One of the figures was tall and slender, and he was gazing off into the indigo horizon where the ocean met the sky under the watchful gaze of the moon, while the shorter, stockier figure rested his head on the other one’s shoulder.
Oh, thought Scout in wonder.They’re lovers.
“Tom,” said the smaller, sturdy one, “do you really need to leave?”
“I’ll be back, Henry.” The lean figure with the distant eyes dropped a kiss on the top of Henry’s head. “I just… a cottage here. That’s all I want. A place where we can be bachelors, right? Nobody will ask questions. But I’ve got no gold and you’ve got no copper. A few years, that’s all. I make my fortune, save my earnings, and then it’s you and me and a small bit o’ beach. Don’t you want that?”
“All I want,” Henry said softly, “is you.”
The lovers on the beach kissed then, the touch of their lips so full of yearning that Scout thought his stomach would burst with it, and then Lucky’s arms tightened around his shouldershard, and Lucky bawled, “Scout, get your ass back here!” into his face.
Suddenly they were on their knees in the here and now, dead center of the little clearing, the late afternoon sun stretching long shadows overhead.
Lucky was shaking his shoulders with unnecessary force and snarling, “Would you fuckingbreathealready?”
Scout nodded, aware that his lungs hurt, and it felt like he hadn’t filled them in too long a time. Spots danced in front of his eyes, and he thought with wonder that he might be too weak to get up.
“That,” he said, “was the damnedest thing.”
And then he passed out.
Shelter
YOU COULDtell a lot about how you felt about somebody when you were hauling their dumb ass a half mile from the beach to your dumb apartment.
Lucky and Piers had decided on Lucky’s apartment because there were fewer stairs to the ground floor and because it had carpeting that made it a little warmer, and Scout was freezing.
Those seemed to be key factors in the decision-making, but the truth was, after watching Scout shake hands and share magic with everybody else on the island, it seemed, Lucky wanted some quiet for his favorite magician, and he unabashedly wanted Scout to himself.
Yeah, yeah—magic, investigation, oh my God, everybody’s fate seemed to hang on that teeny tiny plot of land, but this was the second time Lucky had seen Scout get sucked away via magic, and he was just fuckingdonewith it. He’d put off getting to know the guy for a month and a half because he hadn’t wanted to get attached. Apparently he’d been getting attached while trying not to, and wasn’t that a kick in the ass! Whatever it was, Lucky wanted Scout safe, and he wanted some time alone with him, and yeah, he was curious about what Scout had figured out at the clearing, but that wasn’t his priority, not now.
Scout—and Scout only—was the focus of his irritation, his worry, and his care.
Helen let them into Lucky’s small flat before following the rest of the party to Scout and Kayleigh’s apartment for what was probably going to be snacks and a confab that would rival a military ops debrief.
“I’ll tell you what we find out,” Helen said softly as Piers and Lucky deposited Scout on the bed in the corner of the cozy little studio. “And Marcus and I will be by early tomorrow to see how he’s doing.”
Lucky grunted. “Fabulous. I love earlier than 5:00 a.m.….” Because he and Helen opened the shop at six.
“I mean early as in eight,” Helen replied, ruffling Lucky’s hair. “Marcus will help me with the coffee shop tomorrow. I think you and Scout have earned some sleeping in tomorrow morning. You can come in for the rush, if you like, because I think Scout still needs to perform.”
Lucky squinted at her, shaking out his hands. “In what employment universe?”
She laughed, keeping her voice down so as not to disturb Scout. “In the one where I own the store.” On a sober note, she added, “Scout did a lot tonight—and he needs someone to look after him. Kayleigh can take the magic store. Marcus and I will do the coffee shop, but given what Marcus and I saw from theoutsideof Scout’s little experiment, Scout needs to save his strength for the trial ahead. And we need to do a lot more research so we know what that trial will be. So take some time—dinner, breakfast, all the luxuries.”
Lucky snorted. “Yeah. That’s pure hedonism, right?”
Her eyes softened. “You’ve been fighting this attraction for a month and a half, Lucky. Take a little time to give in to it, okay? If nothing else, talk to him some more. He seems to really like you.”
Lucky sighed. What the hell—he already trusted Helen, right? “All that time avoiding him,” he muttered. “I just… I didn’t want to miss him when he left. Now that I want to be with him, he’s almost left me twice. What kind of fair is that?”
She kissed his cheek, which was something his Auntie Cree wouldn’t have done in a million years. “The kind of fair that says you’re the one who can call him back,” she said softly. “Maybe that’s why he seemed so drawn to you.”
Lucky snorted. “Him? Drawn to me?” But even as he said it, he recalled Scout’s cobalt eyes searching him out over the quad when Lucky and Helen took their break every day to watch him do his show.
“He’s got very pretty eyes,” Helen said softly. “And we’ve all seen them pinned to you. Every time he got his coffee and you brushed him off, they grew wider and sadder. Don’t fight it, honey. Sometimes love’s like that.”
And while Lucky was still remembering to shut his mouth, Helen nodded to the six-feet-plus of good-looking rich guy who had helped Lucky drag his sort-of boyfriend the half mile to Lucky’s apartment.
