by Amy Lane
“Mm.” He’d said something like that earlier. And Lachlan remembered that half-despairing look Jordan had given him when Bartholomew had whispered in his ear. “Are you ever going to tell me?”
“I think I have to,” Bartholomew said unhappily, turning back to his plate. “But we need to eat first before the eggs get cold.”
Lachlan would have let Bartholomew change the subject, but he saw Bartholomew’s eyes go distant and thoughtful, and for once didn’t try to fill in the silence. They sat there quietly, invested in their food, until Bartholomew pushed back his plate and sighed.
“You didn’t eat much,” Lachlan remarked. “I thought you said you were hungry.”
Bartholomew shrugged. “I’m not that big a guy. Small guy, small meal.”
Lachlan took his plate and started cutting up the steak. “It looked like you were thinking too hard to actually eat.”
Not quite a smile this time. “That too. Is there a supermarket we can visit before we get to your place? I have an idea.”
Lachlan took a bite of Bartholomew’s steak and closed his eyes, because it was just as good as his had been, and that was saying something.
“Yeah. You going to tell me what we need?”
Bartholomew went to chew his lip again, but Lachlan reached across the table and stroked it gently with his thumb. “Stop,” he said, voice soft. “You’re going to make it bleed.”
Bartholomew licked it quickly, eyes going wide when he caught Lachlan’s thumb. Lachlan felt a slow smile stretch his own cheeks.
“You have plans?” he asked. “For when we get to my place?”
Bartholomew nodded, tongue sneaking out to catch Lachlan’s thumb again. Lachlan felt a shiver of want pass through him, as strong as it was welcome.
“Think we might spare a little time for ourselves?” Lachlan chided, “Nah, nah, nah—no chewing.” This time he popped his thumb right into Bartholomew’s mouth, and he… oh yeah. Bartholomew pulled it farther into his mouth and sucked on it, scraping it with those slightly crooked teeth when Lachlan pulled it out.
“Okay,” Bartholomew said, and he was sober too, his green eyes wide and intent. “I may need your help, though. See, the thing is, I wanted to make amulets. I’ve got the rest of Ellen’s yarn in my pocket, and if I can buy some herbs and flowers at the grocery store, and maybe a little bit of oil at the pharmacy, I can make a potion to soak them in. That way, after Jordan and I figure out what we need to do tonight, I can give everybody pendants of protection for whatever comes our way.”
“What did you have in mind?” Lachlan asked.
“Discs,” Bartholomew said promptly. “If you can cut a dowel into little slices, I can use a Sharpie—”
“Stop!” Lachlan complained. “You are hurting my ears. Oh my God. Tell me what you want on them—I’ve got a wood burner and a sander and stencils—just don’t insult my craft, okay?”
Bartholomew gave him one of those shy smiles again, the kind that said he wasn’t used to asking for help, like that was a big surprise. “Thank you, Lachlan. I would love it if you donated your craft to this. I was looking for practical, and you’ll make it special. That will be wonderful.”
Lachlan couldn’t help it. He’d already been crushing, but every time Bartholomew opened his mouth and said something lovely like that, something sincere and well meant, Lachlan’s heart melted to a gooey puddle. At this point, Bartholomew was taking up a man-sized soft spot in Lachlan’s chest.
Lachlan took his hand as it rested on the table. “I… I like helping you, Bartholomew,” he said. “I just wish you’d… I don’t know. Ask me for help—or company, or Jesus, maybe lunch sometime, you know? When there wasn’t strange magic afoot.”
A bright crescent of crimson slashed over Bartholomew’s cheeks, and his neck grew blotchy. “I’ll remember that,” he said. “I….” And he looked away, remorse maybe, crossing his face. “I should have had some faith in you. I… you were so nice to everybody. I kept thinking maybe I was special, but I didn’t know for sure.”
“Oh, yes,” Lachlan said, squeezing his hand. “You were special. And you should have faith in me. And for my part, I’ll remember….” Bartholomew was looking at their clasped hands like they were true magic. “I’ll remember that opening your heart doesn’t come easy to you, and I should take what you do say to me seriously.”
Bartholomew looked him in the eyes then, his smile as pure as a child’s. “Okay,” he said. “That works. I’ll try to be braver, Lachlan.” He went to bite his lip again, but stopped, catching Lachlan’s eyes in apology. “You’re worth it.”
Lachlan couldn’t help the grin that followed. “We both are.”
THEY had to go backward to the supermarket right outside of Jackson, but as Lachlan pulled the truck into the parking lot, Bartholomew assured him that it was perfect.
“Give me your phone,” he said, not getting out of the truck. First, he typed in his number, which was handy, and then he pulled up the notes and started typing in a shopping list. “I need you to go to the CVS. You’re looking for Epsom salts, the kind with eucalyptus in them. You don’t need that much, so the smallest bag they have. I’ll get the flowers and the clove oil and a pot you can throw away afterward—sometimes the potions… do things to the metal in the pot, and I don’t want to ruin your cookware.”
“Don’t you need a cauldron?” Lachlan asked seriously.
Bartholomew grimaced. “We’d need to know a blacksmith,” he said. “Helen left all sorts of books on potions with directions for the perfect cauldron, but we think she took her own. We’d need to have a new one blessed and have the smith use witch hazel to temper the metal—it was either commission a cauldron or buy my piece-of-shit catering van. We went with the van and a little cauldron graveyard in the garden surrounded by angelica, arrowhead, and lavender plants. They cancel the magic of the pots. And it’s weird—they rust and disintegrate way faster than normal. I have the feeling we could use the earth from that plot of garden for something very powerful, but Jordan and I don’t want to risk it yet.”
“So a basic pot,” Lachlan said, getting it.
“Yeah, if I can find something without Teflon, that’s even better. Anyway, I’ll meet you back at the car in fifteen, deal?”
“Yes, of course.” Lachlan frowned. “Are we sure nobody’s going to… you know… follow you and get all Backstreet Boys Batshit on you?”
Bartholomew’s small smile sort of pissed him off this time.
“It’s not like it didn’t just happen, Tolly!”
“Yeah, but that’s because those people ate the goods we made last night.”
Lachlan wasn’t stupid, and Bartholomew had been more than clear. “Element, intention, or direction?” he asked.
Bartholomew’s eyes lit up, and then he looked down, abashed. “Direction,” he muttered. “But not on purpose. The thing is, you have to be careful what you’re thinking when you’re working magic. And we were all so rattled, all of that magic swirling around, I didn’t clear my head and think about my baking. I sort of baked on automatic. So what was in my head, in my heart, was sort of… I mean, vanilla, sugar, and flour—key ingredients in pretty much everything out there. They’re all about goodwill and happiness and, well, love. So I was thinking… what I was thinking, and the elements weren’t going to fight me on it, and the next thing you know—”
Lachlan narrowed his eyes. “What were you thinking, Bartholomew?”
Bartholomew still didn’t meet his narrowed gaze. “Can we—”
Lachlan took that pointed chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting Bartholomew’s gaze up to meet his own. “Come on, Tolly. Tell me the truth. You’ve been cagey about this all day.”
“We’d just cast the spell for our heart’s desire,” Bartholomew told him. “And none of us wrote down what we really wanted. And the thing we really wanted was ripped from our mouths. I… I couldn’t ask for what I really wanted, you understand? Because you can’t make someone l
ove you. It has terrible consequences. So I was being perfectly logical asking for my business to do well. But I guess the magic got sort of pissy that I hadn’t even mentioned what was really in my heart, and everything went wonky, and all I could think was… well, it was aimed at you, really, but all I was thinking was ‘Why won’t you love me?’”
Lachlan gaped at him. “Why won’t you love me?”
Bartholomew hid his face. “See? Now you know. I had this stupid crush on you, and instead of… of talking to you like a human being, I managed to infect everybody on the vendor floor with… love. For, uhm, me.”
Lachlan groaned. “God, Tolly, seriously. Next time just say something!”
“You think?” Bartholomew shot back bitterly. “And you’ve been so kind, and helped me, and we had kisses, and they were really fabulous, and I’m so embarrassed, but yeah. If nothing else tonight, we have to cast a ‘Please don’t love Bartholomew Baker unless you really, really know him’ spell. And since I want my friends to at least like me, and you to maybe speak to me again when this is all over, I would like to make them protection amulets with little added boosts of ‘Bartholomew is your friend’ juice. Is that bad?”
Lachlan kissed him.
God. The things Bartholomew didn’t know about relationships were almost as vast as the things he did know about magic. But he had wanted Lachlan enough to go out and wreak some serious havoc just thinking about him, and Lachlan had to admit it.
That sort of longing could be sexy as hell.
His tongue plunged into Bartholomew’s mouth, and Bartholomew groaned, taking Lachlan’s cheeks between his chilled palms and welcoming him in. Lachlan kissed him until Bartholomew was flat back against the bench seat, eyes half-lidded and mouth parted, that wicked flush patterning his neck and ears and cheeks.
“Mm,” Lachlan said, skating his fingertips along the shell of Bartholomew’s ear. “This is really something amazing. I think… I think I want to see if this washes over your entire body at some point. Can we do that?”
Bartholomew whimpered. “I’m sort of a virgin,” he said, closing his eyes.
Lachlan laughed low in his throat. “So I’ve heard.” He gave Bartholomew a buss on the cheek. “Now go get your magic ingredients, and I’ll go get Epsom salts. Text me if you have to sprint through Bel Air with a crowd of old rich women on your heels, and I’ll be there to get you.”
Bartholomew’s smile wasn’t getting any less important to him. “Yeah?”
“Count on it. Now let’s go make some magic!”
Random Ingredients
A half an hour later Bartholomew was down fifty dollars and up a couple of bags of groceries. Granted, some of that was energy drinks, flour, sugar, vanilla, and salt, but he also had a bouquet of red-and-white chrysanthemums, along with amaryllis, a single red rose, clove oil, fennel, chamomile tea, rosemary, and witch-hazel hemorrhoid pads, which was the best he could do. And two cheap and tiny saucepans so he didn’t wreck Lachlan’s pots and pans.
Lachlan was waiting for him in the truck, texting madly on his phone as Bartholomew hopped in.
“No, no, no, no,” Lachlan muttered. “Erin, you shit, don’t you dare.”
“Who’s Erin?” Bartholomew asked, trying not to be jealous with no good reason. Lachlan had kissed a lot of different people those first months.
Apparently not this one, though. “My useless sister who leeches off my parents every chance she gets. She’s threatening to come over to check you out, and I’m trying to tell her you scare easy.”
“I do not!” Bartholomew’s voice cracked on “not” and he sort of wanted to die.
Lachlan sent him a fond look and resumed texting. “Yes,” he muttered. “Yes, I’m serious. No, heifer, no, don’t.”
Finally he gave a snarl and held the phone up to his ear. “No,” he said almost immediately. “Don’t come over. Because I really like this guy. Yes, guy. You know that. I like him. He’s terrified of… well, other people. No, he hasn’t been locked in a cage. He’s been… wounded. No—not like tragic backstory wounded. Just hurt. You’re hurting my ears right now—I have no idea what you’ll do to him!”
The next squawk sounded legitimately indignant, and Lachlan took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and his thumb.
“I’m sorry. Sweetheart, I am. But he’s sensitive, and you’re… a lot. You know that. Just a lot. And he’s sort of stressed right now. So maybe save the drama and the being a whole damned lot for later, when he’s not wishing for a quick death instead of the chance to meet the in-laws, okay?”
There was a quieter pause, and Lachlan’s voice sank affectionately. “Thank you, honey. Yeah, I think he’ll be around in a month. Why?” He looked Bartholomew square in the eye. “Because he’s funny. And sweet. And really, really cute. And super smart. I’ve been crushing on him forever, but I didn’t think he was interested.” He reached out and rubbed Bartholomew’s heated cheek with a rough thumb. “Turns out he was afraid.”
Bartholomew looked away and nodded, and Lachlan’s sister burbled on the other end of the line.
“Yeah. So at Mom and Dad’s before Halloween, like we always do. He might have plans for Halloween itself—” He looked at Bartholomew, who nodded, because every good witch had a ritual for Samhain. This would be their second as a coven, and he thought they might need one another more than ever.
But…
“You’re invited,” he mouthed, hoping it would be okay with everyone else.
Lachlan’s winsome smile made the risk worth it. “Anyway, he says I’m invited, and I look forward to that. But no visiting him today. Besides, I need to take him home this evening. We’ve got a thing.”
An inelegant sound emanated from the phone, and Lachlan’s cheeks turned rosy. “Not that sort of thing. Dinner with his friends.” Another noise, this one cheerful and welcoming. “Well, sort of. I’ve never met anyone like him.”
With that, Lachlan signed off and turned to wink at Bartholomew before starting the truck.
He pulled out of the parking lot and turned back toward Plymouth, and Bartholomew wondered where on this mostly straight road he’d be turning off.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Lachlan said after a moment.
“You’re awfully hopeful,” Bartholomew returned.
“Mm. Yeah. Well, it runs in my family. Erin, for all of her flakiness, still believes her best job is around the corner, or her best boyfriend, or her best craft idea. Her apartment is a disaster, her love life needs its own appendix, and she has three cats, which is three more than it specifies on her ‘no pets’ lease. But that next cat or that next boy or that next job—it’s got all the promise in the world.”
“I… I couldn’t do that,” Bartholomew said, the very thought making him shiver.
“So I gathered. It’s why you have two jobs,” Lachlan said kindly.
“It’s just… all that emphasis on bullshit courses, you know? If I took a risk, and it failed, I’d have to change my name and move to another state. My dad would call me every day, asking me how I could be such a fuckup. It’s”—he rubbed his stomach—“not conducive to risk-taking.”
“What about your mom?” Lachlan sounded genuinely curious. “My dad would get mad at our report cards or whatever, and our mom would step in and make it better, and Dad would apologize and try to make up for being a grumpy asshole, and Mom would tell him he was spoiling us. Not exactly functional, but they did work as a team.”
Bartholomew had to smile, because it sounded really damned functional to him. “No. Dad would yell at me for fucking up, and I’d try to fix it, and Mom would say, ‘What do you want, a pat on the back?’ And generally, I tried to keep fucking up off the menu.”
Lachlan’s expression went troubled. “That’s… that’s hard,” he said after a moment. “I mean, I’m starting to get why it would take you two years to talk to me, but I… it’s got to be hard, thinking that one mistake makes you a fuckup, or that something
you did by accident, with the best of intentions, can’t be fixed.”
Bartholomew swallowed, because it was obvious what he was talking about. “Yeah.”
“Tolly, you know I’m not mad about today, right?”
Bartholomew closed his eyes. “I am really… grateful for that.”
“Well, you need to know I’m not like your dad, maybe. I mean, I think it’s great you found a bunch of people who accepted you for you and who have your back. I’d like to get to know them better. But maybe you need to expand your thinking a little. They’re not the only ones in your life who can see the awesomeness that is Bartholomew Baker, you think?”
Bartholomew pulled his feet up onto his seat so he could hug his knees. “You’ve already got me committed to kisses,” he said guardedly. “What do you want me to say?”
There could be no mistaking the hurt and exasperation that crossed Lachlan’s face.
Or the new resolve that took its place.
“Nothing, Tolly. We’re good. You and me got time to know each other, that’s all.”
Bartholomew felt his shoulders relax, but he kept his arms wrapped around his knees. He just felt safer that way. “Good,” he said. “That makes me happy.”
A little after Plymouth, Lachlan turned then drove the long, curving road for a good five miles before he made a left onto a private road, through a combination of rocky hills and copses of oak trees. After a half mile of rural land filled with lots of granite boulders, oak trees, and a winding stream punctuating the lot of it, he took another right past an adorable mailbox painted like a panda bear, and down a driveway that must have been at least a quarter of a mile.
The house and workshop beyond that were a surprise.
They looked like they came out of a catalog for colonial-style tract houses, complete with a custom paint job of grass green and pale yellow trim. The house itself was two stories, with the requisite number of windows on the outside to make for small and cozy rooms on the inside, and the matching outbuilding—obviously Lachlan’s workshop, judging by the big pile of sawdust on the side of it, with a red wheelbarrow at the ready—appeared to have a loft apartment too.
