Page 89 of Impractical Magic

Their eyes met, and Scarlett felt a rush of emotions—pangs of regret and guilt, but also something deeper, something she wasn’t quite ready to name.

Nate, his face covered in soot but his eyes filled with affection, reached for Scarlett’s hand. His touch sent a jolt through her. “What brings you back to my now even-more-humble-than-usual abode?”

“Yeah. Um. Well. Nate, the truth is . . .” She paused, hoping he couldn’t hear the tremor in her voice. “The truth is . . . I came here to say something to you. Can we sit and talk somewhere?”

Nate studied her carefully. “I’m not sure I want to have whatever conversation this is.”

“I know,” she sighed. “Me neither. But we have to.”

Chapter 34: The Room

Moments later, Scarlett found herself trailing behind Nate as he led her up a narrow staircase at the back of the store. She’d never visited this part of the store before—when they were kids and Earl Twelve ran Williams Hardware, the upper floors were for storage only, and children were strictly forbidden. Her curiosity battled her exhaustion as they reached the landing. Nate pushed open an unremarkable door, revealing an unremarkable bachelor pad.

He left her alone momentarily to change his soot-covered clothes and wash his face. Looking around, Scarlett was surprised to find his living space was almost monastic; it was quite a surprising contrast to the hoarder aesthetic downstairs in the store. Sparse furniture—a worn sofa, an overstuffed easy chair, a simple table, and a neatly made bed—accentuated the feeling of openness. His rough-and-ready bookshelves, assembled from boards and bricks, were stuffed with paperbacks by Ray Bradbury and Octavia Butler. There was a stark efficiency here, a sense of someone more focused on function than frills.

Although it shamed her to do it, Scarlett’s gaze instinctively scanned the space in search of any feminine presence. A stray lipstick, a hairbrush, lacy knickers?

There was nothing to see.

It’s none of my damned business anyway, she reminded herself sternly. Remember: you’re going, he’s staying. That’s all there is to it.

Still, something by the window did catch her eye. On a small table crowded with crafting supplies—the only part of the room that looked actively used—sat a nearly finished model of a balsa-wood ship trapped within a glass bottle. Scarlett approached, a smile spreading across her face as she realized what it was: a pirate ship with the Jolly Roger flying proudly. Earl Twelve was still inside Nate somewhere, hiding out.

“Yeah, I’m building a ship model.” Nate’s voice broke softly into the quiet room. “And yeah, it’s a pirate ship, and no, I don’t care to analyze what that might indicate.”

Scarlett spun around, her face a picture of mock innocence. “I certainly wasn’t going to say anything.”

Nate lifted an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. Anyway, you wanted to talk.” He plunked down in a well-loved armchair and gestured at the couch, inviting her to sit. “What’s up? What was Aphra all upset about?”

Scarlett offered the highlights of her adventure in Las Vegas, focusing on the successful aspects of her and Delilah’s interrogation of Max—the magicians’ plot, their trivia games, and the mystery predator that might save the grove. She left out the many inadequacies and mistakes detailed by her mother.

But her judicious self-editing didn’t matter because Nate understood everything, as he somehow always did. “So you let Max go free, then . . . ?”

“Yep.”

He laughed. “Ooh boy, I bet Kelly’s pissed.”

“You said a mouthful there, mister.”

Nate brushed the matter away with a casual wave of his hand. “She’ll get over it. So. Predators, huh? Okay. What do we do next?”

Scarlett lifted an eyebrow. “We? What do we do?”

“Yeah, we, of course.” He shrugged. “You think I’m going to leave you in the lurch now? After all this? I’m Team Scarlett, remember? Hell, I was Team Scarlett a couple of days ago when everything seemed like it was your fault. Now that you’re about to play hero, you think I won’t be along for the ride?”

Ah, Scarlett thought. Shit.

Breaking things off had seemed like an easy decision while sitting at a buffet in Las Vegas. Breaking things off had seemed perfectly logical on the walk over here. But now, up in Nate’s apartment, with those black pirate eyes taking her in . . . things didn’t seem so obvious. Not when she was sitting about ten feet from Nate’s bed.

“You know . . .” she said, stalling. “Maybe this isn’t the right moment. It’s late, we’re exhausted . . . you just survived an Oppenheimer at White Sands sort of situation. We can postpone. I should probably get back to the inn, anyway.”

Nate sat forward in his chair. “Can I tell you what I think?”

Scarlett nodded because she was suddenly unsure she could speak. All she could think was: One slight move, and I could be in his arms.

“I think . . . that if you go back to the inn right now, you’ll find your mother and sisters waiting up for you. And I think they will hand you yet another urgent assignment. Which I think you’ll accept, even though you’re exhausted. And after you’ve finished, one of them will find you another urgent job. Which you’ll also do because you haven’t been home in ten years, and you can’t say no because you feel too guilty over a hundred different things . . .”

Scarlett winced. He wasn’t guessing. He knew her too well. “It’s mainly the one giant thing, but yeah.”