Three Questions, One Kiss, Zero Chill

Noa walks back into La Bruja Bella and promptly loses all her composure.

Miss chapter 1 or need a refresher of Noa and Xio’s initial meeting? Read it here.

Chapter 2: In Your Box

Noa stared at her inbox. She was supposed to be writing.

Technically, she was writing. Not the article on La Bruja Bella, which she’d turned in last night. Not the piece her editor was waiting on. Not the paragraph she'd rewritten six different ways this morning trying to make the phrase “post-capitalist emotional labor market” sound less like a grad school thesis.

She was writing an email. Or—more accurately—rereading one.

From: xio@labrujabella.com
To: noa.brooks@citywirepress.org
Subject: Correction

Hi Noa,

There appears to be a factual error in your article, "Hex Appeal: The Rise of La Bruja Bella in Oakland’s Temescal District."

You wrote: “I left before dusk.”

You left at 6:47. I know because I watched you walk away.

And then there was the matter of your returning, which you appear to have left out of your finished piece. Journalistic oversight, I imagine?

Best,

Xio

P.S. I have your blazer.

P.P.S. It smells like you. Exquisite.

Noa's heart did a thing. A small, rude flutter. She glared at her screen like it had sold her out.

She’d tried—really tried—not to think about Xio after that night. She’d told herself it had been a momentary lapse, an… experiment. A personal ethics violation conducted entirely off the record. It had not been one of her finer moments. But holy shit. It had been one of the finest moments of her life.

Still. Reporters did not sleep with sources. Especially not witchy, sultry, possibly-actually-magical sources who made you feel like your bones were full of bees and longing.

She hit reply before she could talk herself out of it.

From: noa.brooks@citywirepress.org
To: xio@labrujabella.com
Subject: Re: Correction

Dear Ms. Reina,

Thank you for your close read. At City Wire, we pride ourselves on factual accuracy and strive to avoid misleading our readers.

That said, the details of my return to La Bruja Bella were deemed… editorially irrelevant. Including them would’ve surely prompted a flurry of concerned emails—especially from our more conservative subscribers.

Best,
Noa

P.S. Feel free to keep the blazer. Or give it a proper Viking funeral. Entirely up to you.

The reply came back faster than seemed fair.

From: xio@labrujabella.com
To: noa.brooks@citywirepress.org
Subject: Re: Re: Correction

Burning your jacket at sea would be such a waste. But I did try it on.

Fits surprisingly well.

I may hold it hostage. Terms of release pending. I like negotiations.

Warmly,
Xio

There was an image attached. It was Noa’s blazer hand-cuffed to a chair with furry cuffs. Noa clutched her mug like it could anchor her to the planet.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.