If Elizabeth realized Nadia and Mateo were together, she might take Mateo back. She might make him believe that he’d always loved Elizabeth. Could Nadia bear that? Once again she remembered Elizabeth’s words to her: You’ve loved and lost, haven’t you?
And Mateo had said the only thing keeping him from losing it was the fact that Elizabeth hadn’t deceived him in this one, last, terrible way.
Nadia pulled back. Mateo blinked, obviously caught off guard.
“Nadia!” Cole’s voice sang from downstairs. “Are you home yet?”
That broke the sudden awkwardness, and both of them started to laugh from embarrassment. “Little brothers,” Nadia said. “They have amazing timing.”
“Apparently.” But even though they were smiling, she could feel the uncertainty still between them.
Mateo wasn’t sure how he’d expected this whole weird day to end, but it definitely hadn’t involved LEGOs.
“These are big-boy LEGOs,” Cole said proudly. “Not the stupid ones for little babies. Dad let me get the real ones a year ago.”
“I can see that. Is this the Millennium Falcon we’re building?”
“Yeah. Or it can be a castle.”
Really it sort of looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, even if it had Chewbacca in it. Mateo figured it didn’t matter as long as he kept sticking more LEGOs on.
He sat with Cole in the middle of the Caldanis’ living room floor, keeping him busy while Nadia talked things through on the phone with Verlaine. Apparently Cole’s friend had gotten sick, which made for an unexpected afternoon of babysitting.
Which was definitely not what he wanted to be doing right now. He wanted to be back in that attic, with Nadia’s hand in his—back in that moment so he could find out exactly how she felt about him—
But life got in the way sometimes, and that was just how it was. Mateo didn’t mind keeping Cole busy; he was a fun little kid. Also, maybe Mateo was way too old for LEGOs, but that didn’t mean he didn’t sort of like them still.
And, just as obviously, Nadia needed to talk to Verlaine almost as much as she’d needed to talk to him.
“I’m really sorry,” Nadia said into her phone for about the eighteenth time. “I had to think about my dad and Cole, you know? And how they could be affected by—um, by our science project. And where are you?” Then she opened the front curtains. “Oh, okay. Come on in.” She put her phone back on the counter. To Mateo she said, “I asked Verlaine to pick up some Slushos, but I don’t know. She’s still pretty hacked off.”“We can live without Slushos,” Mateo said.
Cole sighed. “Speak for yourself.” Mateo laughed and ruffled his hair.
Nadia opened the front door as Verlaine came up the steps, gray hair in a ponytail, a scowl on her face, and a tray of Slushos in her hands. “They’re all cherry,” she said. “Take them or don’t.”
“Yes!” Cole did his version of an end-zone touchdown dance, while Mateo rose to his feet.
“How are you doing?” he asked her, and just like that, Verlaine’s expression softened. They’d spoken only briefly this afternoon—the first time they’d ever had a lengthy conversation without Nadia there, even though they’d known each other almost their whole lives. But that had been enough for him to know how betrayed she felt, and how lonely. As suspicious as she was of Nadia, witchcraft, and the rest of it, this was the one time in Verlaine’s life she’d ever been included in something.
How come I never talked to Verlaine before? Mateo wondered. She’s smart. She sees a lot. So why is it like I always forget about her? A six-foot-tall girl with crazy clothes and silver hair—it’s not as if she doesn’t stand out.
“I’m okay.” Verlaine handed Cole his Slusho and took a slurp from hers. “Better now that I’m not being abandoned to investigate my parents’—I mean, our science project all on my own. Plus the whole thing with, um, with Elizabeth.”
“Is Elizabeth your girlfriend?” Cole said to Mateo. He looked all kid-innocent, but there was mischief in his eyes to go with the pink Slusho mustache. “Nadia said she was.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Mateo said.
Nadia quickly interjected, “Cole, wouldn’t it be fun to play in the yard for a while?”
“I’m not supposed to take snacks outside because of that time I got gravel in my sandwich.”
“I wouldn’t tell. Just this once!”
Cole grinned as he sat in the nearest chair, kicking his legs back and forth. “Nope. I like it here.”
Mateo had always wished he weren’t an only child, but now he wasn’t so sure about that. They’d have to be careful about how they said things. “So our … science project is about the sinkholes in town. And what might be pulling the town out from under our feet.”
Nadia gasped, so sharply that Mateo thought she might have hurt herself. He leaned toward her, concerned, but instead she thumped her hand fast against the wall. “Oh, that’s it. That’s actually it.”
Verlaine stared at Mateo, who shrugged. “That’s what?”
Nadia grabbed the remote and turned on the television; almost instantly, Cole wandered toward it like a kid hypnotized. Then she gestured them closer and whispered, “Goodwife Hale’s—book. She said something about this, about the framework of this town being built on mag—on, uh, magnetism.”