Scout nodded. “That’s okay. It’s a small island, right? And Marcus and Helen are—” He smirked. “—friends.”
Lucky let out a sound worthy of a twelve-year-old boy. “Sure. That’s what they are. Friends.”
Scout shrugged. “Hey, I’m so used to seeing men and women despise each other while they pop out babies like bunnies, I think it’s sweet. It doesn’t have to look like an R.L. Merrill novel or a Parker Williams book to be a romance.”
Lucky scowled at him. “Who in the hell are they?”
“Romance writers,” Scout said with a faint smile. “Hey, don’t laugh. They got me through some tough times. What I’m saying is that Helen and Marcus can get it on all they want as long as they make each other happy. That doesn’t happen often.”
“Not for guys like me anyway.” He wanted to say “guys like us,” but he didn’t know for sure. He had to look up those romance writers, maybe, to see.
“You’d be surprised.” Scout yawned and stretched and stood. “But that’s another story. I’m sorry, and I’m grateful. I’m glad we had this chance to talk, but Kayleigh just worked a full shift, and if she’s still helping Marcus, I need to take over. And if she’s not, I need to cook dinner, because it’s my turn.”
Lucky got it, but he was reluctant to let this moment go. He stood too and floundered for a moment for something to say. Talking like this—honestly, intimately—had been… God, such a relief. He felt like he had to say something, anything, to let Scout know he’d like to do this again.
“I… uhm. Thank you. For being really human. Talking to me like a person when I was a dick. It means a lot.”
Scout’s eyes sharpened on his face, and Lucky wished he had something better to offer. His build was best typified as Irish bull—broad shoulders and chest, square face, dirty blond hair and muddy green eyes. Nothing special. Back in Philly, nobody wondered that girls hadn’t hit on him, because he was that plain. But now, under the gaze of this beautiful man with the very pretty eyes, he remembered that other secret, the one besides the coin, that he’d been keeping since he was twelve years old, and his face heated.
When Scout spoke next, what he said was a complete surprise. “What’s your real name?” he asked. “I mean, Lucky’s a nickname, right?”
Lucky grimaced. “Justin. But nobody calls me that. Ever. What’s yours?” Because who named their kid Scout?
“Scotland.” Scout shuddered. “It’s hideous. Please keep it to yourself.”
Lucky grinned, liking this very much.Thiswas the way to end a conversation. He spat into his palm and held out his hand. “Deal,” he said, half expecting Scout to recoil and get all squeamish about a time-honored way of sealing a deal in his neighborhood.
Instead, Scout lit up, like Lucky had given him the best present, and spat in his palm like a pro before shaking Lucky’s hand.
Their palms touched then, and shit gotreallyinteresting, really fast.
Souls in Waiting
THE ARCof blue light that surrounded them took Scout’s breath away, and he barely remembered his training. But twenty years of constant drills about protecting yourself against hostile power didn’t go away, much like the foot and leg strength to do a lift like he’d just done to show off didn’t go away either.
He kept his hold on Lucky’s hand, scowling into the other man’s eyes and nodding shortly. Lucky nodded back and squeezed, and Scout waved his free hand in a seemingly lazy circle around them—a circle of protection, but not a blind one. He and Lucky could see out, but enemies couldn’t seein.Once the shield was in place, he looked very carefully about, thinking that he’d felt something when he’d set foot in the little clearing, and he was pretty sure that was the boundary of this… neverland that he and Lucky found themselves in.
What he saw made him gasp.
Beyond the clearing, the light made sense. The gold-saturated blue of the bay was giving way to silver in the long shadows of late afternoon in October.
Butinthe clearing, the light was electric blue and a sort of sickly green, and nothing in the area surrounding their stone bench was as it had seemed.
An industrious washerwoman labored over the cut marble of the bench, taking off the scales of moss or sand that accrued over time and taking a small stylus to the inscription, making sure the appeal to Tom continued unblemished through… how many years?
Young lovers, a boy and a girl, huddled in the southeast corner of the clearing, sobbing, hiding from blows that obviously landed, although Scout could never see the source.
A little girl clenched her arms around her knees and sobbed, rocking back and forth on the bench itself, and as Scout watched, the washerwoman passedthroughthe child to continue her labor on the bench.
And in front of the bench, a young man, face peaked and gaunt and tearstained, stood staring yearningly out into the ocean, as though willing somebody over the waves to return.
Clearly through the crackle of otherworld, Scout heard the words,Come back to me, Tommy. Beloved, beloved, come back to me, Tommy my boy.
Holding the shield while keeping himself and Lucky solidly in the otherworld was stretching the limits of Scout’s power. He growled to himself and gave Lucky’s hand another squeeze, before releasing his grip and peeling back his shield, almost simultaneously.
With a sizzle, a bolt of electricity sent them both reeling back onto their asses as the sky around the clearing assumed the gold-saturated blue that meant they were solidly back in reality now.
They both scrambled to their feet, chests heaving, and Lucky spoke first. “The actual fuck? What in the actual—”
