Shortbread and Shadows (Dreamspun Beyond Book 41)

by Amy Lane

  The crowd hadn’t seemed to feel Bartholomew’s sweaty-palmed shock—they’d laughed, and Lachlan, arm still around Bartholomew’s shoulders, had gone on with his story.

  “And then Albert—I guess ’cause he’s a good guy, right? He starts cleaning bunny’s ears.” Lachlan mimed licking around Bartholomew’s head, and the crowd laughed some more.

  “So I’ve stopped working to watch this, right? And Albert pauses in the middle of cleaning this rabbit, sort of making a real intimate friend, you know? And he gives me this look like, ‘Hey, bub, do you mind? Me and my friend got business to attend to.’ So I turn back around, ’cause I’ve got to give my boy some privacy, and I keep working on that piece.”

  Lachlan kept his arm around Bartholomew’s shoulders and gestured to the lovely, simply worked candle holder in the hands of a girl wearing a druid’s cloak of gauzy gray.

  “So I’m not sure what you’re planning to use that for, but I’ll tell you what. When I came out of the shop, Albert and that bunny were curled around each other like very close friends.”

  The girl giggled. “I’ll buy it!” she said happily, and Lachlan had dropped what was probably supposed to be a very casual kiss on Bartholomew’s temple.

  And Bartholomew had sucked air in, the touch of his lips against Bartholomew’s skin almost unbearably sweet.

  “Will you now?” Lachlan had asked, and Bartholomew, who had been trying to keep his interest tabled until exactly that moment, had stared at Lachlan with his heart in his eyes, and his vast ginormous unrequited crush had bloomed in that very instant.

  “Yeah, sure,” Bartholomew had whispered, and the girl had been rooting through her purse at the same time.

  “You take cards, right?”

  Lachlan ignored the girl for a moment and stared at Bartholomew in absolute surprise then, and had seemed to shake himself before dropping his arm and walking forward to make the transaction, and Bartholomew had been bereft.

  Now, with Lachlan so close to him, backing him into the cab of Lachlan’s beat-up blue Ford, that kiss hovering between them, Bartholomew had a thought to what it would mean if Lachlan just sort of ripped his warmth away again. He took a deep breath and crossed his arms over his chest in self-defense.

  “I remember,” Bartholomew said through a raspy throat.

  “Yeah.” Lachlan pushed some of Bartholomew’s hair away from his face, and Bartholomew thought about dropping his arms and wrapping them around Lachlan’s waist. “I looked for you after the crowd thinned out, you know.”

  Bartholomew shook his head. “I… Alex came by so I could go get lunch.” Bartholomew had texted him. Help. Awkward social. Need break.

  “You ran away,” Lachlan said, his voice so soft it didn’t echo in the garage.

  He had. Bartholomew’s shame made him hunch his shoulders. “You are so beautiful,” he murmured. “You have no idea what it’s like… when you look at me like that.”

  “Like what?” Lachlan’s hands on his hips weren’t threatening, they were welcoming, and Bartholomew forced his chin up to look Lachlan in the eyes.

  “Like I matter.”

  “I do,” Lachlan said softly. “You’ve been looking at me like that for a year and a half.”

  Bartholomew shivered. “I… I don’t know what to do with that,” he said in misery.

  “Put your hands on my hips, Tolly. I’m going to kiss you again.”

  Bartholomew did, and maybe it was the deliberateness of the action—not instinct, or even raw hunger, but actual forethought. That he wanted to kiss Bartholomew, not only in the heat of the moment. His mouth moved gently this time, exploring, not ravishing, and Bartholomew responded, just as gently.

  Lachlan pulled back, his breathing growing urgent. “So sweet,” he said. “I knew all along you’d taste so sweet.”

  This time the kiss went deeper, and Bartholomew found his hands rucking up underneath Lachlan’s sweatshirt on purpose. He wanted to touch skin, glide his palms along Lachlan’s back, feel the muscles bunch under his fingers.

  Lachlan groaned, and his wide-palmed hands felt so right cupping Bartholomew’s behind, and Bartholomew wriggled against him, groin to groin, as his cock started to ache and grow in his jeans.

  A noise echoed through the garage, and they both startled back. Lachlan looked over his shoulder and gasped. “Shit. C’mon, Tolly, we’ve got to go. The freight elevator—look!”

  Bartholomew hopped into the truck, and Lachlan started it up before they were both even belted. He drove one-handed as they buckled up, and as they rounded the first corner out of the parking garage, Bartholomew glanced over his shoulder and saw the first of the crowd start to spill out into the darkness from the elevator, looking frantically around.

  “Hurry,” he urged. “Before they see us enough to recognize the truck.”

  Lachlan accelerated carefully, because parking garages could be tricky, but Bartholomew didn’t see anybody sprinting to catch up with them. He did, however, see his own van, parked farther from the freight door, and sighed.

  “I wonder how much stock was left. We’ll probably have to throw it all away.”

  “What about the… the whatsit? The spell you wanted Jordan to perform?”

  “Yeah, but that was only around the stock in the booth.” Bartholomew pulled out his phone and texted Jordan about the girls who’d helped them out.

  How’s it going? Still crazy?

  No. We just performed the spell. People are looking dazed but not desperate. Lachlan’s doing a rocking business, though. Don’t worry—Josh and Kate have him covered, and me and Alex have your booth. How’re you?

  Worried. The crowd followed us into the parking garage. They still looked a little crazed.

  There was a pause, then thought bubbles. We might have to do something more permanent and wider reaching. Have Lachlan bring you home tonight, and we’ll see if we can’t break the food spell permanently.

  Tonight?

  Well, yeah—don’t you have things to talk about?

  Bartholomew swallowed. But cleanup and preparation and stuff.

  Bartholomew, man up! You’re going to need to talk to him sometime! Your serious unrequited almost caused a riot!

  Unrequited? Well, not COMPLETELY unrequited….

  Good. That’s the kind of communication we need if you don’t want to be mobbed by the entire cast of Stranger Things.

  Aw, man! I MISSED THAT? It was one of Bartholomew’s favorite shows.

  Priorities, Barty. Now sac up and have a relationship, okay?

  Fine. See you at five.

  Seven. Make him buy you dinner, at the very least.

  Whatever. He took a deep breath. Thanks, Jordan.

  Don’t thank me—you’re conveniently forgetting part of this is my fault.

  We all told a lie, Jordan. I’m the only one who fed it to a crowd at a con.

  Hang tough, Barty. See you later.

  Later.

  Bartholomew sighed and pocketed his phone, looking around. Lachlan had effectively steered them down J Street, away from the convention center and toward the freeway, funnily enough taking the freeway onramp that would lead them to H50, the same one Bartholomew would have needed.

  “Where are we going?” Bartholomew asked.

  “My house, out in Jackson,” Lachlan said, like of course they were going there.

  “That’s a ways from my place,” Bartholomew said glumly. “That sucks.”

  “It’s an hour, Tolly. Not days.”

  Bartholomew nodded, depressed. “I know. Sorry. Just… daydreaming.” Planning. Hoping. Imagining sleepovers. Moving in. Still visiting friends. Where the wedding’s going to be?

  “It’s my grandparents’ place,” Lachlan told him. “They passed on, and Dad asked if I could stay there. Grandpa’s workshop is sort of amazing, and I was so over teaching. It worked.”

  “You were a teacher?” Bartholomew asked, awestruck.

  “Yeah, for about ten minutes. The kids were g
reat. The adults were… not so great. I managed to piss my administrator off three times in a month. Let’s just say I was not asked back next year.”

  “What did you do?” Bartholomew asked.

  “Well, for one thing, I fed them. They were high school kids, right? All hollow legs and hormones? So I brought granola bars.”

  “And that was… bad?” Bartholomew couldn’t imagine this.

  “It was,” Lachlan nodded, obviously as flummoxed as Bartholomew. “And I let them wear what they wanted.”

  Bartholomew squeezed his eyes shut. “Like… like what?”

  “Well, girls, right? I’ve got a sister. I know what’s in stores. Certain times of year, it’s all spaghetti straps. Their bra straps show. I don’t care—they’re kids. Their boobs don’t turn me on, and they don’t particularly bother me, and they’re, you know. Like Wonder Woman today. Those were her boobs she was waving in the guy’s face. We just asked for a distraction. I thought she was going to ask him for directions or something. But all the old guys in my department were outraged that I didn’t care. Why wasn’t I sending kids to the office for dress code infractions? I told them it was—and this was God’s honest truth—that I didn’t notice. Because, you know, they were kids. I didn’t care that their bra straps were showing. The boys in my class didn’t care. The girls didn’t care. Why would I disrupt my entire class to send a girl to the office for something that nobody cares about? But apparently, that’s bad. So, you know. That was the second time.”

  “Oh my God,” Bartholomew said dryly. “You’re such a rebel.”

  “Yeah. Granola bars and dress code violations. But that’s not the worst thing.”

  “I’m on the edge of my seat,” Bartholomew said, and he realized that something had broken in the last couple of hours. He wasn’t all big-eyes and heart-on-his-sleeve. Lachlan wasn’t performing for him, Lachlan was talking to him, and Bartholomew was talking back, like he would with any of his coven.

  “I read to them,” Lachlan said, and his tone had gone from irritated to hurt and aggrieved. “I was hitting all their marks, their test scores were great, but I didn’t just throw the assignment at them and quiz them afterwards. I read to them, and talked to them about the assignment. It was so frustrating. They were, like, ‘Hey, we get this! We used to hate reading!’ and I apparently was skipping an extra layer of quizzing because that was bad.”

  “That’s a shame,” Bartholomew said. “I would have loved a teacher like you.”

  “That’s nice,” Lachlan said softly. “I probably would have gone back into the classroom too, but nobody was hiring. So a couple of trees got blown down by a storm, and Dad and I cleared them out, and I picked up this one branch, and it was… well, beautiful. I thought, ‘Hey, strip the bark, sand this, stain it, a cut here, a prop there…’ And suddenly I’d made this lamp. And I gave it to my parents for Christmas and kept making stuff. Eventually everyone in my family had something, and it was filling up the storage shed, and my sister was, like, ‘Honey, you need to sell this. I bet you could make rent.’ And then we both laughed, because I wasn’t even paying rent, right? But I was living off my parents, and eventually I didn’t have to anymore.” Lachlan took a deep breath. “I do miss teaching, but I think if I went back, it would be, like, a woodshop teacher, or even once a week or so at adult school. I… I feel like this is a gift too.”

  Bartholomew made a little sound in his throat, and Lachlan took the Sunrise Boulevard exit and started heading toward Latrobe.

  “What?” Lachlan asked, glancing at him as they stopped at a light. “What was that sound?”

  “Nothing,” Bartholomew said, his chest full.

  “No, seriously, I’m not going to bite. What are you thinking?”

  “Just….” Oh, how to find words. “You’re very real, that’s all,” he said in a small voice. “I… you’re so good with a crowd. But… but your heart, in person, is just that good. That’s all.”

  Lachlan made his own strangled sound.

  “What?” Bartholomew asked, almost afraid of the answer. “What was that sound?”

  “Frustration!” Lachlan bit out. “Why couldn’t you have said something to me like that… I don’t know. A year and a half ago! I was getting ready to give up on you, Bartholomew. You weren’t giving me anything to work with!”

  “Do you think talking to people is easy for me?” Bartholomew retorted.

  “You seem to do pretty good with your friends!”

  “That took years.” On the one hand, Bartholomew wanted to sink through the floorboards of the truck and be a left-behind grease spot on Sunrise Boulevard, but on the other, part of him felt liberated. Things he hadn’t been able to articulate when they’d been on the vending floor were suddenly flooding past the lock on his throat.

  “Jordan and I were roommates in college, and I was… I was so afraid of him. Have you seen him? He’s gorgeous, and he’s magnetic—he used to take us on nature walks during school when we were all broke and had nothing to do. Other dorms? They’d be out gathering pennies to score pot, but not us. We were looking at praying mantises, and we were digging it. Jordan had us taking the train down to Monterey to see the aquarium and… and just super-cool shit involving science, and then he found out I liked fantasy, and he dragged us all—all seven of us, mind you—to a Renaissance Faire. And then he found out Alex had a thing for comic books, and we were all asking our parents for Comic-Con tickets for Christmas. And we all graduated, and he gets his dad—who’s, like, Swedish man-god, and his dad’s husband, who is also insanely hot—to buy a neighborhood. I’ve got no other way to explain it. And there’s a witch’s cottage on the end. And boom! We’ve got another thing we can all do together, and… and we want to do it together. It’s like we all went to college and took whatever class intersected Jordan Bryne’s so we could be in a witch’s coven together. So when you see me talk to them, versus you seeing me talk to anybody else in the universe, it’s like… like a different Bartholomew Crosby Baker. A… a… a better Bartholomew, one who’s not afraid to talk to people and doesn’t mind having an opinion and is capable of… of running my own business and not being a sheep!”

  He paused for a moment, panting, and tried to remember if he had ever in his life said so many words all together when not prompted by a teacher.

  After a moment he paused and sent a look to Lachlan, who was still looking ahead to drive but whose eyebrows hadn’t dropped from full crank since Bartholomew’s impassioned speech.

  “Sorry,” Bartholomew said on automatic.

  “Oh my God—no! Don’t be sorry,” Lachlan said, seeming to snap out of a trance. “Jesus, don’t be sorry. That—that was impressive. I’ve been dying to hear you say something like that, even if it was just to go on a rant!”

  “I… I don’t go on rants,” Bartholomew said primly, and Lachlan snorted.

  “You should. That was one of the first things we did for improv class—go off on a rant about something that bothered us. It was hard at first, because even if you picked something you thought was innocuous, like nondairy creamer, there was always that chance that you’d get the one person in the room who would go, ‘Nondairy creamer saved my life and you’re a shitty person!’ But once you had an opinion, and learned how to express it without being shitty to someone else, it was like you had the keys to the universe right there, you know?”

  Bartholomew let out his own gentle snort, because obviously that was something he and the rest of his coven had to learn. “I’m getting the feeling,” he understated. “Why’d you take improv class?”

  “Because I was shy too,” Lachlan said, mouth twisting. “I wanted to teach because I loved history, but getting up in front of a crowd of people was not my best thing. So I took improv and theater and even did some standup comedy when it turned out I could make people laugh. Open mike night—nothing special. But I had to get used to it. Get used to… I don’t know. Projecting myself on a crowd. It’s a skill, you know. Like anything else
.”

  “Tell that to my dad,” Bartholomew said, and then he wanted to kick himself. Twenty-seven years old and it mattered what his dad thought?

  He stared out the window into the dusty autumn afternoon. Once you turned left on Latrobe, the landscape—scorched grasses and oak trees—changed just enough for there to be maple and mulberry trees. Things that turned color. The orange and brown against the heartbreak blue of an October sky always did something peaceful to his heart—he couldn’t explain it. He’d worn jeans and button-down shirts with hooded sweatshirts most of his life, but if he could have Ellen teach him to spin or knit, he’d want to knit himself sweaters with just orange and blue and wear nothing else.

  “A hardass?” Lachlan inquired delicately, and Bartholomew gave a grunt, eyes still on the passing scenery.

  “He… he would say things like ‘What happened at school, Barty?’ and I’d say, ‘The teacher told us…’ I don’t know. ‘Poems were hard to write.’ Whatever it is teachers tell you in the fourth grade. And then he’d say, ‘Teachers are full of shit. Fucking ivory tower liberals. We pay them too goddamned much.’ And I’d say, ‘But I like poems,’ and he’d say, ‘You’re nine. The fuck you know?’ And we’d do the same dance the next day. And it didn’t matter what you tried to say, it always boiled down to my opinion was bullshit. And he kept talking about me going to school to learn something, and I thought he’d be happy when I got a scholarship in computer science to a state school. Then he started complaining about bullshit classes, and it took me about two years to figure out that the bullshit classes were anything that didn’t teach me a specific job skill.”

  “So… English, history, biology, physics…,” Lachlan prompted, sounding horrified.

  “All bullshit,” Bartholomew said glumly, looking out into that vibrant world from a fishbowl, like always. “Everything I’ve ever loved about the world. Bullshit.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah.” Bartholomew took a deep breath and tried to focus on the here and now. “God, what time is it?”

  “Eleven thirty,” Lachlan said promptly, looking at the clock on the dashboard.