Secrets and High Spirits: Secrets, Book 4 (7 page)

“What on earth got into them?” Bruce asked, scratching his head and not just metaphorically. Something prickled at the base of his skull, though he couldn’t tell for sure if it was inside or outside.

Teag whipped around and pointed a finger at Bruce. “It’s all your fault.”

“How on earth is this my fault?”

Teag sputtered. “Just…standing there…big and smug as if you were the best thing since sliced cheese. Well, you can stop it, because I know your type, and I’m not falling for your supposed charms. And fuck you and Tom of Finland both.” Eyes flashing with inscrutable fury, he spun on his heels and stormed away.

“Huh?” Bruce stared after the rapidly retreating figure. An angry Teag was a sexy Teag, even when also visibly flustered, but the outburst had Bruce’s head spinning. Bruce scratched his itching scalp again and wondered what had gotten into everyone.

He knew perfectly what had gotten into him—Teag—though not the way he would’ve liked.
Well, fuck, it’ll pass
, he told himself, and put the cocktail shaker on the floor. It was past noon, and he was starving. For more than just food, but lunch at least was an attainable goal. He went to his truck and found his cooler with the ham sandwiches inside.

When he finished, he tilted his seat back, closed his eyes and waited, trying not to think. Tall order. People had called him many things before, but never smug. Not to his face. He didn’t like it. Walter was smug, and Bruce didn’t want to be anything like Walter. Ever.

Ch
apter Five

Te
ag rushed out the door ready to yell at the Boys again, but they’d already scattered. He decided to hunt down some food instead. The dull emptiness inside him could’ve been hunger.

He didn’t even make it to Hollywood Boulevard before starting to feel like a complete idiot. What the hell had he said and why? Bruce’s presence had always messed with his head, but that rush of anger had been inexplicable. He’d completely lost his self-control there. He hated it.

He pushed through the door of the first hole-in-the-wall eatery he saw and proceeded to give himself a good talking-to over a greasy slice of pizza.
Get your head out of your ass
, the lecture started. For once, Bruce hadn’t said or done anything objectionable.
The problem is yours. So you go back, apologize and behave yourself like a sensible human being in the future.

Satisfied with his resolve, he hurried back in a rational state of mind. When he arrived, he found Olly and Jem horsing around in the parking lot, kicking a crumpled Coke can around like a soccer ball. As if they hadn’t squabbled like a pack of hyenas an hour before. They scarcely took notice of his arrival. “Dylan had to go,” Olly announced without taking his eyes off the can.

The buzzing and fine wood dust in the air inside signaled Bruce laboring at the second, finer sanding of the floor. With his back to the door, he worked with steady and economical movements. A man who took his part in this venture seriously, while hobbled with a trio of juvenile nuisances and a nitwit of a partner. So not the simple meathead Teag had taken him for.

Guilt rose in Teag as he watched Bruce’s solid figure. He pulled his spine straight and walked up to the object of his guilt.

In response to the tap on his shoulder, Bruce switched the machine off and turned to face Teag, though his gaze behind the safety goggles seemed to focus somewhere on Teag’s forehead. “Yes?”

“Hey.” Teag sought out Bruce’s gaze, but it remained a one-way connection. “I’m sorry for earlier. I have no idea why I said whatever I said.”

“Okay,” Bruce replied in the blandest of tones.

Teag could’ve left it at that, but he wanted…something. To reestablish normal communications, perhaps. He spread his arms, indicating pipes snaking between naked studs, wires hanging from the ceiling, and the general disarray. “It must be the stress of this. Feels like we’ll never get it done.” When no response was forthcoming, he added, “Shouldn’t we have done the floors toward the end?”

Bruce tugged the dust mask down to his chin. “And get dust all over the freshly painted walls?”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that. How many more passes with the sander?”

“Probably two. And it won’t get done on its own.”

Bruce’s shortness smarted, but Teag knew he deserved it. “Right. I won’t keep you,” he said and began to walk away. “Teag.” He heard Bruce call after him and spun around a little too eagerly. “Put on a mask and goggles if you’re gonna be down here. Tell the Boys too.” With those words, Bruce pushed his own mask back into place and turned his back to Teag.

Work, however, did not resume, as the Boys clattered inside, grinning like a clowder of cats who’d just done a number on the canary enclosure at the local zoo.

The source of their high spirits became clear as a middle-aged woman wearing fashionable jeans and a green silk blouse waltzed in behind them. She had a green leather messenger bag slung over her shoulder—two fashionable shades darker than her blouse, Teag noted involuntarily.

“So this is the place I’ve heard so much about,” she said cordially.

“Madame Layla!” Jem introduced her. “We pooled our money to hire her so she could cleanse the place,” he added proudly. “It’s our bar-warming gift to you. Too bad Dylan couldn’t be here.”

While Teag stood dumbstruck, Bruce strode forward with all the poise of a gracious host to greet their unexpected guest. He even discarded his protective gear—something he hadn’t done for Teag. “We’ve heard great things about you. You’re a witch, right?” he said matter-of-factly, as one says
oh, so you’re an accountant?
Hell, the man knew how to be a host, Teag noted, abashed.

“That’s correct. You must be Bruce.” She stuck out her hand, and her silver bracelets jingled as they shook hands.

Teag successfully restored his jaw to its normal position and joined the group. “What a surprise,” he said, smiling, not to be outdone on the hospitality front. On one hand, he wanted to strangle the little idiots for wasting their money on such silliness, but on the other hand, he was truly touched by the gesture. Taking in the eager and excited faces of Olly and Jem, he didn’t have it in him to make a fuss. “What kind of witchcraft do you practice?” he asked politely.

“Mostly protective magic and spiritual counseling,” she explained without a hint of irony. “That’s how I met Jem.”

“I was cursed,” Jem said solemnly. “By a meter maid.”

To keep his eyes from rolling around in their sockets, Teag stared hard at Mme. Layla. She had silver strands in her long, black hair, and fine lines of crow’s-feet at the corners of her lively dark eyes. “Been in the business long?” he asked, not knowing what else to say.

“Born into it,” she replied off-handedly, eyes scanning the space. “I should get started.” She dropped her bag on the floor and extracted from it a single, clear crystal hanging from a silver chain.

“Should we leave?” Bruce asked.

“You don’t have to. Not yet. I’ll be doing an assessment first.” She strolled to the closest wall and began a slow patrol around the perimeter, crystal dangling from her outstretched hand. If the four pairs of eyes glued to her every move affected her at all, she didn’t show it. She hadn’t walked far before coming to a stop. The crystal twirled frantically on its chain. Teag couldn’t tell how she did it—she was good, he had to admit. “You have a ghost. How quaint,” she said, amused.

“A ghost?” Teag spit out the word before he choked on it.

“Yes. Haven’t you felt the cold spot?”

They muttered no, except Jem. “I have,” he said.

This time, Teag did roll his eyes, but fortunately, nobody was paying attention to him. All eyes were on their guest.

Bruce nudged Teag. “Must’ve been an old customer of the Blue Parrot. The spot’s exactly where the old bar ended.” He pointed at the marks on the floor.

As Teag viewed Bruce with exasperation, he considered reconsidering his earlier assessment of Bruce not being a total meathead.

Mme. Layla moved on but stopped again a few steps later. Right on top of the hidden compartment. Of course, now with the handgrip exposed it wasn’t so hidden anymore. The crystal spun around in a wide circle—Teag further admired her skill manipulating the thing. Her hand didn’t seem to move at all. She crouched and tapped the wood. “What’s in here?”

“Nothing anymore,” Bruce volunteered the information. “There was an old cocktail shaker, but it was empty.”

She stood and pocketed the crystal. “May I see it?”

Olly rushed off to fetch the thing—someone had stowed it under the stairs with the tools and stuff. The rest of their party stood around, displaying a range of emotions. Mme. Layla stared off into space with professional distractedness, while Jem worried his lower lip. Bruce radiated untroubled and curious amusement. Teag was doing his damnedest to keep his expression neutral, but the absurdity of the situation was becoming too much. He was eager for the whole affair to be over.

Olly returned a minute later, and Mme. Layla took the shaker from him. She turned it in her hands, frowning more and more deeply as she studied the strange engravings. She brushed the remains of the red wax with her fingertips. “You opened it.”

“Well, of course,” Teag replied, careful to keep the impatience out of his voice.

Her sigh hinted of exasperation as she slid off the lid and peeked inside. The grooves on her forehead deepened, and she seemed a decade older and a ton more spooky for a fraction of a second. It passed too fast, though, for Teag to be sure he hadn’t imagined it.

“So what’s this cleansing entail?” Bruce asked.

“I won’t be able to do it today, sorry. I need to—” She snapped the lid on the cocktail shaker. “I’d like to borrow this for a few days. You mind?”

Bruce said nothing, leaving the decision to Teag. “All yours,” Teag told her, smiling, relieved she’d be going soon.

She put the item in question into her bag, said good-bye and left with a disappointed Jem in tow.

“Don’t worry, she’ll be back,” Olly assured them.

Teag wasn’t worried. “No doubt.” He managed to keep his tone sarcasm-free.

Olly shifted his weight. “Mind if Jem and I take off? I told Rich I’d help in the shop, and I’m Jem’s ride.”

“Not at all. Oh, and thanks for the help again, but there really isn’t much for you to do for a while. Not till we start painting.”

“Okay. Call. Laters!” Olly waved and skipped out of the room.

Bruce had found Mme. Layla a pleasant diversion. He took no particular stock in witchcraft and the like, but at Ren Faire, he’d made friends with a number of people who confessed to be Wiccan and were rather sincere and serious about it. As a practitioner of the live-and-let-live philosophy, he’d accepted them as they were. Mme. Layla had struck him as a true believer, and watching her went a long way to ease him out of his Teag-induced funk.

Speaking of Teag, the guy burst out in a curse not two minutes after Jem and Olly had left.

“What?” Bruce asked after a moment of hesitation. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what bee was buzzing Teag’s bonnet now.

Teag looked atypically sheepish.

“I just remembered, Leo gave me a ride this morning. I was going to ask Olly for a lift home but forgot. I have to go home and take a shower before going to work. Martin will kill me if I show up stinking like this.” He sniffed his armpit and scowled.

Bruce almost replied that he liked the way Teag smelled, but managed to keep his mouth shut. He’d resolved not to say another thing Teag could misinterpret as
smug
. “Ah.”

“I’ll have to call a cab.” Teag pulled out his phone. “Shit. It’s later than I’d thought.”

This time, Bruce couldn’t stop himself in time. “You can take a shower at my place. It’s a few minutes’ drive from here.”

Teag’s gaze snapped up to meet Bruce’s. “That would be awesome. Thank you.” There was nothing but gratefulness in his voice, as far as Bruce could tell. “Mind going right now?” Teag added without a hint of his usual bossiness. Bruce missed it.

“Sure. Let me grab my keys.” Bruce marched over to the pile of tools—his bundle of keys was too bulky to keep comfortably in his pocket while he worked, and he wasn’t foolish enough to leave them in the truck. Under the stairs by the tools was the safest place. He’d tried clipping them to his belt, but they’d made him feel too much like a janitor.

“
It was quite a show, wasn’t it?” Teag said in the car, probably to disrupt the uncomfortable silence spreading between them. “Well, I’m not surprised Dylan would do something like this—I love him, but he’s a dingbat. And I don’t know Jem well, but I didn’t expect it from Olly.”

“It was a nice gesture,” Bruce replied. Something about Teag needled him to be contrary.

“A waste of money. They could’ve spent it on something actually useful. Like a box of cocktail napkins.”

“I dunno. Maybe the place
is
haunted. Come to think of it, I heard noises one night when I stayed late. It sounded like bar noises, people talking. I assumed it was drunks on the street.” This was true, though he hadn’t thought much of it.

“It was probably drunks on the street. Don’t tell me you believe in this mumbo jumbo too.” Teag was back to his naturally assertive self, and Bruce liked it.

“I like to keep an open mind.” Bruce knew he shouldn’t have been antagonizing Teag, but the devil in him couldn’t stop.

Teag glared. “Oh, come on. Keeping an open mind is not the same as throwing your money on witches and soothsayers and other phonies.”

“Are you always this uptight?”

Teag gasped. “Uptight? Me? I’m not uptight.”

“Rrright. We’re here.” Bruce deftly slotted the truck into a tight spot in front of an unimpressive apartment building in the area between Hollywood and Los Feliz most called Thai Town. There were several Thai grocery stores and restaurants in the neighborhood, although most of the people living there were working-class Hispanics and a few gringos like him.

The second-floor studio apartment opened from a narrow corridor and faced the street. “Uhm, nice,” Teag muttered without conviction.

Bruce shrugged. The room was fairly large, with wall-to-ceiling bookshelves separating the bed corner from the rest. He had room left for a couch and entertainment center, and even a small table by the window, serving as a desk, complete with chair. And he had a separate kitchen, though tiny. “It’s cheap,” he said. It was also clean and reasonably tidy, but he didn’t feel the need to point this out. Teag had eyes.

“I see. Bathroom’s there?” Teag asked, motioning to the minuscule hallway.

“Yes, the one that’s not a kitchen. Grab yourself a towel. They’re in the closet left of the sink.” He took in Teag’s sweat-and-dust-stained shirt. “I’ll find you something clean to wear,” he added, turning to the closet by the bed.

This proved to be a challenge. Teag would swim in his clothes. In the end, he selected a plain, black T-shirt and gray drawstring sweatpants. A pair of socks too, but not underwear. Teag didn’t seem to be the kind of person to put on someone else’s old undies, no matter how clean. And anyway, size differences. Bruce placed the pile at the corner of the bed, then busied himself with generally tidying up.

He was slouching on the desk chair, gazing out the window, when Teag emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later. He had a towel wrapped around his waist and was scrubbing his wet hair with another.

The view was hardly more revealing than the one Bruce had seen at Purlieux, but he still couldn’t stop himself from looking. More like ogling. Teag looked up from under the towel, their eyes met, Teag’s flashed dangerously, and the electric sparkles were back, dancing in the air like fireflies.