“Ah, no. But”—he picked up the magazine—“it would be cool if we found some footage from her leading lady days. Just to—” He stopped short, taking off his glasses and bringing the magazine closer.
“What is it?” Dini inched forward, but he kept the page angled away as he took out his phone, opened the camera, and held it over the image.
“Oh man,” he said, then moved closer. The image on his phone had zoomed in on a thin ribbon of silk edging the neckline of Thalia’s white dress. And there, right at the deepest point of the V, an unmistakable jewel.
“My witch’s heart.” She held out her hand. “She kept it.”
“They probably sold everything else off to get themselves out to California.”
“But this made its way down to me. I don’t know what to do now. I need to find a new obsession.”
“You could try being obsessed with me.” He spoke with his chin tucked under, like a shy child sure of his rejection. “Because I am with you, Dini. Everything about you. And not in that creeper stalker way—”
“If you were a creepy stalker, you wouldn’t tell me.”
“I just—my head tells me that it’s way too soon for me to feel like this. It’s crazy, isn’t it? To fall in love in, what, a week?”
“We’ve only seen each other three days. So, yeah. It’s ridiculous. You know if we lived in the same city, if we didn’t have this stupid countdown, you wouldn’t feel this way.”
“I don’t think that’s true. I know what it’s like to know someone my entire life, and I never had five minutes feeling about her the way I do about you. I’m in love with you, Dini.”
Her heart longed to say that she loved him too. She was allowed to love him because she didn’t know any better. He had ignited parts of her that she thought were too damaged by loneliness and grief to ever come to life. Surely she would recognize those stirrings again. Quin had been the first to access them, but that didn’t mean he would forever be the only one.
He was waiting. Not expectantly, but not seeming to be in any hurry to fill the silence with any other sentiment.
“I might love you too, Quin. I mean, I do—I probably do. But that might be because I don’t know what else to feel. I’ve never been this close to anybody. I’ve never had my time be so consumed by another person. But we don’t know each other’s worlds. We’ve just started to belong in each other’s lives. I can’t imagine you anywhere but here. I’ve only seen you in the Menger, in my car, the Sidecar, and in my house. Other than the picture of you with the ducks, I have no proof that you exist away from me. You’re like a refrigerator light.”
“Wow.” He ran his hand over his beard, as if trying to wipe away his words. “That might be the most wisdom-packed rejection I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s not a rejection. I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t that.”
“I’m just afraid, I guess. Like you said, that this is all going to disappear when I leave. Like a broken spell.”
“There’s no such thing as spells,” Dini said. “I should know. I’m a magician. There’s no magic to any of this. It’s just our minds playing tricks, making a few days seem like…more. Showing us what we want to see, making us feel what we want to feel.”
Another silence, a long one this time. The atmosphere still and heavy like a summer night before a storm. They didn’t move, they didn’t speak, they didn’t touch—but in every way it felt to Dini like their most intimate of moments. There were no words left to say, there was nowhere to go, and the consequences loomed certain if they dared to touch.
“I think I’m going to call for a ride.” He opened his phone, and she noticed his lock screen was a photo of the empty Menger Bar.
“It’s early, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I think maybe it’s time.”
He stood and she followed, looking around the room as if she might find something that could entice him to stay. “You want to see my gig room?”
“Car’s on its way. Seven minutes, so maybe next time?”
“There’ll be a next time?”
“I hope so.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “My bag is still in your car. Want to wait outside with me?”