One of them groaned, and Scout couldn’t tell if it came from his own throat or Lucky’s, but then Lucky palmed the naked skin of Scout’s back and Scout shivered, viscerally aroused and startled at the same time.
Lucky pulled back anxiously. “I didn’t… did I scare you?”
Scout’s entire body felt flushed. “I… I don’t have a shirt on,” he said gruffly. “I’m… uhm, kissing you without a shirt.” Part of him wanted to benakedalready and was thrilled at the head start, but a part of himreallywanted his shirt back.
Lucky smiled shyly and picked the shirt up off the bed where he’d dropped it. Scout took it from him and pulled it over his head, giggling—giggling—when Lucky stroked his stomach.
“Not fair,” he said, reaching for his sweatshirt. It got cold in the apartment near evening, and Marcus had already warned them that they’d be depending on a space heater in the winter to keep their toes from freezing. Also, because part of the apartment was half dug into the cliff that overlooked the ocean, it could flood during hurricane season, which explained why the floors were mostly nonskid tile. He pulled the sweatshirt over his head, and when he could see again, Lucky hadn’t moved back much. He was looking out from under his lashes, and it only took Scout a minute to know what he wanted.
Gently, sensing that Lucky was still skittish and that the kiss had meant something to both of them, he lowered his head and took Lucky’s mouth again, once, twice, a third time. He pulled away and bumped his nose along the side of Lucky’s jaw.
“Now we’ve both been kissed,” he said softly. “Maybe we’ll both be kissed again.”
Lucky’s smile told him it was the right thing to say.
“Maybe,” Lucky said, his shoulders twitching with that cockiness that had probably been dying to come out since he was born. “Depends on what you feed me for dinner.”
Scout laughed, pleased. Had he known this was the Lucky behind the surly façade? It felt like he should have. It felt like he should have known this was the Lucky that had been waiting for him all along.
When The Trap is Sprung
LUCKY WATCHEDScout—Scotland, and he could understand why Scout hated that name—move around the kitchen, talking easily about any subject Lucky asked about.
And Lucky was torn between wondering why he hadn’t trusted Scout sooner and wondering if he was crazy for trusting him now.
Part of him really wanted to ask about that thing they’d seen on the beach, the “soul trap,” but part of him had parked that big ugly killer-clown van in the back of his mind and was concentrating on watching Scout’s fluid, dance-like movements as he chopped vegetables, rolled pasta for noodles, and prepared broth.
He claimed to be new to cooking, but Lucky was pulled forcibly back to coming home from high school and watching his Auntie Cree in the kitchen. Auntie Cree had been old school—men didn’t cook in her house—but Lucky had liked watching her. There was a sense that this was a performance, like a ballet, and that the final show was the meal. Lucky had grown up eating ramen noodles from the grocery store, because Auntie Cree couldn’t cookallthe time, and whatever Scout was making now, it wasn’t the ramen from the store.
And as interesting as watching Scout move was hearing him talk. He talked like he was surprised that somebody was listening but he’d been wanting an audience for his entire life. Lucky, who’d spenthisentire life hoping nobody heard him say fuckin’ boo, became caught up in his stories of the place he’d grown up. It was almost like a Disney movie, but not perfect. Lucky could hear the deep thread of loneliness in the stories of Scout and Kayleigh meeting by their favorite tree so they could read a book in some fuckin’ peace and dream of a life of their choosing.
Lucky could relate. He’d been having that dream his entire life. Until he’d shown up in Spinner’s Drift, he’d thought it was just that: a dream. But he’d shown up in July, and these last months working for Helen, seeing her warm smile when he woke up, not worrying about what the wrong person would see if they caught him on the bus or—worse—if this was the day Scaggs decided that money on the ponies wasn’t worth letting Lucky sleep in the room he’d had since he was a kid.
All of it had given Lucky a feeling of freedom, of power, and a sort of half-hidden joy.
He liked it here. He knew it would get chilly after hurricane season, but right now, in the beginning of fall, it was crisp and breezy but not cold. Certainly not the soul-sapping cold that Philadelphia could muster. February in Philly could suck the life out of a fire-monkey, if there were such a thing.
He’d seen summer here, and it was hot and sultry, but it was an island, with lots of wind, and the beaches had white sand and long slopes. The only place he’d ever really gone swimming before coming to Spinner’s Drift had been the public swimming pool, but Spinner’s Cove, on the other side of the big island, was like what people imagined when they thought of coming to a resort to catch some sun. He’d bought a pair of water goggles from the Sand and Surf and had spent his time off from Helen’s learning to swim out past the breakers. He couldn’t spendtoolong there, though, because his Irish-pale skinwouldburn in spite of all the sunblock in the world, so he had sweet memories of the late afternoon shadows stealing over Helen’s store while he flipped through old magic texts, wondering if anything in them was as real as the coin in his pocket. If the old magic texts failed him, there were wide worlds of adventure or mystery stories, and he’d allowed the sound of the wind and the seagulls and even the laughter and excited voices of the tourists to seep into his bones and wash away some of the fear that had lived there for maybe most of his life.
Something about how he felt must have come out in his words, because Scout paused after he’d assembled all his ingredients and set the water to boil.
“You should stay here,” he said quietly, leaning back against the counter and wiping his hands off on a towel. “No matter what happens, you should stay here. I think the island likes you.”
For a moment, Lucky took that at face value. He knewhecertainly liked it here, but then it occurred to him. “Why? Why do you think it likes me?”
Scout raised his eyebrows. “Well, because it showed you the soul trap this afternoon.”
Lucky scowled in return. “I’ve been there a thousand times. Why wouldn’t the island show me that until now?”
Scout tilted his head to the side, a faint smile on his face. “You really love that spot,” he said softly.
“Well Idid,” Lucky said passionately, not quite able to contain his betrayal. “I didn’t realize it was… all full of pain and grief and shit!”
“But youknowpain and grief and shit,” Scout said, giving Lucky a glance of compassion. “You know how to move beyond it. That’s… important, I think. I think that’s going to help us.”
“But I had no idea all that was going on until youtouchedme!” Scout retorted. “It’s like we spit on our hands and smacked them together andboom! I can see ghosts!”
Scout gave an apologetic shrug. “That was me, I’m afraid. I think you’ve got… well, like a magic tool. Your coin—or your ability to use the coin—gives you barely enough magic to get a peek into the world. It gives you some influence. You can’t make a table float, but maybe that’s lack of training. For all we know, if you’d been learning cantrips and spells as a child, you’d be a full-fledged mage. Or even a powerful hedge witch. Or maybe just a guy with a coin, which is pretty powerful itself.”
