Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(58)
My brain is still trying to catch up with what just happened when his palm is again resting on the small of my back and he guides me a few feet over to stand in front of the next painting, but I keep looking back to the spot in front of the Caravaggio where he just kissed me. In about five seconds he wiped my mind clean of everything but possibilities.
Is this what a future with Gil could be like? Not a life of crime, of course, but an easy camaraderie and teasing flirtation that gives me butterflies and all sorts of dirty thoughts? Breakfast out on the balcony together, drinking our coffee and sharing the paper? Date nights at the museum or the movie theater? Hours lost in the stacks at the Alchemist’s Bookshop and Tea Emporium followed by road trips looking for rare spell books in little out-of-the-way bookshops in small towns? Holding hands as we walk down the sidewalk in front of Griselda’s house? Picnics by the creek in the woods with the troll that eventually joins us and tells us stories about all the witches he’s stopped with riddles? Adventure and comfort and fun and love.
Standing in front of The Musicians, seeing the everyday heaven of the moment the bad boy Italian Renaissance painter captured, I realize how much I want all of that—and if we can carry off this heist, I can—we can—have it.
Together.
Arm in arm, we stroll over to the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware, which just happens to accidentally on purpose give us the perfect view inside The Liber Umbrarum gallery. Eli and Birdie are next in line. My heartbeat speeds up until it’s banging against my ribs with enough power that I’m almost worried it will break through.
“I got you something,” Gil says loud enough that the people standing nearby will hear. “I hope you like it.”
We planned this next bit—a showy gossip fodder that is all but guaranteed to capture everyone’s attention and pull focus away from the spell book. Still, I’m not prepared for the rush of desire that washes over me when Gil moves behind me, so close that I can feel the heat coming off his body.
His fingers glide across the bare skin of my arms as he reaches in front of me, a magnificent diamond and emerald necklace in his grasp. It’s not real, of course, but unless someone rushes up with a jeweler’s loupe, it’s close enough to fool the witches in attendance. As he fastens the clasp, his fingers linger on my neck, tracing a line up the side of my throat. I know this is all for show, part of the plan, but it still feels real when he traces a path across my sensitive skin, then dips his head down and brushes a soft, barely-there kiss to my temple.
In the distance I can hear the not-really-whispers and part of me realizes there are flashes going off from people taking pics with their phones, but all I can focus on in this moment is Gil.
“You’re absolutely everything, Tilda Sherwood,” he says, the low rumble in his voice moving down my spine like a shiver of anticipation. “No matter what happens, remember that.”
He drops another kiss on that spot where my shoulder meets my neck that I feel all the way to my core and then moves beside me, taking my arm and putting it through his. We walk together over to Mary Cassatt’s Young Mother Sewing. The little girl in the painting is leaning against her mom with her arms folded and her chin in her hand as she stares out, curious, open, ready for whatever comes next. There’s not a single smidge of fear or worry or hesitation, just a confident stillness that seems to reach out and grab my soul. I know this girl. Maybe I was this girl, a million years ago, before I realized that I wouldn’t be magical like my mom, but something else entirely.
I’m not sure I ever felt as confident as that girl when I was her age, but tonight after we carry off this heist and unfreeze my family, I can’t help but think that I will find it again. Really, if my plan works, that will change everything. I won’t just be the family flunky.
I can be more.
I will be more.
“They’re on their way in,” Gil says, pivoting to face me so that I can appear to be smiling up at him when I am actually watching Birdie’s and Eli’s progress as they walk calmly toward The Liber Umbrarum’s gallery.
Birdie pauses in the doorway and leans close to the guard. Hopefully it’s only because I’m watching them so closely when it seems like every other witch in the museum is looking at me, but there’s no missing the small gray puff of a cloud that Birdie blows from the palm of her hand into the guard’s face. His eyes go round and he reaches for the hard rubber baton at his waist, but then his jaw goes soft and his hand drops back to his side. Birdie whispers in his ear and he nods before moving over to the red velvet rope near the entrance and stringing it across the open doorway.
“Sorry folks,” the guard says to everyone in line, his voice stilted but otherwise normal. “Fifteen-minute break.”
Eli and Birdie don’t look back as they make their way across the main gallery to the hall leading out to the formal gardens.
With all eyes on us, Gil and I stroll over to Winslow Homer’s vivid painting The Gulf Stream, which depicts a man alone in a small boat surrounded by choppy waters and circling sharks. There’s a storm brewing on the horizon, but a ship is coming too that may beat the squall. Hello, art imitating life, because it sure feels like every witch in the room is circling us like sharks.
That was, however, our plan all along, because if the attendees are watching us, eager for the next tidbit of gossip, that means they aren’t paying any attention to Birdie and Eli as they slip into the darkened alcove for the quick change of a lifetime.