"Shit," he said. Zoe's manager was wearing the same stupid fucking yellow cartoon high-tops Alex had been forced to buy on the drive here. Alex had switched them for a pair of sandals first chance he got, but this man didn't seem to realize the things weren't standard adult wear.
Bryan had started to snicker, but the minute Alex turned his glare to him he stopped. Most men would have kept up the ribbing once they knew it bugged him, but Bryan's eyes went soft.
"I get it," he said with almost too much understanding. "This particular coincidence is just between you and me."
He couldn't have turned the screw on Alex's guilt any better. Bryan liked Alex, and Bryan had finally gotten into his bed, in part because Alex was too freakishly horny to do without. It didn't matter what Bryan said about his lack of expectations; he didn't deserve to watch Alex squaring off with this tower of muscle over someone else.
"Bryan." Alex put his hand on his friend's shoulder.
Looking back later, he decided everything was context. Mrs. Fairfax had known Alex looked familiar when he checked in, but until she saw him in Zoe's presence
and
with another man, two plus two hadn't equaled four.
Once it did, she sucked a shrieking gasp that echoed through the room.
"I know you," she said, her grandmotherly face quivering with rage. "You're that perverted Goodbody boy, the one who ruined Coach Vickers life. How dare you come back after the heartache you caused this town? Tom Vickers was a good man. The least you could have done was stick to your own kind!"
Her outburst shouldn't have shaken Alex. It was only what he'd heard a hundred times before, what he'd expected before he came. All the same, he had to swallow a lump the size of Mitten Butte before he could speak.
"Believe me," he said as levelly as he could, "I wouldn't be here if I didn't have a job to do."
"A job!" Mrs. Fairfax's cry drew every eye that hadn't been on her already. Parents began to hug their children to their sides. "You don't deserve a job! Trash like you deserves prison!"
She was closing the space that separated them, her hand coming up to strike like she was in some damn catfight on a soap opera. Alex didn't know how to stop her and wasn't sure he wanted to. His face felt like it was frying with self-consciousness, his feet frozen to the ground.
Let her slap me
, he thought. There just wasn't a good way to defend yourself against a woman your mother's age, especially when you knew her accusations held a lot of truth.
And then Zoe was between them like a Fury, straight-arming Mrs. Fairfax's shoulder so she had to stop.
"You are so not doing this in front of me," Zoe said.
Airs. Fairfax wasn't the only one whose jaw dropped. Alex had never heard sweet Zoe Clare sound like this. Her declaration had been so deep and angry it was a growl.
"Zoe," Mrs. Fairfax protested. "How can you defend him?"
Zoe put her fists on her hips. "I can defend him for three very good reasons. First of all, Coach Vickers probably was Alex's 'kind' all along. Loath as this town was to admit it, men don't turn homosexual overnight. Second of all, Alex was a teenager, which ought to cut him slack by itself. Third of all, even though he was a teenager, and could have stayed nice and cozy as everybody's poor victim, he chose to come forward and tell the truth. It wasn't his fault people were angry because he wasn't the perfect golden hero they made him out to be. They built that pedestal, not him. He chose to do the right thing."
"The right thing! But he hurt you worst of all."
Mrs. Fairfax's astonishment had turned to pleading. She'd obviously been sure her stand against the depravation Alex represented would be approved, but Zoe didn't back down an inch.
"He was a kid, Mrs. Fairfax, and aside from Coach Vicker's involvement turning it into a public stink, what he did was no worse than kids do to each other every minute of every day. If I can forgive him, I see no reason why people whose hearts weren't broken can't do the same."
Her voice had a ringing clarity. One of the teenage guests, a boy with a nose stud and a Nine Inch Nails T-shirt, began to clap. He was quickly shushed by his parents, but the brief offering of approval tipped Alex into a welter of emotion from which there was no turning back. His eyes went as hot as his face had been a minute earlier. Zoe forgave him. His knees began to shake in reaction, like he might fall if he didn't sit.
"Shit," he whispered, and grabbed the edge of an end table.
Mrs. Fairfax was murmuring a flustered apology and backing off. As she disappeared somewhat huffily into the office behind the reception desk, Zoe thrust her hands into her curls. Her hair had been skewered messily atop her head, and her elbows stuck out on either side. As she stood there, the other guests began to drift away. She exhaled loudly and turned to him.
"Sorry," she said, her expression wry. "Didn't mean to cause a scene."
He couldn't help it, he smiled at her, then felt his heart turn over when she smiled back. Those gray eyes of hers were sweeter than spring rain. "I don't think you need to apologize."
Their gazes held a beat too long, heavy with history. Predictably, Alex's groin began to tighten, and the history became a mutual flare of heat. That was all it took to shove him tight against his slacks: the idea that, just maybe, his chance with her wasn't completely lost.
Zoe turned away before he could. "Come on," she said, waving him along from over her shoulder. "Let's get pizza."
There was no question Magnus had an arrogant streak, but when he'd imagined losing Zoe, it hadn't been to another man. He'd never heard her speak of this Alex, not even once. Unfortunately, her reticence might mean Alex was more important, rather than less.
His face felt stiff from his uncustomary frown as he held the lobby door for the others. Zoe was laughing with the second man, Bryan, doing her sweet Zoe best to put him at ease, as if she hadn't just shot metaphysical laser beams into his lover's eyes. Bight about then, Magnus wouldn't have minded watching both men dematerialize.
He'd wanted to finish this night alone with Zoe, to get a chance to mend his earlier missteps, to pleasure her in a hundred delicious ways, preferably until he heard her scream with orgasm. Now he was stuck in this ridiculous love quadrangle, at least for the space of a meal and maybe more. For all he knew, she'd be offering to host the haunted visitors in her home!
This doleful possibility transformed his frown into a glower. They were walking around the inn to its parking lot, dropping Alex and Bryan off at their car before returning to his. Magnus was trailing behind the trio with heavy steps when the Will-Be, his fickle friend, decided to give him more of what he was dwelling on. Despite his super fairy coordination, a tiny crack in the asphalt caught the toe of his wonderful yellow sneaker and sent him sprawling flat on his face.
The Will-Be wasn't trying to hurt him, just to remind him that his current thoughts were not creating in the direction of his true desires. Despite knowing this very well, he still cursed up a blue streak when he felt the scrape on his cheekbone.
"Magnus!" Zoe cried, rushing back to him.
Far too annoyed with himself to be pleased by that, he cursed a few colors more.
Zoe crouched to help him sit up. "What's the matter with you tonight? The way you're acting, I feel like I ought to be checking you for spirit attachments."
He held her hand harder than he had to. "Aren't I allowed to be in a bad mood?"
"Well, yes, but—Magnus, nothing gets you down." She stroked his hair off his forehead, wincing when she saw the scrape. "Your cheek is bruised. You should go home and put some ice on it before it swells."
Oh, he should go home and let her have her fun eating pizza with her high school flame. Magnus
loved
pizza. It was, he thought, a creation of profound human genius. Being bothered that he wasn't going to eat it with her tonight was not terribly adult, but in truth he felt like he was five years old, his feelings hurt by an older playmate, and mulishly determined not to cry. It seemed to take all his strength to unlock his jaw.
"Zoe," he said, his hand cupping her warm, soft cheek. "Do you know how much you mean to me?"
She let out a laughing sigh. "Magnus, I'm not sure any woman could figure that out."
It was a comeback he didn't have an answer for, at least not with an audience. When he did nothing but make a speechless fish mouth, Zoe pulled away from his touch.
"Go home," she said. "I'm sure, we'll both feel better in the morning."
Huh
, Magnus thought. Good thing one of them was sure.
Zoe's fairies fled the instant Alex came in the door.
She thought she heard one cry
Traitor
! as it disappeared, but the imprecation was too squeaky to be certain.
Corky, at least, had no objection to her guests. The kitten woke up long enough to lap some milk and practice his nascent pouncing skills on a bottle cap. Zoe's kitchen wasn't big, but it had a homey ambience, with vintage appliances and old-fashioned wood cabinets painted white. Alex looked right at home crouched on the terra cotta floor, where he spun the bottle cap for Corky, his laughter low and masculine when Corky overshot it or fell over on half his tries.
Finally exhausted, Corky plopped down on his tummy and fell asleep.
Alex rose with his lips quirked sexily. "I hate to break this to you, Zoe, but I think your cat is a klutz."
Zoe scooped up the kitten protectively, delighted to find him purring beneath her chin. "He's not a klutz, he's just little."
He was also a good excuse to pull herself together away from Alex's too-familiar grins. Back when they'd dated, those lazy, wolfish smiles had been her undoing. Trying to shake off the old effect, she settled the kitten back in his cardboard box, while Alex and Bryan spread their not-so-gourmet meal across the booth-style table in her breakfast nook.
When she returned, three meat-laden pizzas fought for space with a dozen Mexican beers. The men had taken one bench and left the other for her. Even without the food, they filled up her kitchen in a way women never could. Both Alex and Bryan were six-footers, broad-shouldered and muscular. Polite enough to wait until she was back, they fell on the food like they were starving, though Alex managed to relate the story of why they were in Fairyville between slices.
By that point, the men had decimated a pizza each and were beginning to pick at hers. The amount of food males could consume always amazed her, which was probably a sign she didn't spend enough time with them.
If she had, she might not have been so backward about relationships.
Grimacing to herself, she tipped another swallow of Dos Equis into her mouth. She sat crosswise on her bench, her back to the wall and her bare feet up on the cushion. She was trying to make sense of what she'd been told, and of this new responsible business person Alex seemed to have grown into.
His partner, Bryan, had only spoken up a few times, but he struck her—ironically enough—as a likeable guy's guy, more at home at a baseball game than an art museum. He certainly had enough testosterone to make her girly hormones come to attention, in spite of them having little chance of being gratified by him. His five o'clock shadow was a heavy, blue-black demarcation on his handsomely thuggish face. He had great eyes, dark and snapping, with lashes so straight and long she couldn't help imagining all the places they might flutter over Alex's anatomy.
Or her own, for that matter.
She cleared her throat of its inappropriate tightening and set down her beer. If she was starting to fantasize about both of them, she'd had enough alcohol. "You say this little boy made paper fly?"
"He made it dance a conga line around our office," Alex confirmed.
Zoe pinched her lower lip. "I've heard that children these days are being born more psychic, but that kind of telekinesis really takes control."
"Can you float things?" Bryan asked curiously.
Zoe let out a quiet snort. "Not me. My gift is more about seeing things most people can't. Of course, lots of young kids see ghosts or angels. That isn't rare at all. We simply forget how to do it as we get older."
"I never saw spirits," Bryan said.
"You might have when you were a baby. Remember, if I see an infant chortling and flapping its hands for no apparent reason, I know who it's waving at."
Bryan shook his head in wonderment. "It doesn't scare you to see that stuff? I mean, tonight, somebody tells you a poltergeist is raining rocks, and you just come, no questions asked."
"I didn't notice you screaming in terror."
"Couldn't." His lips fought a grin. "Alex was watching."
"Whatever the reason, staying calm was a good decision. If you're not afraid, there's very little that can hurt you in the spirit world. In fact, I'm not sure there's anything that can. You'll see far worse in a horror movie than any ghost will show you, and people survive watching horror movies every day."
"Were you ever afraid? Say when you were little?"
Zoe smiled. "The first time I saw a ghost I was four. It was my Nana Sonia, the day after her funeral, and she wasn't going to scare me. She was a nice, nice lady. Always room in her lap for a grandkid. She wanted me to tell my mother she was all right. When I did, my mother insisted I was lying. I pitched such a fit, she had to send me to my room. Nana Sonia was the one who comforted me. She told me she was proud of me for sticking to my guns."
Zoe had to laugh. "If Mom had known the long-term effect that one bit of praise would have, she'd have put Nana in the ground herself. To answer your question, though, you could say I learned early who to be afraid of—and who not to."
Bryan thought about this. "I guess it would be cool to see the world the way you do, to know there's more to life than the day-to-day ordinary stuff."
"Sometimes it's cool. Sometimes, like when I've got six ghosts lined up and yammering in my ear at the grocery store, it's a serious pain in the butt."
"It's not easy being green?" he suggested, quoting Kermit the Frog and flashing her a teasing smile.