be lucky if he walked away with his stock intact, much less sold any today.
“I… oh shit.”
They could see Bartholomew—there was a gap in the side of Lachlan’s display, one he’d planned, all the better to talk to the cute guy next door, right? But that damned crowd of people throwing money at Jordan, Alex, and Kate—who couldn’t see Bartholomew because they were busy selling baked goods, mostly out of self-defense—was like a powder keg. One glimpse of Lachlan’s timid baker, and they’d go boom!
“Oh, he needs help,” Lachlan said. “And how is he going to light those candles with all of that commotion? We’ve all got polyester drapery all over the place—that’s a fire hazard!” Not to mention Lachlan’s entire booth was essentially kindling.
“You help him,” Josh said. “I’ll go help the others. Don’t worry about the candles. Jordan can do that.”
Lachlan wanted very badly to ask how, but the din of the crowd was getting louder. He appreciated that Josh had just been waiting for Lachlan’s clearance to abandon his booth. But Lachlan had a thriving online business, and what he didn’t make here at the convention, he’d make up in orders over the week. He could afford to invest a little time in Bartholomew and his very interesting problem.
After dropping to his hands and knees, he crawled between the two booths and caught up with Bartholomew as he taped three strands of Ellen’s best fingering-weight yarn in the corner nearest Lachlan’s setup.
“Put me in, coach,” he said into Bartholomew’s ear. “What do you want me to do?”
Bartholomew opened his mouth—probably to say, “I’m fine. It’s all good. I’m fine”—but then a particularly shrill voice screamed, “If I don’t get a cookie I’ll die!”
He snapped his mouth shut and handed Lachlan the box of candles. “I’m going to make a seven-pointed star,” he said. “You can see three of the points already. Starting with the point closest to Jordan and going down the left side and up the right side of the box, place a candle at every point, and the last two in the middle.”
“Got it,” Lachlan said, shifting his weight so he’d be out of Kate’s way as she dove for a fluttering twenty. “But Tolly, we can’t possibly light the candles here. All our stock will go up in smoke.”
Bartholomew swallowed. “Jordan can take care of it,” he said confidently. “We just have to set up the spell. Now hurry!”
Together they scrambled, dodging feet and getting reassuring taps on the head from Kate, Alex, Josh, and Jordan. At the end, Bartholomew was crawling toward the middle of the booth, and a collective moan went up from the mob.
“Wow,” someone whispered. “Look at him. Isn’t he beautiful?”
Bartholomew gave a slow horror-movie pan over his shoulder, and the speaker took an audible gulp of air. “Oh my God! I need him to love me!”
And the noise at the booth cranked up to eleven.
“Is that star done?” Jordan shouted.
“Yes!” Lachlan stood and gave Bartholomew a hand up, blocking him from the crowd’s view with his back. “The candles are in place, but I don’t know about lighting them—”
Somebody screamed, and cries of “She’s fainted!” and “Oh God, my brother did too!” went up from the crowd.
“I’ll light the candles and cast the spell,” Jordan said, and then he looked at Bartholomew and back out to the crowd. “Barty, I need you to get the fuck out of here.”
“But the booth—”
“But the crowd!” Lachlan rode over him. The booth would be fine in the hands of his friends. This crowd was going to tear Bartholomew apart.
“Once you leave, the crowd will follow,” Jordan told them. “You just need to keep ahead of them while I try to undo whatever’s going on with your goods!”
Bartholomew got an intensely uncomfortable look on his face, and he leaned in and whispered something into Jordan’s ear.
Jordan’s eyes went really frickin’ wide. “Seriously?” he asked, giving Lachlan a beleaguered look. “Seriously?”
“Well, I didn’t expect this!” Bartholomew wailed, and the crowd behind them picked up on that note in his voice and repeated it, amplified it, until it started to shake the earth under Lachlan’s feet.
“Barty, you’re going to have to suck it up,” Jordan snapped, and then he looked guilty. “Look, we all are, okay? This is everybody’s fault. But you’re the one who’s in the best position to fix shit. So I want you guys to duck around the back and make your way to the door—then call out and run like hell.