Shortbread and Shadows - Amy Lane Page 0,22
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