Portals and Puppy Dogs - Amy Lane Page 0,58

it. If this was my company, my outfit, I’d be telling you all to go home—but you can’t, can you? This is your home, and it’s scary, and you’re trying to control it, and nobody is thinking straight. So show me the worst part—the scariest part—and let’s see if I can do what bosses do. Come up with a plan that you all can implement. How does that sound?”

Alex gave him a watery smile. “So good,” he confessed. He closed his eyes and steadied himself. “Are you ready?”

Simon nodded, that innate leadership making him practically glow.

“Absolutely. Let’s get our shoes on and see what’s going down.”

ALEX watched as a dress fit for a seventeenth-century Russian monarch came sailing through the back wall of the spacious, colorfully appointed living room and fell into a puddle on the couch.

“Dante! What do you think of that one!”

Simon startled, but Alex just shook his head. “Wait,” he mouthed.

A tall man with curly black hair came striding through the same wall.

“Looks great, Cul, but maybe fewer rhinestones? You don’t have that much of a budget!”

Dante flickered out of existence, and a piquant, pixyish little face thrust through that same wall. “I had a bunch in my stores. Don’t worry. I just wanted to make it right.”

Cully pulled back through the wall and disappeared. Dante came and picked up the dress and looked it over with admiration.

“Well, you did. You always do.” He looked up and caught Alex’s eye. “Hey, how’s Glinda?”

The little dog barked and ran into his hands. He scooped her up and let her lick his olive-skinned, lantern-jawed face, smiling at the sweet creature with indulgence.

“How’d she do on her walk today? I appreciate your taking her. I had to take a call from the magazine—a new article they want me to do.” His face fell. “Politics. Whatever.”

“She was great,” Alex said weakly. “You know, pooped and everything. Like she does. Uhm, Dante, you’re wearing your necklace.”

Dante glanced up and smiled, fingers going automatically to the necklace at his throat. “Well, yeah. I mean, none of us take them off, right? Seven years?”

“Sure.” Alex looked at Simon, unhappy with the lie, but Lord knows what the truth would do.

“So,” Dante said, grinning and still petting an obviously ecstatic Glinda. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is, uhm, my boss. Simon. He’s, uh….”

A snort—an obvious snort—came from Cully’s room. “Boss, my ass!” he proclaimed. “Dante, tell him he’s full of shit and they’re obviously sleeping together and good for them!”

“They can hear you!” Dante called back.

“Good! Tell them to have Barty make his friend a necklace so they can be bound together too.”

“I’ll do that,” Simon said with a sidelong look at Alex. “Thank you. It was so nice to meet you, but now I think we’d better—”

And Dante flickered out of existence again, and the whirr of the sewing machine in the other room got louder and louder and louder until Simon and Alex, Glinda at their heels, ran out of the haunted living room and into the weirding of Sebastian Circle in the late-morning October chill.

“Damn,” Simon said weakly as Alex grabbed Glinda and started walking—over squirrels, around snakes hanging from trees, keeping a wary eye on the sky for birds—to his own house next door.

“Yeah,” Alex sighed, darting through the front door and then slamming it behind them. They both sort of collapsed against it, breathing hard.

Simon turned to Alex then and unexpectedly cupped his cheek. “Oh, baby,” he said, rubbing Alex’s cheekbone with his thumb. “You’ve been living with that since, when? Early October? So two weeks or so?”

Alex nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s….” He took a deep breath. “Barty’s been trying to have a relationship and trying to take care of all of us, and God knows how Jordan’s been doing. We work not to let him spend too many nights alone in that cottage, and—”

“And you’ve all been going to work like nothing’s happened. Oh, sweetheart. That’s really brave of you all, but it’s so misguided!”

Alex fought the prickle of tears. “We keep looking up spells and trying to figure out what went wrong and how we fucked up and how to make it right—”

“Shh….” Simon reached for him, and Alex, who never asked anybody for help because he always had his shit covered, went. He didn’t cry or break down; he just leaned his head on Simon’s shoulder and breathed.

It was lovely.

“What do you mean, make it right?” Simon asked.

“We lied,” Alex said. “I told you that, I think.”

“Yes you