Darren shook his head. "No, no, I mean it. I’ve been trying to tell him he needs to move on, but with me popping up once a month--"
"How could I?" Harry turned, looking anguished.
"Why should both of us be stuck?" Darren asked as if he expected me to answer.
I stuttered, unable to.
"Let’s just focus on freeing you," Harry said quickly. "And keep all that for later."
"He likes you. He liked you in school, too," Darren said.
Harry’s face turned pink. "Is now the time?"
"I haven’t gotten to talk to anyone else in three years--I’m allowed to say whatever I want and pick on Harry however I want," Darren said.
"Fair enough," I had to admit.
"Will you stay awhile?" Darren asked. "Hang out. We could play a board game. You just have to move my pieces for me--or set up something to hold my cards."
Harry smiled at me, a little wan, still embarrassed, and said, "It’d mean a lot. He really hasn’t gotten to talk to anyone. But if it’s too weird--"
"No, I’ll stay. I mean, I’m gonna need a drink or three, but I’ll stay."
I texted my cousin Matt while Harry retrieved a bottle of wine from the kitchen. Matt replied almost immediately when I explained the situation. "See you on the next full moon, cuz. We can help," I read it aloud to Darren.
He sighed and slumped back into the desk chair, which still didn’t move. "You don’t know… thank you."
"I’m sorry," was all I could say. "I get why he freaked out and did it, and I know he regrets it--"
"He regrets it all day every day. The sad part is, I got the easier end of the deal." Darren smiled crookedly, a handsome etching of a young man in a glass window, insubstantial as smoke. "But it’s terrible. More terrible than I’d ever tell him. I want to go."
I nodded. "We’ll figure it out. He’s an academic, not a practical witch."
"I didn’t know practical witches existed," Darren replied.
"We do." A pause. "You’re sure you’re ready, next month?"
"I was ready three years ago."
And so I spent the whole night awake with Harry and his dead husband, playing Seven Wonders, drinking wine, and wondering what the hell my life was.
***
"I had no right," Harry said the next evening at dinner. "No right at all to be here with you every weekend, reminding myself what I had to live for. Not while he’s stuck."
"What, you should spend every hour up to your balls in books that don’t have the answers? As penance?" I let my hand fall from my wine glass and covered his on the table.
He turned it upward and slid his fingers through mine, giving a squeeze that communicated gratefulness--just like his eyes, right then. "I was out of my mind when he died. I wanted to die with him, but I thought if I could bring him back… If I’d been thinking at all, I would’ve known it wasn’t the answer. But I wasn’t."
"No one would be," I had to admit. "Which is not to say you didn’t screw up."
"I screwed up so bad." He sighed. "And it’s hurting him. He won’t tell me but I can see how desperate he’s getting."
I squeezed his fingers, enjoying the warmth of them. Not a romantic gesture, even, but one of solidarity. I will see you through this. Now wasn’t the time for us. Harry couldn’t, and I wouldn’t want to. "There must be a way. Matt and Thackeray are researching moon binding right now. The moon is a regulating force--there are usually answers when it comes to that kind of magic."
"I wish…" He sighed. "It doesn’t matter. I did look for help before. On websites and in magazines and in a million other pseudo-magical places. But he didn’t want someone coming in half-cocked, and I didn’t know who to trust."
I smiled, getting the gist. He trusted me. I said, "You gotta know a guy. Luckily, you do."
"Why didn’t you tell me?" he asked, all curiosity now. "When we were kids?"
I shrugged and let go of his hand reluctantly to lift my drink. "I knew which families were like mine, and we only talked to other kids who knew. Seemed like a good way to get bullied, otherwise."
"I wasn’t the bully, I was the kid getting bullied."
"I know it. But I was scared. And we do stupid things when we’re scared--like not confiding in our best friends."
"You’re telling me." He smiled wryly. "So--what is it you can do? I mean, your witchiness, how does it come out?"
I shrugged. "I usually just go through the motions, like the superstitious stuff. Guarding my doorways with stick-dolls and symbols, burning the right incense at the right time for cleansing. But--well, I don’t know. Mama always said I had good eyes."
"Good eyes?"
I shifted in my seat. It sounded crazy even to me, so what would he think? Well, he had plenty of crazy in his own house, so, what did it matter? "She says I cut through distractions and see--I don’t know. To the heart of people and things."
"Now that is powerful magic." He smiled.
"I always wondered if it had something to do with me never really settling down," I admitted, for the first time either to myself or out loud. But what if I was seeing things I didn’t really understand in those people? What if it wasn’t just their reactions to my witchy ways or my own antsiness? What if my Daddy’s magic was real every day, so much a part of me that I didn’t even notice?
"And here you are, willing to take a chance on me." He frowned. "I’m so sorry about running out on you the other night at dinner. I was walking this line where I thought a little harmless flirting wouldn’t hurt, except I’m really bad at flirting, and I just… I’m tired. It’s my own goddamn fault, but I’m tired."
"And in exile." I smiled, grateful to be pulled out of my own thoughts. "Look, it was weird, then it was explained, and I accept your apology. And--if you want to have a redo of that dinner, we can talk about it later, okay?"
He nodded, and there was something so eager about it he was cute again. Jesus, he was gonna be the death of me. He asked, "Do you think I’m an asshole?"
I laughed.
He laughed too, suddenly and sharply, as if he was surprised. He hadn’t even realized it was a funny question, had he?
After a second, I composed myself enough to say, "No more than anyone else who’s ever been in love. It was a mistake with shitty consequences. You’re owning it."
"That’s what Darren says." Harry’s smile went crooked. "It’s so weird. I tried to keep him with me because I thought I couldn’t live without him… but we’re not in love anymore. I don’t know if I killed that when I trapped him--which, yeah, fair--or if just being stuck with no one but me for company once-a-month for three years wore him out.
"It should be sad but it’s not. We talk about it sometimes."
"But you were in love," I said. "And those memories will always be good."
"Have you been in love?" he asked.
"A few times. Didn’t like it much. Too powerless."
"Makes you do stupid things," Harry added.
"Yeah." I snorted. "Yeah, it does."
***
I spent my day off helping Harry digitize his notes, the spellbook he’d used in the binding, and various other resources he’d found in the years since, trying to fix his big fat mistake. We uploaded them to the cloud for Matt and his boyfriend to use in their research, then flopped down onto his couch with our feet up on the coffee table. This time, we had whiskey.
"You didn’t have to do that," Harry said. "But thank you."
"You’re welcome, and it’s not like I had anything more fun to do with my day off." That was only partly a lie. The digitizing hadn’t been fun, exactly, but it had been educational. The sheer amount of information Harry had gathered, weeded through, disregarded or kept in the last few years was enough to cobble together several grimoires. Luckily a lot of it had already been digital or could be found digitally, so that had spared us a lot of hard work.
"Liar." But Harry smiled gratefully. There was a pause as we both enjoyed our first sip of bourbo
n before he said, "Darren likes you."
I laughed. "I like him too, but I’d help the guy out even if I didn’t. I feel for him. And for you, but that’s a given."
"You’ve always been the kind to side with the injured party," he replied.
"Well, luckily I don’t have to pick a side, this time."
"Hmm."
I frowned. "Can he see us?"
"Yeah. I mean, if he feels like it. And he’s bored as hell, so probably he does."
"Sup, Darren. I like you too." I raised my glass to the invisible ghost.
"It’s gotta be so weird for you. I get it if you don’t--I mean, I shouldn’t even be talking about it. Or thinking about it. But I can’t help it."
"If I don’t what?"
"If you don’t want to ask me out again." He smiled wryly. "I still want to be your friend. If you can, after all this."
"I’m gonna ask you out again," I said. I thought of Darren watching me, but I could only imagine this making him happy. He’d told me to, anyhow. "But we can be friends, too. Even if that other thing doesn’t work out, we can stay friends."
"Okay." Harry drained the rest of his tumbler of whiskey of a sudden. "It’s crazy that you went to business school. I always pictured you doing something heroic like… rescuing children from burning buildings--"
"Not strong enough."
"--or being an advocate for underserved communities--"
"Not smart enough."
"--or being the President."
"Not dumb enough."
"You know what I mean."
"I don’t," I said. "I got an MBA because I’m good at numbers and finance."
"But you always stood up for other kids in school. I always admired you for it." His gaze flicked from me back to his empty glass, which he pondered deeply.
I guessed I had, but I’d paid for it. Especially on the school bus when the big kids got on with us and started picking on the younger ones. Got beat up a few times for that, but… worth it. "Getting my ass kicked for a living sounds like a terrible idea, though."
He laughed and raised his glass. "Well. I always wanted to tell you, anyhow."
"That you admired me?"
"That I do admire you. Still."
I smiled. "Are you trying to flirt with me?"
He coughed.
I laughed.
"I guess I was?" He sounded a little surprised, himself. "Didn’t realize I was until you said it."
"Well, thanks." I finished my drink and set it down, then stood. "I better go. The drink was good, but I’m not driving after one more of those."
Harry stood too. "Oh, right, yeah. I mean, you don’t have to…"
Our eyes met, and the sentence was finished in my head: you don’t have to go. I wanted to reach out and take his hands. I wanted to lean down and catch his mouth with mine. I wanted to run my fingers through his wild, pale hair and smooth it down, then hold him to me by the scruff of his neck. This starry-eyed academic who wanted to believe mirrors could tell the future. This joyfully nerdy man who’d made the biggest mistake of his life with a shattered heart. Who, even when he wasn’t in love, still loved bright and hot and devotedly enough to be single-minded in his quest to make the world right for his dead husband again.
Yeah, he’d be a whole bag of dicks if he’d done anything else. But the pure love with which he walked his path was still admirable. Something was satisfying in knowing I’d been right to befriend him all those years ago. That I’d been more right about him than I’d known, even.
What would it be like, if we could be together? Could he love someone else like that? Could I love him like that?
I wanted to try.
The moment stretched out, long and taut until it dissolved into both of us smiling.
And I said, "Yeah, I do. Night, Harry."
"Night, Lucas."
***
It wasn’t that I thought Darren would mind. Hell, I halfway thought Darren would be more entertained by me making out with his once-husband on the couch than anything else.
Harry would mind, though. Not in the moment--no, the man was so desperate to be touched he’d been trying to hold my hand for months now. But the next day, or worse still, the next night, when he was alone and buried in his research, he would think of how Darren was alone, ephemeral, trapped--because of him. And any happiness we stole would sour like wine in the sun to vinegary shame.
I didn’t want him to feel like that about being with me, romantically. If we were going to go romance, we were going to do it right. He’d started us out that way for a reason; I would help him keep us on the right track.
Easy to think like that when it was only supposed to be a month. But it turned out to be one of the longest months of my damn life. Matt kept in touch with us both in a group text, letting us know when they found something new or put some pieces together, but it felt like the full moon was never going to come around again. We had our Sunday dinners. We drank our wine. We talked about magic and my family reunions and my Aunt Margaret’s appearance at her own wake. He told me about libraries in Italy and Portugal that somehow survived the Inquisition and the neo-pagans he’d studied with in France and Wales.
All the while, we kept a space between us, as if for Darren’s ghost. All the while, I tried not to look at him like I wanted to take a bite, and he lowered his gaze once his eyes grew too wide, too interested. His poker face was even worse than mine.
Matt and Thackeray arrived a week early in a van worthy of the Scooby-Doo Crew--except all black. It was packed with enough strange ghost-detective stuff to put Shaggy and Velma to shame. Though Matt now sported a mohawk of dreadlocks, he still had the mischievous face of the kid I’d grown up visiting in summers. We hugged and patted backs, and then the biggest dude I’ve ever seen walked up behind him. He wore a black trench coat like he thought he was Blade or something, and had a serious, handsome face that might’ve been carved from stone.
He held out his hand. "I’m Thackeray. Nice to meet you."
"Thackeray." I took his hand and shook it; I expected him to crush me, but he was gentle. "I’m Lucas Madison, and this--"
But Mama was already on the front steps, pushing me aside to greet our guests. "Matthew Antonin, it’s been an age! How’s your mama doing? And look at this big man you brought here, hello, you can just call me Roberta. Thank God you got better taste than this one." She smacked me on the shoulder to illustrate just which ‘one’ had the bad taste. "Getting involved with some dilettante who called down some moon magic…"
"Let’s talk about it inside?" I suggested gently. Anything else and she would’ve gotten louder just to spite me.
She rolled her eyes but waved Matt and his man inside.
"So you think you can do it?" I asked.
"We need to test the strength of the bonds," Thackeray said, even though I’d been talking to Matt. "Tomorrow, and then again at the full moon. And might as well keep an eye on them in the between times, too."
I shifted my gaze over to him and nodded. "And how do we do that?"
"First, we need to make sure it’s not demonic," he said.
"Don’t even say it," Mama replied, making one of her witchy signs in the air.
"Thackeray has a lot of experience with demons," Matt said, settling his bag in the front hall. "A little too much. He thinks everything might be demonic."
"Not everything," Thackeray said. "Just hauntings."
"It’s not exactly a haunting…" But I trailed off because, "Yeah, no, it’s a haunting. It’s just wild to think of it like that."
"I’ve had a haunted boyfriend." Matt gave my shoulder a squeeze. "It’s super freaking wild."
Thackeray ignored him and asked Mama, "Should I take our bags somewhere, ma’am? To keep them out of the way?"
"Roberta, remember? You can just get them on your way up later. I’ve been cooking all afternoon," Mama assured them, leading us to the kitchen and the sweet smell of dinner.
I asked Matt, under my bre
ath, "Is Thackeray his first name or last name?"
"Last name."
"So what’s--?"
"Don’t ask, man. Don’t ask."
***
That night, Matt and I were setting up various cameras and recorders and devices in Harry’s living room while Harry played twenty questions with a surprisingly chatty Thackeray in the study.
"This place feels haunted," Matt said quietly.
I said, "It very much is."
"And he wants to go? Darren, I mean? You’re sure? Because if he doesn’t, that makes it harder."
"He very much does. Don’t you, Darren?"
Of course, there was no reply, because the moon wasn’t full yet. But he was there all the same and we all knew it. Matt couldn’t see the silvery magic I’d noticed around the house but he’d told me he felt it, all the same.
"And he doesn’t think it’s weird that you’re into his husband?" Matt smiled crookedly.
A spike of defensiveness stabbed through my heart. "We haven’t done anything."
"Wow, really? Damn, you’re stronger than me. When Thack was haunted by that demon I made him a necklace to shut it down just so we could screw without being watched." Matt chuckled.
I snorted. "Seriously?"
"I mean, look at him."
Thackeray was a damn good looking man. Not my type, but, "Yeah, okay, I feel that."
"So….?" He was waiting for my reply.
Dammit, I’d forgotten how tenacious he could be. I sighed. "So, I had a crush on him in middle school. I waited this long. What’s another month or three?
"He’s got a lot of shit going on. I don’t, really."
"You’re not ancient yet," he pointed out. "Don’t get me wrong, he’s cute as hell. Just saying."
"You sound like Mama."
"God forbid." He made the same witchy sign she always did to ward off bad luck and grinned. "I love my Auntie Roberta, but no."
"Hard no," I agreed.
We got back to work, and when Thackeray and Harry eventually emerged, they were chatting like they’d known each other forever. I wasn’t sure I’d heard Thackeray say more than five words at a time since he’d arrived, so this was… new.
Witchy Boys: The Complete Collection Page 18
