by Amy Lane
Jordan cocked his head. “That’s good,” he said. “No, that’s seriously good. That’s… we usually work with a coven of seven. If we could get one more person besides you, we might be able to get Dante and Cully back.” He closed his eyes and let out a sigh. “That would be great. Like, perfect. Like… oh God.” He swallowed, and Lachlan saw the absolute panic he was keeping at bay. “God, they’re haunting their own house! How did that happen?”
Lachlan thought about the things he’d heard, the way one seemed to walk into a room when the other had disappeared. The way they’d both been looking for the other one but hadn’t seen.
It was a little like he’d been looking at Tolly for a year and a half and Tolly had bolted for the bathroom. “What was their relationship like?” he asked, not wanting to assume.
Jordan grunted and actually picked up one of the mixers from the shelf—it looked huge and heavy, and Lachlan went for the other one, expecting to put his back into it, but Jordan stopped him.
“No, let’s only break out one for now. But Dante and Cully were… well, they’ve been friends and roommates since college. And everyone assumed they were lovers or had been at some point in time, but it never happened. Dante would be nuts about some idiot punk rocker or Cully would be sleeping with an actor, and when one of them snapped out of it, the other was always involved. We kept waiting for them to… I don’t know. Find each other. It’s so obvious that they’ve been stupid in love since college—that’s what? Eight, nine years? But the only part we’ve seen is the stupid.”
Lachlan sighed. “That’s a long time,” he said, thinking about how that could have been Bartholomew and him. “I… I mean, I can see how it could happen, but that’s a lot of backed up… bad timing, I guess.”
“Yeah, and whatever they wished for, and whatever they lied about wishing for, the magic somehow knew that. Here, open that door for me, would ya?”
“Yeah.” Lachlan did as Jordan asked, saying, “Look, I’m going to call my sister and let her know I’m staying the night, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Leave the light on when you come in.” Jordan looked both ways and shuddered again. “Snakes. I just….”
“Yeah.” Lachlan totally got it. “I’m with you.”
Jordan carried the mixer into the kitchen then and closed the door with his foot, and Lachlan pulled out his phone. These people loved each other so much—so much—but they’d turned the natural world upside down with what seemed to be the best-meaning secrets and lies.
Lachlan needed to make sure he didn’t have any of those on his conscience, and as far as he knew, he only had one outstanding debt, and it wasn’t to his sister, who knew about everything.
“Hey, Dad?”
“Lachlan?” his father sounded like he always did—dry and funny and surprised to find that his adult children still wanted to talk to him. “Your sister said you had plans tonight. Who is she?”
And life was that simple. “Uh….” Rip off the Band-Aid and you didn’t sweat it, right? “He. It’s a he. His name is Bartholomew. I think it’s love.”
He expected something. An indrawn breath. A gasp. Even a “Well, then….”
But his dad wasn’t big on emotional demonstrations. “Bartholomew. You couldn’t find a guy named James? Seriously?”
Lachlan had to laugh. “Sorry, Dad. I know—all my girls were, like, Nancy and Beth and Maria. But this guy, he’s Bartholomew.”
“Fine. Bartholomew. I’ll tell your mother he’s coming for Halloween. She’ll be thrilled. She probably has a themed costume she’s been dying to make somebody wear—you know her.”
“Yeah.” Lachlan sighed. “Look, I’ll try to bring him over on Halloween, but… like, he’s Wiccan, and he’s got a coven, and—”
“Seriously?” His father didn’t sound put out at all. “A coven? That’s stunning. Wow, Lachlan. You’re, like, the best adult child ever. Bring him over now. I’m so excited. Some guys date schoolteachers, but you’re dating a wizard. Or a witch. Or whatever. I’m enchanted already. Anything else you want to tell me? Because you are on a roll!”
Lachlan had to laugh. “His day job is in the IT department, but he moonlights as a baker—”
“Stop. You’re killing me. Kristen! Get your ass over here! Lachlan just became our favorite child!”
“—and his last name is Baker,” Lachlan finished, thinking his parents were the greatest.
“I’m dead,” his father said happily. “Seriously dead. Oh God. I need to hang up now. I’m going to tell your mother, and we can astral project our joy.”
“Believe it or not, it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to happen to me today,” Lachlan said, his smile hurting his cheeks. And he remembered Bartholomew’s fear of his parents, of unkind words, of expectations that would poison the brightest hope. “But, uh, thanks, Dad.”
“For what? No, seriously, Kristen—he’s in love with a young man—”
Lachlan could hear his mother’s squeal over the phone. Hell, probably over continents and time. “Tell Mom this doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to be excited about Dancing with the Stars, okay?”
“How about baking shows?” his father asked hopefully.
“Yeah. Probably those.” Because watching Tolly get excited about them might one day be his best thing. “But thank you. This… like, other people having this conversation, they wouldn’t have it so good.”
His father grew quiet, that suddenly. “Is that why you waited until you were thirty? Not that we haven’t known. You’ve had guys over at your place before. Erin said they were friends, but there was a dating pattern there. And honestly, she sucks at lying. Three cats, Lachlan—she’s got three cats. You suck at it too. We’re not stupid.”
No, they weren’t. “No,” Lachlan said soberly. “I knew you guys would be cool. I just… I just didn’t want to rock the boat unless I had to. But that’s a little cowardly, and I sort of learned today that even little lies, even by omission, can really hurt us, you know?”
“I hope this one didn’t hurt, son.” Charlie Stephens—best dad ever.
“Nope. We caught it before it got dangerous,” Lachlan said, keeping his voice light.
“Good. We can’t wait to meet young Bartholomew—” His father’s voice broke a little in laughter. “Baker, the part-time baker and full-time witch.”
“He’s the greatest, Dad. You gotta be careful of him—he’s real shy—but I think you’ll love him.”
“Ah,” his father said, sober again. “And that’s a story.”
“But not for right now. I gotta go help him bake for tomorrow. He’s selling baked goods in the booth next to me. He’s amazing.”
“Go bake up a storm,” his father said. “Thanksgiving’s coming. Maybe he can bring pies. See you soon.”
“Yeah. See you soon.”
On his way out of the garage, he grabbed the extra mixer. It’s what Bartholomew had asked for, and he could man it while everyone else took a break.
AN hour later, the two outside ovens and the one inside were all in use, each with their own timers. Bartholomew—or Jordan’s dad at Bartholomew’s request—had set the timers for the outside ovens up with a blinking light and a beeper right over the sink, a different color for each oven.
Jordan took one and the outside counter, Lachlan took the other and the inside counter, and Bartholomew took the inside oven and the kitchen table. While they worked, the others sat and ate—and tried to formulate a plan.
After another hour, Kate, Josh, and Alex took over, wrapping cookies and loaves individually, packaging them in the boxes they’d pulled from the van, and stacking everything in the temperature-controlled garage.
It wasn’t a standard weekend of stock—Lachlan got that. Everybody was tired, scared, and wanting to get some control back over their lives. But it was comforting. They had something concrete to do, something real. Making food had such an organic, personal warmth anyway—but it wasn’t until they were halfway through their second batc
h of white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, Lachlan following the recipe in front of him like a scientist follows the formula for high-energy explosives, that he realized there was more to it.
Bartholomew came up behind him, putting an absent hand in the center of his back. He had a clean Popsicle stick—Lachlan had seen a sugar jar full of them—and he scraped a little bit of dough off the side of the bowl with it and popped it in his mouth. Lachlan got a profile of that slow, lip-biting smile that had charmed him so very much for so long, before he said, mostly to himself, “A little salt, a lot sweet, true comfort and joy for all to eat.”
He gave Lachlan a quick grin and moved to where Jordan was manning another mixer full of chocolate muffin mix. He murmured something there too—something about dark and good—and then, in a sort of practical unconscious dance, he headed for his oven, which was beeping, to take a tray of snickerdoodles out using a specially insulated, very colorful oven mitt that apparently Cully had designed and sewn.
Lachlan turned off his mixer and caught Jordan’s eyes. “That thing he just did—the blessing of the cookies….”
Jordan frowned. “What?”
“He cast a little mini spell for the cookies to be okay,” Lachlan said. “Didn’t you hear him?”
Jordan’s lips quirked, and he laughed suddenly. Bartholomew scooped each individual snickerdoodle onto its cooling rack with the delicate care of a master porcelain worker with a figurine. “What?” he asked, seemingly still in his baking daze.
“Finish up this batch, and let Josh and Kate wrap them,” Jordan said. “I’ll tell you all when we break.”
In another half hour, Alex was washing the last of the dishes, Josh and Kate were seated at the table, wrapping baked goods, and everyone was having a well-deserved beer.
“You going to tell us what was so funny?” Alex asked from his post, stacking baking trays with precision.
“Not funny—just something none of us noticed before.” Jordan took a swig of beer and closed his eyes for a moment. “So, everyone, who’s the most powerful practitioner in the coven?” he asked.
“You are.” The opinion was unanimous, and everybody clinked glasses, but Jordan laughed softly.
“Maybe. I used to think I was first and Dante was second, but I don’t think that’s true anymore. If it ever was.”
“Well, who else is up with you guys?” Kate asked, puzzled. “Not me—that’s for sure. Josh, did you suddenly get better?”
Josh’s brown eyes grew big, and he looked around in surprise. “No, my beloved, I’m still the one everybody lets tag along ’cause I’m pretty.”
“I thought that was me,” Alex said dryly.
“You’re all stronger than you think,” Jordan said, with the frustrated irritation of a first-rate teacher. “But it turns out, one of us was super strong all along; he just channeled his ability into something else entirely.”
“Oh!” Lachlan said excitedly. “Oh my God, seriously?”
“What?” Bartholomew asked, looking dazed and tired and, oddly enough, content. The baking—it was as much a part of him as his name. “Who else is as strong as Jordan and Dante?”
Lachlan rubbed a little circle between Bartholomew’s shoulder blades, gratified when he relaxed into Lachlan’s palm. “You are, baby,” he said softly. “He’s trying to say that the thing you did last night, where you cast a spell over all your baked goods—that wasn’t an anomaly. It’s just last night you were sad about me, so your baking got wonky. Most of the time, you want to make people happy, so your food makes people happy. That’s where you were putting all your power.”
Bartholomew rolled his eyes and leaned his head against Lachlan’s shoulder. “Who cares?” He yawned dismissively. “Are we any closer to figuring out Dante and Cully?”
Lachlan and Jordan met amused eyes over his head. Bartholomew wouldn’t care, would he. It wasn’t about power for him. It never had been.
“Well,” Jordan said slowly, “first we need sleep, and we need to see the ending of your story. Then a meeting where we figure out what everyone else should probably do to fix their own magic twist. And then we need to all, with full power, converge on their house and try to put one of your amulets over each one of their necks when they’re visible, and see if that gives them some stability. Hopefully, with that link to us—and real time—we can pull them back to the here and now instead of the somewhere and somewhen they’re fading in and out of.” His yawn was only slightly less awesome than Bartholomew’s.
“Well, we all need sleep,” Alex said. He looked at Josh and Kate, who were practically asleep on each other as they sat. It was clear none of them were feeling up to fixing the world that night. Dante and Cully hadn’t been in any pain, or even any urgent need. Lachlan thought it was probably the greatest of wisdom to let everybody figure out their own business before they dove in to help their friends who needed them the most.
“How about I walk you two home,” Jordan said on another yawn.
“Me and Glinda will come with you,” Alex told him. “I’ll sleep on your couch tonight.”
Jordan gave him a look of naked gratitude. “I didn’t want to ask,” he said. “But Helen’s house is quirky at the best of times.” He shuddered, and given that Lachlan had seen it—small, with peeling paint, a crooked frame, and an army of cats parked out in the front garden, standing like gargoyles—Lachlan could see why sleeping there alone might be one of the bravest things Lachlan could possibly think of.
“I hear you,” Alex said. He looked at Lachlan and Bartholomew. “And you two have to get up early tomorrow. We should probably let you shower and sleep.”
“Sure,” Lachlan said blandly. “We’ll sleep.” Well, yes. They’d sleep really well for part of the time, but not all of it. He’d make sure of that.
Bartholomew’s bedroom was plain in the furniture area, with a twin bed with a navy blue comforter and a plain area rug the color of vanilla-and-caramel swirls. His walls were covered, though, with baking show posters and framed shots of perfectly iced cakes and a few black-and-white pictures of chocolate that were downright pornographic.
He had a laptop—well used—sitting on an ancient desk of pasteboard and peeling veneer, a thing that offended Lachlan on a cellular level, and an end table and desk with lamps shaped like cupcakes.
“Gifts?” he said, enjoying the way they both had sprinkles on the shade that sent flecks of multicolored light throughout the room.
“For my birthday, from the coven,” Bartholomew said. “Here, you shower first. I’ll make a sweep around the kitchen and—” His face was red and he was shifting from foot to foot, self-conscious.
“Sure, Tolly,” Lachlan said gently. “I’ll shower first.” He’d brought in his backpack with extra clothes and a shaving kit, and he grabbed it now and went to the communal bathroom in the hall. When Bartholomew emerged about ten minutes after Lachlan, he came into the room with a towel wrapped around his slender waist, obviously embarrassed.
“I forgot to bring briefs,” he muttered. “And sleep pants and a T-shirt….” He started rooting through his clothes, and Lachlan chuckled a little and sat up in the small bed.
“Tolly?”
“Yeah?” Bartholomew didn’t look behind him.
“Drop the towel and get into bed with me.”
And that was when Bartholomew turned around and realized he was naked.
“Omigod,” he muttered, the hand at his waist slipping and showing just enough of his hip bone to remind Lachlan of all the goodies that lay beneath.
“Tolly, come here.”
Bartholomew nodded and turned off the light on automatic. He dropped the towel and slid into bed, and he really must have known some magic tricks because he managed to leave a strip of about two inches between their bodies where they weren’t touching.
Lachlan fought the temptation to scream—maybe beg a little.
“Tolly?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to touch me?”
“Yeah.”
“Then touch me. Don’t be afraid of me. Trust that I’ll want to touch you too.”
His hands, tentative at first, but bolder as Lachlan reciprocated, began to glide over Lachlan’s chest. Lachlan sank into the touch and rolled over, half-pinning Bartholomew beneath him but mostly getting in position to kiss him.
And then to ravish him, as the kiss grew hotter, from tentative to scorching, in a few aggressive thrusts of Bartholomew’s tongue.
Oh yeah—he did want Lachlan, very much.
On and on, skin to skin, until their groins pressed frantically together, cock to cock, and Lachlan thought that maybe they should think about upping the level here.
“Tolly?” he whispered, grasping Bartholomew’s cock and stroking hard.
“Mmf?”
“I can stroke us both off here, or we can do the full fuck. I know you’re tired, baby, but I need you to make this decision.”
Bartholomew pulled away for a moment. “Wait. Am I still a virgin?”
Lachlan laughed into the hollow of his shoulder. “No! After this afternoon? No. Not even a little. I don’t care what you’ve had in your ass—or not—in my book, making love when you’re in love pretty much cashes in your v-card.”
The look Bartholomew gave him in the dark was proud and excited. “That’s true, right?”
“I’ve always thought so,” Lachlan said, wondering what was going through his mind.
Bartholomew’s happy, sensual smile was the best answer he could get. “Good. Then I don’t have anything to be afraid of.” He swallowed and reached for his end table. “I, uh, cleaned myself really good in the shower, you know. Just in case.” He thrust a modest bottle of lubricant into Lachlan’s hand as he said, “Oh, wait. Should I worry about condoms? I don’t have any.”
“Color me surprised,” Lachlan panted, still sarcastic. “I’ve got better than condoms. I’ve got eighteen months of celibacy in my past, and two clear test results in my backpack, taken in the last six months.”
Bartholomew tried to do the math and failed. “Why would you…?”
