Lightning sucked in a breath of absolute surprise.
And belief.
“That’s… that’s terrifying,” he said, looking from Lucky to Scout and back again. “What do you think happened?”
“It’s a long story,” Scout said, his hand clenched on Lucky’s knee in an unconscious reaction to fear. Lucky put his hand over Scout’s and squeezed, unsure how he’d gotten so comfortable being Scout’s wooby so quickly. He decided he didn’t hate it. Scout had this perfectly nice Lightning guy willing to hit on him—or mother him—and the person he’d looked to had been Lucky.
And Lucky didn’t want it to be anybody else. In fact, he might rip anybody else’s throat out, which was why he was glad Lightning hadn’t been a total douchebag.
“And we don’t have that much time,” Lucky said, reminding him. “You go on in half an hour, and I’ve got to get back.”
Scout sighed. “Will you be off when I’m done?” he asked hopefully, and Scout hated to dash that hope.
“Sorry. Helen needs me until pretty much when the boat leaves on Saturdays, but you can come in the store and talk while we’re closing down.”
Scout’s crestfallen expression brightened a little. “It’s Kayleigh’s turn to cook,” he said. “Movies?”
Gah! He was so cute! Lucky kissed his mouth, hard enough to mean it but not sloppy, because they didn’t have time for sloppy no matter how much he wanted sloppy and all over the place and handsy.
“Movies,” he agreed. “This time, we watchThe Incredibles.It’ll begreat!”
Scout’s happiness practically radiated off of him, and Lucky was about to turn to walk away when he noticed Lightning looking a little depressed.
“How long you here, rich boy?”
“Until the Thanksgiving holidays—I hope,” Piers said, shuddering. “My cousin—Larissa, you saw her—is….” He let out a sigh. “She has a stalker,” he muttered, obviously sure it was too outlandish for them to believe. “And he’s… he’s violent. She barely got away last time, and the police won’t do anything. Our parents have money, and I sort of dropped out of school and took my trust fund and swept her here.” He shuddered and checked over his shoulder to where he could see her long swing of dark brown hair around the corner. “The Morgensterns are friends of my parents, and I don’t know what else to do to keep her safe while my folks try to get this guy taken care of.”
Lucky held up a finger. “I’ll, uh, be back in a second.”
Thank you, thank you, magic coin.
He came back and murmured in Scout’s ear, “Stalker doesn’t know where she is right now, but he’s searching for her. Coin says we’ve got about three weeks.”
Scout pulled in a breath and nodded. “She’s safe for now,” he told Lightning. “But I think the lot of us have alotto talk about.” He looked at Lucky with a sigh. “Later.”
Lucky kissed him again—for luck—and went back to helping Helen behind the counter.
This time he was fully awake, if not more worried than he had been before. But he kept remembering the one thing that should have been completely irrelevant in all of that.
He’d used the word “boyfriend,” which, in his mind, was completely unwarranted and premature. But Scout hadn’t batted an eyelash.
SCOUT WASleft looking at their new friend, unsure if that’s how friends were made.
Lucky had been different. Scout had been intrigued by Lucky from the very beginning. He’d seen that sturdy, purposeful figure, that vitality, and had been attracted—had wanted to know him better.
Their conversation under the waving cypress trees had been awkward and bitter and revelatory in a way that had not been entirely comfortable.
But what had been left when Lucky’s defenses had been stripped away had been everything Scout had ever dreamed of, and the night before, without the supernatural out-of-body journey, of course, had been the simplest, most perfect romantic moment of Scout’s life.
He knew why Lucky had come bustling into the back room, throwing his energy around and using a word like “boyfriend” when they were still too new for that. It was because Lucky didn’t want to share.
Scout was fine with that. Piers—Lightning—was a very nice kid, in Scout’s opinion, but in the romance area, Lucky didn’t have anything to worry about.
The Wisp, on the other hand, and the angry thing guarding the spirit trap, however… well, Scout was worried.
“So, uhm, how does he know my cousin will be safe?” Lightning asked, intruding on his thoughts.
Scout looked up from his book distractedly. “He’s got ways,” he said vaguely, and then realizing that Piers and Larissa might need more than that, he added, “The same way you probably have never had to walk into a dark room in your life.”
