by Anne Tenino
Yup, they needed to get moving: there was more haunting to be done. As soon as Lucas turned and started—hesitantly—down again, Seth let himself smile. When Gabe glanced over his shoulder, he barely killed his amusement in time.
Gabe waited for him, letting Grandma and Lucas go on ahead. “Hey, man. I was going through some stuff the other day, and I found one of your old Hickory shirts. Forgot to throw it in the truck, though.”
“Only one? I’m surprised I didn’t leave more there.” When he’d logged with Gabe, the implicit understanding was that once they were done for the day in the woods, they’d spend the rest of the night in Gabe’s bed. Or other convenient surfaces in his place. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t need it back.”
Gabe shrugged. “Won’t fit me, and I don’t think Lucas’s gonna wanna be wearing it around much.”
Yeah, he and Lucas might be friends, but Lucas still didn’t like remembering when Seth and Gabe were that and then some. Which reminded him, right here where they were standing, Nate would be able to hear every word, and judging by this morning, Nate didn’t like knowing about that any more than Lucas.
“By the way,” Gabe continued before Seth could urge him along. “Ran into Evan Miller, and whatever you said to that dude? He’s telling everyone you aren’t up for a ‘good time’ anymore.”
“Excellent,” Seth groaned. “The impotence offensive. If I’d known his ego was so fragile, I would have made up an excuse the other night. Jesus, I thought I was being nice telling him I’m not . . . Whatever.” He shook his head and let Gabe fill in the blank however he wanted. Gabe and Nate. Really don’t need to discuss this right here. He took a step, watching Gabe to make sure he was following.
Gabe didn’t move his feet, but he did let his gaze flicker to the dining room archway. Great. He didn’t want Lucas to hear this any more than Seth wanted Nate to. “Evan’s trashing you to everyone. Like, if you ever want to get laid—”
“I really couldn’t care less.”
Something in his tone—probably the annoyance—made Gabe’s eyes go wide. “Well, now, that’s a different tune than you used to sing.”
“Sorry.” Not that he was sure what for, exactly. “Things’re . . . different, now.”
“You seeing someone? Like, seriously?”
Shrugging, he attempted to force himself not to blush. Being blond sucked sometimes.
Gabe had mad skills—he could smile smugly and whistle at the same time. “Never thought you’d tie yourself down to one guy.”
If he was seeing someone, that didn’t mean he wasn’t seeing other guys. But you won’t, because that would hurt Nate. That, and he didn’t want anyone else. “You did,” he finally retorted. Excellent comeback.
“Yup.” The dude finally started down the last few steps, still smugly smiling, but at least now it was about his boyfriend instead of Seth’s . . . relationship.
When they got to the dining room, Grandma was at the buffet, next to the coffee service she’d laid out. “Seth, dear, set out the cups so I can pour.” As she lifted the thermal carafe, her hand shook noticeably. “Did you see— Never mind. My imagination again.” She squinted into the far corner of the room an extra second before shaking her head and attending to the coffee.
Tarkus played his part as well as Grandma played hers. Seth was pretty sure he could only hear the recording start up because he was listening for it. It was in the corner Grandma had drawn attention to, around the ten-seat table, but Tarkus made out the sound of the UPS truck just fine—nothing wrong with his ears, after all, just the rest of him—and he started freaking like a hound of hell had dressed up as the mailman. When Seth lunged to grab his collar, he truly believed he needed to in order to keep Tark from rooting out the speaker. Of course Tarkus wasn’t acting, he believed the malevolent man in brown was encroaching on his territory, and he growled and barked and salivated and showed his canines just like it was delivery day.
“Oh, I hate it when he does that,” Grandma said in a low voice, although loud enough to be heard. When he glanced at her, she was clutching her chest. “Just when I’ve convinced myself there’s nothing there.”
“There is nothing there,” Lucas insisted, then ruined it by adding, “Right?” He stared intently at the corner, then started toward it.
Seth improvised, grabbing the guy’s wrist as he passed to halt him. “No, don’t. Sometimes people get, um, shocked.”
“What?” Lucas’s eyes bulged out of their sockets.
“Shocked by what?” Gabe asked.
“Like, electrically shocked. We don’t really understand.” Seth bit his lip, faking reluctance to say more, since he really had nothing else to add. “Wiring in old homes like this, it’s sometimes, um—”
“I hoped . . .” Grandma’s voice held the perfect amount of tremor. “I—I have to sell this house. I was hoping, when you two boys came by, it wouldn’t—” she gulped in a parody of Lucas on the stairs earlier “—disturb things.”
“What wouldn’t?” Lucas actually stamped his foot.
“Well . . .” Should he say it or let the guy get himself there? “We don’t really know.” Better to let Lucas come to the obvious conclusion. At least, he hoped it was obvious.
Exhaling shakily, Lucas blinked a few times, then asked, “Um, I think I’ve seen enough. Can we end the tour now?”
Nate was so proud of his coconspirators. Pearl—God, she’d been brilliant. If Levi ever decided to stage Arsenic and Old Lace at the Playhouse, Pearl would be a shoo-in as Aunt Abby, the sweet, no-nonsense septuagenarian poisoner.
Seth had remembered his cues, timed them exactly right. Even Tarkus—who was only responding to the recordings of the approaching UPS truck in his usual way—hadn’t blown his lines. All the effects had gone off without a hitch.
Then Nate just had laid on the dining room UPS recording a little longer than was strictly necessary because . . . Gabe fricking Savage. Don’t pad your part out of pique, Albano, or you’ll ruin the whole thing.
It wasn’t bad enough that the guy hadn’t reacted to the haunting effects with anything other than meh—and Nate had really wanted to turn his crank at least a little. But his casual, borderline contemptuous remarks about Seth’s reputation and past? They’d flipped a switch Nate hadn’t even realized he had.
Nate’s sexual attraction wasn’t quick to ignite, but once lit, it burned slow and steady, even if it wasn’t as hot as he’d heard other people brag about. Last night, with Seth, it had flared for only the third time in his life. Seth was his now—and that meant Nate was all in, and he intended to prove it by showing Seth he was focused. Devoted. Protective.
Seth might not have had a lot of experience—or any, if Gabe was to be believed—with long-term relationships, but at least it sounded as if Seth had turned down a chance for a hookup. This Evan Miller character—who the hell was he anyway? Even if he and Seth had a history, he had no right to talk shit about Seth that way. Nobody did. The dickhead needed to back off—and it didn’t sound like Gabe had made the least push to encourage that. Asshole.
Maybe Gabe and Lucas needed a demonstration that Seth was both off the market and not without a champion. A grand gesture—that’s the ticket. Or at least as grand as Nate could manage at short notice.
So he hustled down the back stairs, crept through the kitchen and outside. He couldn’t risk screwing up their plot with an ill-timed unscheduled cameo, so he lurked out of sight, waiting for Gabe Savage to say one. More. Thing.
Grandma pretended to be reluctant to let Lucas and Gabe leave, but she didn’t force them to see anymore. “Maybe next time,” she said as they walked out onto the wraparound porch with their guests.
Seth had a feeling there wouldn’t be a next time. Even after Lucas found out the place wasn’t haunted.
As Lucas and Gabe said their good-byes, Shannon drove up and parked on the street in front of the house. They’d expected to still be inside when she arrived, but she could probably improvise,
right? She acted all the time. Everyone came down the steps to stand on the lawn and wait for her.
Her smile as she got out of the car didn’t seem strained, neither did her wave. “Hey, Seth. Hey, guys.” As she reached them, she greeted Grandma. “Hello there, Mrs. Larson.”
Shannon hugged Grandma—what was it about his grandmother that made his friends want to paw at her? Seth couldn’t be sure, but he thought Shannon whispered something in her ear.
“I’ve been working on that story you and Seth proposed,” she said as she disentangled herself. “The special-interest piece about the history of Sentinel House? I think I can get my editor to go for it if we come up with a unique angle. So, is there anything especially unusual about it?”
Shannon got the same sort of glare from Grandma that he had when he’d overplayed his part. Still, Grandma managed to smooth any too-obvious moments over. “Well, dear, it’s on the national historic register, of course, and in a few minor, specialized guidebooks. One’s about Victorian architecture of the Olympic Peninsula.”
“Oh.” Shannon wrinkled up her nose. “That reminds me. I’m sure it’s just a joke or someone overreacting, but when I was researching the house, I saw it on a website that lists haunted houses. On a couple of them, actually. One even called it the most haunted house on Puget Sound.”
“Oh no.” Grandma fanned herself with a tissue. Where the hell had she gotten that, from between her bosoms? If you asked him, she was working the frail old lady bit too hard.
“Oh my God,” Lucas called, pointing back at the house. “That—that thing in the dining room, it was—I saw it! On the mirror in the staircase! Ghost of Fentenmeier!”
“Fennimore,” Gabe corrected.
“Fennimore!” Lucas repeated, gesticulating wildly.
Shannon leaped right on that. “You saw something? Would you let me interview you about it for the paper?”
Unexpectedly, Lucas clammed up, pressing his lips together like a thirteen-year-old who’d zipped them shut and thrown away the imaginary key. His gaze pinged from Shannon to Seth to Grandma and back again, over and over.
Uh-oh. Now Seth saw it: the flaw in their plan. Lucas was concerned Grandma couldn’t sell a house that was haunted. They all stood there, him and Shannon and Grandma teetering on the edge of owning up, not sure if Lucas would still agree to look like a fool in the local paper and swear he saw a ghost if he knew he’d been set up.
Then, of all people, Gabe came to the rescue. “Haunted, huh? Congratulations, Mrs. Larson.” He gave her that easy grin that he’d been flashing around since he was old enough to carry a chainsaw. “I hear the right people will pay big bucks for a haunted house. Why, if you were to sell it to someone who wanted to turn it into a bed and breakfast, that could be the clincher right there.”
A bed and breakfast? Lucas must have said something.
“Sure, it might narrow your market a bit, but you could gain big from a feature like that. Better to get it out in the open than to try and hide the evidence, I say.”
For the first time, Grandma seemed at a loss for words. “Oh . . . why you might be right, Gabe.”
“Hey.” Another visitor—everyone turned as Nate came sauntering over from around the corner. “You weren’t at your place so I thought I’d check the house.” Seth tried to read his expression, see if he’d caught the conversation with Gabe, but Nate looked normal.
Automatically, Seth went toward him, so that he and Nate ended up standing just a little apart from the others. Kind of like Gabe and Lucas were. Like a couple.
More revealing though was when Nate put his hand on Seth’s back, leaving it there as he faced the group. That probably answered the question of whether he’d overheard him and Gabe, but more importantly: he’s staking his claim on me.
Once again Seth found himself trying to fight off the heat in his face. Really, though, he couldn’t have been happier about it if Nate had peed a circle around him.
Actually, this more subtle approach probably made him happier than that would have.
Speaking of circles, Tarkus was trying to dance one around Nate, now, although he was as ungraceful as ever.
“That dog,” Grandma said. “I swear, he’d go home with you if I let him.” Beaming, she came up to Nate and gave him a hug—something Nate obviously wasn’t prepared for but returned anyway. Seth thought the guy looked as pleased as he’d felt when Nate had staked his claim on him.
“Boys.” Grandma turned toward them. “Have you met Nate Albano? He’s a friend of Seth’s.”
What the hell. Seth basked in Nate’s possessiveness as introductions came and went, and then Gabe and Lucas finally got a move on. Shannon followed Lucas to the pickup to finish interviewing him.
Gabe hung back long enough to give Seth a bro-hug—he must have wanted to get in on the action also—during which Nate actually moved closer rather than backed off. Once done, Gabe flicked a glance at him and then asked them both, “How long do you reckon you’ll keep this place haunted?”
Grimacing, Seth told him the truth. “Shannon’s editor would only agree to print a false story on Halloween if we played it off as a gimmick in the next edition.” For a week, everyone who read the paper would think the place was legit haunted. But people would forgive a lot in the spirit of holidays.
Plus, to some people, the name Larson still carried weight in this town. That or the editor wanted to hug Grandma as much as Seth’s friends did.
“Well, don’t worry about Lucas. I’ll break it to him once you’ve accomplished whatever it is you’re aiming at here.” He gave the house an appraising look over Seth’s head. “Trying to sell the place, huh? Doesn’t your uncle have some say in that?”
Seth snorted, and apparently that was answer enough for Gabe.
The stretch of beach was about as desolate as you could get, which was one of the reasons it was a regular spot for Wolf’s Landing location shoots—at night anyway. During the day, it was something of a tourist attraction for show fans, since it was the same spot where Levi had broken character to declare his love for Carter the first time.
That must be why the two of them were gazing into each other’s eyes as if they were alone on the shore and not surrounded by crew setting up lights and checking camera angles, Levi touching Carter’s hand or arm or face as if he required the connection. Carter was soaking it up like oxygen, and the look on his face . . . God.
Nate was so there with Seth—and there were signs that Seth might be thinking long-term too. He patted his pocket, where he’d tucked the note from Seth, inviting him to go crabbing. A handwritten invitation. How freaking charming was that?
“Yo, Nate.” Morgan waved a hand in front of his face. “You in there?”
Nate blinked. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“You’ve been a thousand miles away all night. Time to get your head in the game, don’t you think, since you’re about to set Ginsberg and C.J. on fire?”
Nate squinted at the clouds scudding across the sky, at the actors’ clothes flapping in the stiff breeze. “Not unless this wind dies down. Too risky.”
“Tell that to the asshole.” Morgan nodded at Finn, who was gesturing wildly at a glowering Anna.
“What the hell is his problem now?”
“Budget. What do you think?”
Finn’s voice carried to them easily. “Do you know what this shoot is costing? Not only our crew but the firefighter paramedics too. Can we just get on with it? There’s nothing flammable on the frigging beach for half a mile.”
“If you don’t count the actors,” Nate muttered. “No way can we do this stunt tonight unless the weather report is right for a change and things calm down at midnight.”
“Absolutely not.” Anna’s tone brooked no argument. “Give it up, Finn. We’re not going to stage a dangerous stunt in unsafe conditions just to make the bean-counters happy. Now get out of my way so I can at least film something tonight.”
Finn stomped away from Anna, his dramatic exit
somewhat impaired by the way his loafers took on sand. Before he completely escaped the nimbus of the floodlights, though, his expression changed from angry to satisfied.
Morgan raised her eyebrows. “Nothing good has ever followed Finn looking that smug. Come on.” She held her finger over her lips and nodded to where Finn had stopped beyond the makeup trailer, his cell phone to his ear. She gestured for Nate to follow her.
You’re going to hell, he mouthed. But apparently he’d be joining her there, because he let her lead the way to a spot shielded by the trailer.
“That’s right,” Finn said gleefully. “Weather conditions again. This makes how many times? Yeah, if this doesn’t convince the other producers to switch to CGI— I’ll email the cost overruns to you tonight.”
As Finn’s footsteps crunched away, Nate shared a troubled glance with Morgan. “If he finally convinces them to go with the green screen SFX—”
“He won’t. Anna won’t allow it. Hunter won’t allow it, and Hunter is God—or at least Oz, the great and powerful, remember.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Nate! Morgan! We’re switching to the boat fight. Could you set up, please?”
“Sure, Anna.” Nate trudged down the beach to one of several rowboats that was about to meet its doom. While he still had a job, he might as well do it right.
Four hours later, though, the wind still hadn’t abated, and they’d gone through all six of the break-away boats. On the last take, Ginsberg had face-planted in the sand just as a sneaker wave had overrun the set, soaking his wig. Suyin had torn the makeup trailer apart but couldn’t find the backup wig, so Anna had called a dinner break while a PA made an emergency trip to the production lot.
Nate was in no mood to dine with everyone at the craft services tent, so he, Morgan, and a handful of other crew had driven a few miles up the highway to a roadhouse that had barely adequate burgers.
“We probably should have stuck with craft services.” Morgan tossed her napkin on the table. “At least their salads aren’t brown around the edges.”