Shortbread and Shadows - Amy Lane Page 0,25

help us if a woman wears a bright dress more than twice a year. And it’s not just sexism—it’s everything. Like being at your desk two minutes earlier or later is going to make a difference in the kind of productivity you’ll have. I….” He sighed and rested his chin on his fists. “I’m not making any sense, and I don’t understand the rules.”

He straightened enough to take another bite of croissant. Lachlan knew from his own that it was sublime: buttery, flaky, with just the hint of vanilla and cinnamon. “But this? This is amazing. This is all that’s right with the world. I want to be a part of that.”

Lachlan took another bite of his croissant and smiled, chewing happily. “Gotta say, Tolly, when you turn food into poetry like that, it does make me want to eat.” And it did.

Bartholomew chuckled, the sound warming Lachlan’s belly. “Well, see, that at least is good, right?”

“Oh yeah, not complaining.” Lachlan finished the croissant, and his entire aura grew sober. “So. The coven. How does it work?”

Bartholomew fidgeted, which was something he did when he was about to talk a lot—Lachlan knew the tell now. “Well, there was this woman named Helen who lived in a teeny house with a ginormous garden at the end of our block. And one day—I was there for this—she just ran into our house, where Jordan, Alex, and I roomed, and said, ‘I need you boys to watch my stuff. Jordan, you’re in charge.’ She shoved her keys into his hand and turned around and took off on her little Ducati motorcycle, and that’s the last we’ve seen of her.”

Lachlan couldn’t help it—he laughed, long and loud. “So literally, a witch just ran up to you and gave you her kitchen.”

Bartholomew shrugged. “Well, yeah. She, uh, left us her nine cats.”

“Nine?” Lachlan asked, horrified.

“They, uh… they have a sandbox in the giant garden behind the cottage. It… it cleans itself.”

“You’re shitting me,” Lachlan said, the laughter falling away.

Bartholomew shook his head. “No. But… but see, we had to give Jordan up to the cottage or that spell wouldn’t work.”

“So you and…?” Lachlan asked, still not sure who got who in the home lottery. He knew there were two more guys—both of them as gay as the sun was warm—and he found he was a little… territorial, now that he knew this coven was the only circle Bartholomew let go with.

“Alex is my actual roommate,” Bartholomew told him. “We’re… suited. He’s very dry and understated and practical—gives me my space, you know?”

Lachlan wrinkled his nose. “Wow, what’s that like? You guys sitting in front of the TV and not talking?”

Bartholomew snorted. “No, we talk. We just don’t….” He waved his hands. “Drama. Cully and Dante—they drama. It’s exhausting.”

“Where were they today?”

Bartholomew frowned. “Well, they helped us get out the door—they needed umbrellas, to ward off the starlings—and there’s not really room in the van for everybody, so I guess they’re home. Lucky them.”

Lachlan couldn’t suppress the smile that wanted to escape. “Hey, don’t sell yourself short. That sprint through the vendor floor was epic!”

Oh, those little smiles were going to kill him. They were going to rip open his chest and leave his naked beating heart for the world to see.

“Yeah.” Bartholomew nodded, like he was really proud of himself but didn’t want anybody to know. “It sort of was.”

Lachlan chuckled and took a sip of his coffee, liking the way the sun turned Bartholomew’s sandy-brown hair gold at the ends as it streamed through the window.

“So, how does the magic thing work?” he asked, curious in the extreme. Watching Bartholomew sing the lock open or Jedi mind-trick the girls in the bathroom had seemed so… so ordinary. Tiny moments that had let them escape the general mayhem. But he had no idea how Bartholomew had just… just said a spell to make it happen.

Bartholomew chewed on his lower lip and ripped open three sugar packets at the same time, then poured the contents onto the table before drawing in them.

“It’s a matter of elements,” he said, divvying up part of the sugar and pushing it to one side. “And intention,” he said, separating out another third of the sugar and shaping it to the bottom. “And direction.” And with a few more swipes of his fingers, he had a little pie chart made of sugar. Then he took his index finger and placed it in the middle, swirling out there. “Which sounds really easy—lavender