graceful.
Pilates was about core and coordination, and she could manage those things.
At least now, after five years of doing it, she barely had to open her eyes; the words of the instructor flowed through her ears and seemed to go straight to her limbs.
She’d started going to classes in her neighborhood, and then branched out to classes in other neighborhoods and online; she’d even paid for a service so she could stream her workouts wherever she was.
Twenty-five minutes in, when she was trembling with intensity and so, so ready for a well-earned cool-down, there was a knock on the cottage door.
Bryn, drenched with sweat, her leggings and sports bra clinging to her, jumped off her mat in alarm.
Who was that? Piper? Oh gods, don’t let it be Piper.
She didn’t really want them to see her like this, though of course they would be delighted she was doing something physical.
Still, being interrupted mid-workout when you were really sweaty and gross was not ideal for any new friendship, or any old friendship—or any witnesses at all.
Panting, both from exertion and now nerves, she clicked pause on the workout and waved her wand in the direction of the door where she’d set a spell to magnify her voice. “Who is it?”
“Just me,” Amelia called back, louder than was necessary with the spell enacted, though she had no way of knowing it was there. Bryn’s voice would have sounded just like it was coming from the other side of the door to her.
“Oh.” Bryn glanced around, but her perfectly neatened cottage showed no obvious things that she could pull over herself.
“Just a minute,” she called, and almost dived into her laundry basket.
What could she put on? A shirt—surely a shirt—but she didn’t really want to pull one of her button-downs over her drenched sports bra.
She was still sweating; it would stick to her.
She ended up with an eye-wateringly pink Hello Kitty pajama top, which was at least looser, but still clinging to her in every place there was sweat.
She swung open the door, pretending everything was normal—except, of course, she was standing in the doorway in front of Amelia Hexford, in a pair of black leggings pasted to her body and a Hello Kitty pajama top.
She’d tied her hair in a messy topknot, but it had come loose everywhere and strands were now sticking to her skin.
“Hi,” she said, and playfully leaned against the doorjamb, as if flirting.
Then she realized how ridiculous she looked and straightened up again, cheeks going red.
(She didn’t have to see them to know they were going red.
She could feel it.) “Um, Amelia. Oh, um, hello, what … What are you doing here? Not that you shouldn’t be here, you’re welcome here, obviously, just … I wasn’t expecting you.”
Amelia, taking in her appearance with something that looked suspiciously like a smile, held up the note that Bryn had left under her door. “Thought I would stop by to talk about your idea.”
Which was now so obvious—and indeed 2 a.m.-Bryn, who specialized in just this sort of scenario, would have been absolutely thrilled.
She cursed herself for spontaneously doing Pilates instead of stopping by the kitchen for a pretty appetizer plate and a bottle of something fizzy.
(The school kitchen did not provide alcohol, but it did a great run on lightly fizzy water flavored with fruits harvested from the gardens.) “My idea, right,” she attempted, but immediately gave up the pretense. “Oh, my gods. Sorry. Please hold.”
Bryn squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and then opened them, meeting Amelia’s with a vague plea for understanding. Or mercy. Or something. “I was doing Pilates.”
“Why should you be sorry for that?” Amelia reached out a hand and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, making her shiver, which in turn caused Amelia to snatch her hand back. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to touch, really didn’t mean to touch.”
“No, no, you can touch me! I mean, if you want— I mean, I would love that! No, I mean …” Bryn’s fragmented sentences ran down.
Her face was now on fire. She lined up a mental spell to put out flames, just in case.
“I am officially giving up on this conversation now. Please come in. I’m going to have some water, would you like some? ”
Amelia laughed, and the sound was so welcome to Bryn’s ears that she turned away quickly so that Amelia wouldn’t see how wide her grin went.
Once she’d retrieved two glasses of water and sat down on her bed, gesturing Amelia to the chair, Bryn felt a little more relaxed.
Maybe not completely at ease, but as relaxed as she was likely to be in leggings and a Hello Kitty top, low-key worried she probably stank of anxiety and workout.
“I didn’t expect you to come by, but I’m glad you’re here. I had an idea for the field trip.”
“Okay?” Amelia said slowly, the hint of a smile still lingering on her lips, which Bryn should probably stop staring at.
“I think we take them to a normal witchy place.”
“Interesting. Define normal.”
“I mean a regular store where if they had grown up in witchy families they would have been going their whole lives.” Bryn waved a hand to conjure specific examples, but before she could, Amelia was interrupting.
“Maybe a spell shop?”
“That’s perfect, yes!” Bryn tried to calm her excitement, but she heard her voice rising.
“Exactly. Every time I’m in a spell shop, not even a fancy one but just your average spell supplies shop, there’s someone with a four-year-old who is trying to touch everything—only, everything’s charmed so they can’t, but they don’t know it yet. But that’s normal to you, right?”
Amelia sat back, nodding. “Sure. I definitely don’t remember the first time I was ever in a spell shop.”
“Right? Because your family is full of witches, so that was your normal. But I’d never gone to one until I was in school, and it felt so weird to be the only kid who had no clue what was going on.
” She set her water glass down to better gesture.
“It’s disorienting when it feels like everyone else understands things that you don’t even know you don’t understand.
I think that’s part of the issue with kids who don’t come from witchy families. ”
“That makes sense,” Amelia said. “And you think taking a field trip will eliminate that feeling?”
“Not eliminate, but alleviate, sure.”
Amelia nodded again, more slowly this time. “All right, I’m definitely here for the experiment. But I don’t think you should take them by yourself.”
Bryn deflated. Right, she wasn’t a real teacher.
She wasn’t even a good teacher. She was just a lowly commoner who happened to be standing there when Amelia needed someone to take over the esteemed professor’s classes.
“Oh, okay.” She didn’t want to turn her club over to someone who wouldn’t understand.
Maybe she could get Piper to do it. Or one of the younger teachers who’d arrived since she graduated. Not some old dragon traditionalist who—
“I think I should go with you,” Amelia said. “I have teaching experience. I’ve taken kids on field trips before, and I think it’ll be fun.” Her tone was so intentionally light-hearted that Bryn looked up again.
“Wait, really?” She trembled on the edge of excitement, afraid to commit in case she’d misunderstood.
“You, me, and three recalcitrant students in a spell shop. How could it not be fun? It might also be chaos, but fun for sure.” Amelia shrugged. “Don’t you think?”
“Oh,” Bryn said, thinking: Amelia wants to field trip with me! Then, realizing that she hadn’t agreed, she said quickly, “Right, yes, definitely. So, when do you think we can go?”
Amelia blew out a breath. “To run it by the governors or not to run it by the governors? They don’t really have any grounds to say no, since it’s educational, but that doesn’t mean they won’t.”
“Isn’t that bad?” Bryn asked.
“It doesn’t feel good, to be sure. But all the same, I think we’ll just go,” Amelia said with finality. “I’m the headmistress. I ought to be able to authorize a field trip for three students on my own, right?”
Bryn gulped, hoping that this wasn’t going to get Amelia in even more trouble with the governors. “Right.”
“Next week?” Amelia asked, with a conspiratorial gleam in her eye.
“Next week,” she agreed, wishing like hell she could lean over and kiss Amelia to seal the deal.
“That sounds great. I will secure the necessary permissions from their guardians.” Amelia smiled so warmly that Bryn thought she might melt into her bed. Then Amelia stood, and all melting ceased. “I’m really sorry I interrupted your Pilates.”
Reminded, Bryn straightened her Hello Kitty top as she also rose to her feet. “That was so embarrassing. I didn’t even think—” She made herself stop talking.
“Nothing to be embarrassed about.” Amelia walked to the door, then turned to smirk over her shoulder. “Physical exertion is a very healthy thing, I’ve read.”
Is Amelia Hexford coming on to me right now? “So many benefits,” Bryn agreed, nodding with mock seriousness. “The mood lift, the cardio boost.” She did a little spin in her ridiculous pink pajama top and leggings. “The hot outfits.”
Amelia laughed out loud, and for a second—the tiniest fraction of a fraction of a second—Bryn swore they were about to kiss. The air practically crackled with humor and desire, and something Bryn swore was even brighter, shimmering between them.
Then Amelia covered her mouth with one hand and mumbled, “I should go. See you tomorrow.”
She was out the door before Bryn could protest, and what would she have even said? No, stay, I like flirting with you. Or: Would you like to join me for Pilates? Sorry there’s only room for one yoga mat, but we can take turns … Ridiculous.
Still, the cottage felt empty now that Amelia had gone.
Thirty minutes later—yoga mat put away, sweaty clothes peeled off, shower taken—Bryn’s phone dinged with a message.
When she saw Amelia’s name, her breath stopped.
It was almost certainly about work. Of course it was.
They worked together. That would be perfectly normal.
But it wasn’t.
You do look good in your Pilates clothes.
Bryn made herself breathe, then texted back a GIF of an animated mouse in a pink tutu, taking a bow. Then she tossed her phone on her bed and pressed her fingers to her lips, as if that would stop her from grinning like a lovesick girl. But that’s what I am.
No. She wasn’t. She could not be. Even if she did look good in her Pilates clothes.
The thought made her smile all night.