on his little piece of paper. It had seemed like such a practical wish, something he’d worked hard for, something he might have, maybe, earned.
Unlike Lachlan’s cheerful company and his—oh my God—warm, strong, rough hand tugging on Bartholomew’s own, which Bartholomew had no idea how to work for, and wasn’t sure why they’d been gifted to him now.
“Things tight?” Lachlan asked, dodging around a group of kids haggling over collector’s pins.
Bartholomew followed his lead and shrugged. “Invested a lot this year.” He remembered the way he’d ripped off his starched button-down the day before, and how he had to fight the temptation to chuck his work ID across the room and into another dimension. “I… I would really like to be able to make this business self-sustaining.”
Lachlan grunted. “I can see why, but have you ever thought, I don’t know, of running a bakery instead?”
“Do you know why small businesses go under?” Bartholomew asked earnestly. “Ack! Sorry!” Without meaning to, he’d almost photobombed two really hot guys in Starfighter cosplay, taking a picture with an adoring fangirl. Ugh! The convention floor was already crowded. “Overhead! Property taxes! Food permits! I’ve priced some of the properties in the area, and I just can’t make the numbers work.” He tried to keep his shoulders from slumping in dejection—as well as keep up with Lachlan. “I’m thinking about a bakery truck, like a food truck, because those seem to be doing so well. But I need to pay off the equipment we put into the house first, and the van.”
“I get it,” Lachlan said, slowing down as the unmistakable scent of bayberry and vanilla washed over them. “I mean, I’m lucky, my grandfather kept all his tools and I get to use his garage as a shop. But there are ways—business loans, friends….” He winked at Bartholomew, and Bartholomew’s chest went hot.
And his mouth, as always, opened and shut on its own, with no sounds coming out.
Lachlan sighed. “What would it hurt?” he said gruffly. The vendor floor was filling up, and Lachlan had moved closer as they’d walked. Now he was close enough to let go of Bartholomew’s hand and touch his opposite hip while he murmured in Bartholomew’s ear. “Seriously, what would be the harm in asking for help?”
Bartholomew turned to look him in the eyes and calmly explain that help wasn’t something you asked for, help was something you gave to other people, but Lachlan was unexpectedly close.
Damn, those gold flecks in his eyes were pretty.
They were so close he could smell the cedar and lemon oil on Lachlan’s skin and feel the faint puffs of minty breath against his cheek.
Bartholomew stopped walking, and Lachlan did too. Lachlan’s lips canted up at the corners, and Bartholomew wanted so badly to trace that little smirk that he licked his own lips in sympathy.
“So?” Lachlan goaded.
“Asking for help means you didn’t do it right the first time,” Bartholomew parroted, hating hearing his father’s words coming out of his mouth. He’d managed to put a lot of that behind him in the last few years since college. Jordan, pulling him into the coven, had helped. They all did their parts. They all pitched in together.
But Bartholomew had been the one to offer to sell everybody else’s wares, and Bartholomew was the one in charge of the business itself, right down to working with Alex to file the taxes.
Bartholomew didn’t mind being in the background as long as he was self-sufficient, and as long as he was sure—absolutely sure—he pulled his own weight.
His father was still doubtful. Bartholomew’s every visit, he asked rather contemptuously if Bartholomew’s “little hobby” had paid off any bills yet, but Bartholomew hadn’t let that stop him.
All of that noise about “pulling your weight” and “doing something real” in the world, and it seemed like feeding people was as real as it got. So much more real than figuring out which lines of corrupt code he should leave in to see if tests on the software would detect it or not. To Bartholomew it was the world’s most obscure job.
God, he just wanted to feed people. Was that so damned bad?
But Lachlan wasn’t buying it—any more than Bartholomew should have.
“Tolly,” he said, his voice intimate in a way Bartholomew had never heard before. “You of all people should know better. Look at all your friends, gathering here to help you when obviously you guys had sort of a night. That doesn’t happen for quid pro quo. That happens because they