“I still didn’t see nothin’ until we touched.”
Scout shrugged again. “I’ve got more magic,” he said. “We touched, and you had the affinity for the place, so my magic let me see it, and I had the extra magic, and that’s what let you see it too.”
Lucky regarded him through narrowed eyes. “So what you’re saying is that it was both of us.”
Scout grimaced. “Well, yeah. But you could have been down there with Kayleigh just having a convo. The magic conduit was necessary but not personal. This was personal to you, I think.”
Lucky snorted. “I could have lived my entire life without seeing that much misery,” he said. Then he let out his irritation on a sigh. “But, you know. Then we kissed and that was pretty good, so I guess everything’s a trade-off.”
Scout’s laughter caught him by surprise. For all that Scout was a slender man, this laugh—this laugh should have come from a daddy bear, someone with a bit of a beer belly and apple cheeks and a trucker’s cap on backward.
“What?” Lucky asked defensively. “What’d I say?”
Scout just shook his head and went back to fixing dinner, still chuckling to himself, and Lucky leaned against the counter that separated the kitchen area from the living room area and tried not to sulk. But when Scout had to circle around from the kitchen to get something on the far corner of the counter, he paused long enough to lean up against Lucky’s back.
“Don’t be mad,” he murmured in Lucky’s ear. “Maybe with a little more practice, the kissing will be better than pretty good.”
Lucky couldn’t help it. He smiled and turned his head, rubbing his lips against Scout’s happily.
“Couldn’t hurt.”
He felt Scout’s low chuckle against his mouth before the kiss started properly, and this time he had Scout’s warmth against his back. Everything faded into the background except Scout’s dreamy kisses and the feeling that he was safe and secure in this little kitchen and in the arms of the man who was cupping his jaw and getting ready to kiss deeper.
The sound of the door from the outside stairs opening pulled them apart, and Scout retrieved the item on the counter, a strainer, and was back behind the stove when Kayleigh strolled into the living room.
“Smells good!” she chirped. “Scout, you’re getting good at thi—oh.” Her voice cooled considerably. “Hi, Lucky.”
Lucky grimaced. Yeah, he wasn’t proud of himself for how he’d treated the two of them.
“Hi, Kayleigh,” he said. “Sorry I was a douche when we first met.”
Kayleigh, apparently, was not as easy as her brother. She put her hands on her hips and stared at him, her brown eyes trying to bore into his soul. “So why are you not being a douche now?” she demanded. “Or probably more accurately, why are you still being a douche now but pretending to like my brother, who’s a sweet summer child and too nice for this world.”
“Ou—” Scout began.
“I’m not pretending shit!” Lucky protested.
“—ch,” Scout finished, after making the word three, four syllables at least. “Kayleigh, I’m not that naïve.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sure you are. You’ve been hit on by eleventy-twelve guys hotter than this one in the last six weeks, and this is the guy I come home and find you kissing?”
“I have not!” Scout argued.
“I told you!” Lucky chortled. “Itoldyou that those resort guys were hitting on you, and you kept saying no they weren’t. My God, she’s got you pegged, don’t she!”
“They weren’thotterthan you,” Scout declared triumphantly, and Lucky and Kayleigh both rounded on him.
“Aha!”
“I mean,” Scout stammered, “that nobody hotter than you has tried to hit on me.”
“Oh God,” Kayleigh muttered. “Give it up, Scout.”
“I mean nobody on the island has hit on me,” Scout amended, looking baffled and miserable and dear.
“Sure they haven’t,” Lucky said, deciding he’d had enough. “We’ll believe you.” His eyes sought out Kayleigh’s to see if maybe they were on the same side now.
She scowled at him, so maybe not. “No, seriously,Sucky, I need a better explanation for why you were a total douchebag to us for a month and now you’re in here all primed to break my brother’s heart.”
