Autumn Feast - Charlie Richards Page 0,18

the smoke was coming from.

He couldn’t see anything when he stepped into the room. Thick smoke filled the space, and several people were coughing and swearing.

“Open the damn window!” Graham yelled.

“That’s what I was trying to do!” Griffith yelled back. “I can’t find the window!”

Beck put a hand on the wall and used it to guide himself to the window. He wasn’t sure how much good that would do, but it wasn’t like they could do anything else right now.

He felt like he was about to cough his lungs out by the time he was back in the hallway. Armand looked like he wanted to strangle him, no doubt because he’d scared him, but Beck turned his attention to Graham and Griffith. “What happened?” he asked.

Graham’s face was red. “I don’t know. The cookies shouldn’t have burned. I hadn’t put them in the oven long enough for them to. It has to be the oven.” He raked a hand through his hair. “How am I supposed to get all the food ready without the oven?”

Armand whimpered. “It’s cursed.”

Beck had no idea what he was talking about. “What do you mean?”

“The party. It’s cursed. First, there was the flooding, now this.”

Beck groaned. What Armand was saying was bullshit, but he couldn’t deny it did feel like the party was cursed.

Chapter Three

Milo couldn’t look away from the disaster that was now the shelter’s kitchen. He had no idea what went wrong, and replacing the oven wouldn’t be a problem, but what about the party? And those poor cookies looked like they’d been baked directly in Satan’s oven.

“What now?” he asked Graham. Everyone else had smartly disappeared from the kitchen—Armand had left with two more cupcakes—but Milo knew they’d come back if they were needed, and they might be. He and Graham needed to decide what needed to be done first.

Graham rubbed his face, leaving traces of flour on his cheek. “I don’t know. We obviously can’t use the oven, so anything that still needs to be baked is out, and we still had a lot of that to do.”

Milo’s eyes burned, and it wasn’t because of the smoke still coming out of the oven. He’d volunteered to help because he wanted the kids who lived at the shelter to have a fun evening, to be able to forget all their problems for a few hours. They could still do that, but Graham had put a lot of work in the food, and half of it had gone down in flames. “What happened to the oven, anyway?” he asked, moving closer and leaning to see inside.

A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “What do you think you’re doing?” his mate asked. North was angry, but Milo knew it wasn’t at him.

“I was just looking.”

“That smoke is bad for you. What happened? I leave for half an hour, and you two try to burn down the kitchen?”

“We didn’t do anything!” Milo protested. “I don’t know what happened. The oven worked just fine until now.”

North looked at the cookies and cupcakes Milo and Graham had already baked, some already decorated. “That’s weird. Did the two of you leave the kitchen together?”

“We had to go grab some stuff from the car.”

“How long were you gone?”

Milo cocked his head. “Ten minutes, maybe? One of the bags broke, and we had to gather all the stuff that fell. What are you saying, North?”

North shook his head. “Nothing. What can I do to help?”

“Unless you have a tiny oven in your pocket...”

“I don’t, but I do have a phone, and I can call Dasha and ask him to shimmer the two of you back home so you can use the kitchen there. I don’t know why you didn’t do that right away.”

“Because I didn’t want to have to be shimmered back and forth,” Graham snapped. “This was easier, and we could continue to put food together even once the party started.”

Milo leaned against North. He needed comfort, even if it made him a wimp. He just wanted a moment to let the bad feelings wash over him. Then he’d be able to push them away and focus on a solution.

North wrapped his arm around Milo’s shoulders and kissed his forehead. “We’ll find a solution,” he murmured, and Milo believed him. They were stronger together, and now that Milo felt even slightly better, he could think instead of crying.

He straightened. “Okay, let’s do this. Graham, start packing the things we’re going to need. North, call Dasha. I know