and then we can go back and start baking.” He nuzzled Bartholomew’s temple. “I can put some extra stock in the truck so I’m good to go tomorrow too.”
“Lachlan?” Jordan said over the phone. “Is that you?”
“Yeah. That’s me. We’ll be there when you get home tonight. Thanks for minding my store, by the way. That was really awesome of you.”
“Well, we appreciate your help this morning,” Jordan said, but it sounded like he was choosing his words carefully. “We do hope you’re being careful of Bartholomew, though. You’re all good, right, Barty?”
Bartholomew gave Lachlan an embarrassed look. “Yeah. We’re great! I mean… you know, great! Lachlan’s been… wonderful! Like, uh—”
“Great,” Jordan filled in for him, voice arid. “We get it. Barty, see you soon. Lachlan, take care of our boy.”
“’Course,” Lachlan said, not letting Jordan’s protectiveness ruffle him. He was starting to get that the cul-de-sac coven was a big deal to everybody involved. Jordan wasn’t just going to take Lachlan’s word for it that he was good enough for Tolly—he was going to need to see proof.
That was fine. Lachlan’s proof was in how his Tolly looked at him. It was in how they touched.
“Well, good. I’ll see you two at home,” Jordan said. “Bartholomew, you and me need to talk, right?”
“Yeah, Jordan. That’s fine. See you at home.”
Bartholomew hung up the phone and sagged back against the pillows. Lachlan dragged the quilts back up over both of them, and together they huddled against the slight chill in the air.
“We should get up,” Bartholomew said, but Lachlan saw the yawn escape, and he kissed Bartholomew’s cheek.
“Set your phone for an hour. We’ll leave when it goes off.”
“But what about—” He yawned. “My underwear! It’s really gross!”
Lachlan chuckled. “I’ve got a few pairs here from when I was a size down. No worries. Worst-case scenario, you can wear a pair of my sweats and change when you get back home.”
Bartholomew’s eyes tried to open completely, but they only made it to about half-mast. “That’ll look obscene!” he protested.
“Yeah, but Tolly, nobody will know but me! It’ll be sort of sexy!”
Bartholomew’s sleepy chuckle managed to sound absolutely filthy. “Stay?” he asked. “Until I’m asleep?”
“Yeah. ’Course. If you want, I can bring a change of clothes over tonight and I can sleep at your place.”
Bartholomew gave that smile—that sweet, guileless, happy look that said in spite of everything his parents had tried to teach him, he still believed in joy.
“Do you want to?” he asked.
Lachlan kissed him, accepting his openmouthed invitation to press him flat against the mattress. He managed to pull back only because Tolly’s response was getting more and more languid. “What do you think?” he asked wickedly.
“That’s a yes,” Bartholomew said sleepily, and his eyes fluttered closed. He rolled over on his side, and Lachlan cuddled up to his back for a few minutes before slipping out of bed and grabbing his clothes and walking naked to the laundry room. A quick rinse in the washer, forty-five minutes in the drier, and Tolly could go home without worry.
It was a small thing, Lachlan knew, but then, he was also starting to know Bartholomew. Something small like this could mean the world.
Looking Glass Spells
BARTHOLOMEW frowned as Lachlan rounded the last corner to the cul-de-sac. Something was wrong.
“Your street doesn’t have a name?” Lachlan asked, surprised.
“Well, technically, it’s Sebastian Circle,” Bartholomew muttered. “That’s where all our mail comes to anyway. Every time they put a street sign up, it sort of… doesn’t stay.”
“Doesn’t stay.”
Bartholomew shrugged. “Like, it’s gone the next day—even the place where the city people dug. We tried about six times to get them to replace it, and they finally gave up. I think it has something to do with Jordan.”
“He doesn’t like the street sign?” Lachlan sounded puzzled, and well he might, but Bartholomew was preoccupied with other things. Like the fact that their once happy, shiny little cul-de-sac looked somehow… darker. Like the light from the late afternoon sun was passed through a dark purple filter, or like someone filming a horror movie had come in and repainted all their trim and twisted the Japanese plum and apple trees in the front into something forbidding that ate small children.
“He loves it,” Bartholomew said absently. “Sebastian is his father’s husband—Jordan’s stepdad—and he’s really super awesome. I got the feeling Jordan always thought plain green with white writing was a little pedestrian for Sebastian Circle. Like it should be written in neon.”
“Or ghosts trying to atone for small