Portals and Puppy Dogs - Amy Lane Page 0,63
commission from a friend of a friend who turned out to be really vindictive. Wanted his business to succeed and his competitor to fail, spectacularly. We refused to perform a spell that had the level of… venom, I guess, that the guy wanted, so he threw some money at Jordan and took all our stuff and performed his own damned spell.”
“What happened?” Simon asked, fascinated.
“Well, the guy’s theater got… turkey bombed. The day after he performed the spell, he showed up and turkeys had congregated on the roof and crapped so much the roof caved in. And to make matters worse, the show he’d just opened the night before got panned in papers as far away as San Francisco and Portland. He had to move across country to open another playhouse, and his competitor has been giving Cully work ever since.”
Simon chuckled and trailed fingertips down Alex’s sharp-cheekboned face. “What about you? Did you ever cast spells for yourself?”
“No,” Alex said softly. “I had a job I liked, friends I loved. My parents are total sweethearts—they call me once a week and ask me if I’ve met a nice boy yet. The magic wasn’t to get me things. It was to give me something to do with the people I cared about.”
“Until Jordan asked you for a spell for your heart’s desire,” Simon said softly. “And you were so embarrassed to have one that you lied.”
“Maybe I should have asked for a pet,” Alex said, and Simon loved the way his eyes crinkled in the corners. “I love Glinda. I wouldn’t mind a dog of my own. Something a little bigger, maybe. Labs. I adore Labrador retrievers. Maybe I should cast a spell for one of those.”
Simon chuckled and rolled over, sliding between Alex’s thighs and covering his body with his own. “I’ll get you a dog,” he muttered roughly, wanting Alex all over again. “I want you to want me!”
“I do,” Alex said, growing surprisingly sober, cupping Simon’s neck with his palms. He raised himself up to take Simon’s mouth again, and Simon returned the kiss until Alex was boneless against the mattress.
“Good,” Simon told him breathlessly. “Because if I’m your heart’s desire, you won’t be able to shake me. I’ve never been anybody’s one thing before. It’s heady information. It could make me a very possessive boyfriend. You need to know that.”
Alex grinned, eyes hooded. “Bring it,” he rasped. “Possess away.”
And Simon did.
THEY showered again after round two, hurrying because Bartholomew had texted to say he and Lachlan were on their way home with takeout.
“Are you going to need to go home tonight?” Alex asked as they dressed hurriedly in his bedroom.
“I can stay until tomorrow,” Simon told him with a sigh. “Tomorrow afternoon I need to talk to my groundskeeping service—it’s eighty-nine acres, and we’re clearing all the underbrush away for winter. I’d love for you to see the place. It’s huge. I mean, we could probably stash your entire coven there for months before we all got on one another’s nerves.”
“Eighty-nine acres,” Alex mumbled, but Simon was already on a roll.
“God, Alex, we have to find a way to end this. For one thing, you and Bartholomew have, you know, commitments outside the cul-de-sac. I mean, you could both carpool, for heaven’s sake. Lachlan and I can see each other’s houses from our front yards!”
Alex pulled his hoodie over his head. “You can what?”
“We can see each other’s houses. It’s like he’s on the hill just over from mine. I’ve got, like, four hills. I’m on one, and he’s on the one I don’t have and… anyway. I can see him.”
“He has ten acres,” Alex said, his mind doing something Simon didn’t understand.
“Yeah, so?”
“So together that’s ninety-nine acres.”
“Yeah, so?”
“And you just described a valley inside a five-pointed star.”
“Yeah,” Simon reiterated. “So?”
“Why did you buy so much property?” Alex asked, and Simon frowned.
“I wish I knew. I let most of it grow wild, only clearing it to prevent a fire hazard in the summer and make way for new growth over winter. There’s a big clearing in the center for bonfires and such. I mean—” He shrugged self-deprecatingly. “—I was thinking of asking the groundskeeping guys to set us up to have one on Halloween. That would be pretty awesome, wouldn’t—”
“Oh my God,” Alex muttered.
“—it?” Simon finished, feeling a little lost. “Does this have anything to do with—”
“With a giant pentagram and a bonfire on one of a witch’s holiest days of the year and a spell