"Did you know, the more a witch makes her breasts jiggle, the stronger the spell?" I wiggled my chest back and forth.
His gaze dropped down to my breasts before he turned away.
"There's no such thing as witchcraft," he said.
"Is that why you're planning on burning me? Isn’t that what they do to witches?"
"There's…" he started, then shook his head. "You know what? Close your mouth. You're not making this better for yourself."
"I'm not making it any worse," I pointed out. "Either way, you're going to try to kill me."
"I'm not going totry," he said darkly.
"Right. Either way you're going to kill me," I corrected.
As if there was a significant difference.
"You know Forrest is going to be upset with you, right? Leif too, possibly." I wasn't so sure about that. He seemed to like me, but all of those questions made me wonder. He wouldn't be the first person to have an agenda, a story they wanted to sell, even if that story was someone else's.
"They'll get over it," he said.
"Are you sure?" I asked. "Because I got the impression Forrest really, really likes me. He might hurt you if you do anything to me. He might burn the world down for me. He might?—"
"This isn't BookTok," Woody said.
"You don't believe men like that exist in the real world?" I asked.
"I don't think about it that much," he said. He pulled me into what was once the kitchen.
"Wow, this looks like it hasn't been redecorated since 1947. 1952 at the latest." Yep, that was asbestos wrapped around a duct visible through a huge hole in the wall.
"It hasn't," Woody said. "It was my great-grandparents' place. No one's lived here in a couple of decades."
"I can tell," I said. "It's not exactly what you call 'fit for habitation.' You know, you could have it torn down."
"Burning it down would be more fun," he said.
"I disagree," I said. "Imagine a big excavator with a massive bucket slamming into the side of the building, pulling it down, piece by piece. The whole thing crumbling apart like a sandcastle when you kick it over or step on it. I think it'd be extremely satisfying." If anything was left after asbestos remediation.
"You've never watched a house burn down, have you?" he asked.
"No, but now I'm curious," I said, clutching at what might be my last straw. "We can watch this place go up together."
He smirked and led me over to a Roman-style column to the side of the room.
I guessed it was there to support the upper level.
Out of his pocket he grabbed a pair of handcuffs. He snapped one around my wrist, pulled the other around the column before snapping it around the other wrist, locking me in place.
"As first dates go, I have to say, the ending is disappointing," I said.
I pulled against the column. It shifted slightly.
"This isn't a date," he said.
"Are you sure? Because it feels like a date," I said. "I mean, you kissed me."
We'd both liked it.
