Page 12

Chapter

Eleven

“ H ey, Sebastian, I need to talk to you.”

Sabastian looked up from his book. Abby was playing on the swing set in the park, and he was enjoying the day. After three days of filming and having Colton back in town, he still wasn’t used to hearing his name in that voice. “Sure, what’s up?”

“The guys and I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Is there a reason that you can think of where some spirit in the house would be bothering Abby? Like specifically?”

Seb shrugged. “I mean, not that I can think of. I guess I always sort of assumed it was one of the kids, you know, trying to play with her.”

“Right, but she said it was a mean man in the interviews,” Colton said, coming to sit next to him on the bench. “She specifically said that mean man, right? Not mean kid, not mean boy, not mean girl. Mean man.”

“Why don’t you ask her?” He didn’t know. He never thought about it that particularly, he guessed. Maybe he didn’t want to think about there being a mean man.

“Well, okay. Can you come with me? I want you to hear whatever she has to say.”

All right, that was actually kind of sweet. “Sure, I’d be… I mean, that’s fine.”

“How are you?”

Sebastian kind of grinned. How was he? Hell, he didn’t know. He was kind of okay. He was also kind of not okay. But really, he was sort of settled, and that made him kind of stupidly happy, in fact. The fact Colton was a good guy was satisfying, and it made him feel like less of a loser.

It meant something that Colton hadn’t run out on them. Even if they weren’t going to ever get back together.

“I miss my bed, but basically, I’m all right. How’s the filming going?”

Colton smiled at him, eyes lighting up. “It’s an incredibly active house, which you well know. It’s crazy, wild active.”

“Yeah, I mean, it’s always been pretty busy, but since Abby, it’s just exploded. She hit the terrible threes, and so did the house.”

“Yeah, I have some ideas about that. Actually, I have a bunch of ideas, but I’d like to talk to Abby first and then… I don’t suppose…would you be interested in going to have supper together tonight?”

That was surprising. “You don’t have to film tonight?”

“We’re going to film really late, and then on Thursday, we’d like to film during the time that the murders would have happened. Like I said, I have a lot to talk to you about, but I’d like to just really spend some time together talking about it, you know? Is that reasonable?”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if it’s reasonable or not.”

Okay, that was mean, so he winked at Colton to ease the sting. “Whatever you want to do, I’m at your disposal, I guess. I mean, we’ll have to have Abby with us or I can see if Xavi can watch her.”

“I think since we’re talking about murderers, maybe if Xavi could, that would be fantastic. I just don’t want to hurt her feelings or make her scared.” Colton was being incredibly dear.

“Hell, if having the mean man pinch her toes didn’t make her scared…” He didn’t know what it was, but whatever. “Sounds good to me. I’ll talk to Xavi. Six tonight work for you?”

“Yeah. Would you like to maybe drive over to Secret Springs and have Sen?r Dragon’s?”

Well, that sort of made it like a date. “I don’t know if I’m ready to run into Hank. Maybe we could just have room service in your room? I promise to stay at a distance.”

Colton snorted. “Like I care about that. You don’t have to stay at a distance with me.”

He rolled his eyes and stood. “Whatever, you flirt. Let’s go talk to Abby. Abby, look who’s here. It’s Mr. Colton.”

“Hi, hi, hi, hi.” She grinned at Colton. “I’m swinging!”

“You are. You’re so good at that.” Colton sat in the grass near the swing, his leg stretched out in front of him. “I was wondering if you could tell me about the mean man that shakes your feet at night at your house.”

“I’m just scared. He makes mad faces like this.” She pulled down the corners of her mouth and scrunched her face up. “He always says wake up, wake up, wake up. And I tell him, go away! I’m sleeping.”

“Can you tell me anything else about him?”

“He says hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry.”

Colton glanced at him, then tilted his head. “Do you ever see him?”

“Sometimes I think so, but then he goes poof.” She made the cutest exploding fingers.

“Why do you think he’s a bad man?”

She looked at Colton like he was stupid. “He wakes me up when I sleeps! That’s mean.”

“I guess it is. But he’s not saying bad things to you?”

“No. He doesn’t cuss like Uncle Xander. He’s just loud, and he shakes my feet.”

“Okay. Well, thank you. That helps a lot.”

“I likes to helpses.” She beamed at him. “Right, Daddy? I helps.”

“All the time, baby girl.”

They rose, Colton leaning hard on his cane for a moment as they walked away, back to the bench. Colton waited until Abby was swinging again to speak.

“See, this kind of makes me think my theory might be right.”

“Yeah? How?”

“Well, okay, so when the house was built, the bottom floor would have been kitchen, dining, visitor’s parlor, right?

” At his nod, Colton forged on. “So, second floor would have been family parlor, maybe the alpha’s study, the omega’s sitting room, and probably a water closet and a storage room in the very back.

And then the bedrooms on third. The plans for the house say there was a servant’s quarters in the attic, and another out back where the stables would have been.

So, I think the omega hid the kids in the storage room while the bad stuff was happening in the house.

Took them from their beds one by one as they slept and put them there. ”

“And that’s where Abby’s room is…”

“I think so, yes. When we look at the plans tonight at dinner, I’ll show you.”

“Okay. Okay, sure.” Sebastian chewed his lip. “But what about all the other stuff?”

“Do they throw books at you?” Colton asked.

“All the time.”

Colton’s wry grin invited him in, asked him to share the joke. “They’re pretty pointed. Pride and Prejudice. The Great Gatsby . They really want me to think about my circumstances.”

“Hmm.” Sebastian checked on Abby, who was now chasing a butterfly in circles. “They do that to me too. But it’s usually Gothic romances. The Castle of Otranto . The Italian . The Mysteries of Udolpho .”

“They have a thing for Radcliffe, huh?”

“Where I’m concerned, yes.” He laughed, and it felt good. To open up and let the laughter out. “They tend toward heroes who seem like villains but aren’t.”

Colton tilted his head again, as if hearing a whistle or a whisper. He always had thought that way in the moment. Then he grinned hugely. “Well, maybe I should be flattered.”

Sebastian leveled a finger at him. “Don’t you even.”

“Daddy, why are you pointing the be-good finger at Mr. Colton?”

“Because he’s being a little sarcastic, baby girl.”

“Oh.” She really had no concept of that, so she just skipped up to Colton. “Do you have a dog?”

“Uh. No.” Colton gazed down at her with this expression that was bemused and amazed, and it made his heart try to soften. Which was bad, right?

“Somes people with canes? They haff dogs to help them balance. It’s so cool!”

“Now, that’s a neat thought,” Colton told her. “I had dogs when I was a kid. I spent a lot of time outside with them.”

She took Colton’s hand. “I needs ice cream.”

“Abby!” Sebastian felt his cheeks heat.

“I just bet you do, Missy. I saw a cart at the other end of the park.” Colton looked at him. And he would be the bad guy if he said no.

“That’s Mrs. Lopez and her little boy. Come on, Abby. Let’s go see Damian.”

“Dami!” She bounced along with Colton, and Sebastian had no idea how he was going to do this. Because he wanted to be happy. He really did.

He was just scared to death of it.

Colton had gotten to spend all afternoon with Abby and Sebastian.

They’d finally headed back up to the hotel at about four so Abby could have supper and a bath and then go to hang out with Xavi, who had agreed to watch silly TV with her and put her to bed so he and Sebastian could have dinner together.

Colton had taken a shower, changed into pants that didn’t have ice cream all over them, and had arranged the suite so that it wasn’t so obvious that the bed was right there being obvious.

He’d moved the table and the two little chairs to a place by the door, then moved the little settee into place between that and the bed.

The armchair was perpendicular to the settee, and they could sit there and chat while they waited for room service.

No bed required.

Even if that was all Colton could think of.

Exactly on time, there was a knock on the door, Sebastian standing there in a clean, white button-down. “I brought wine. I hope that’s okay.”

“That’s perfect, ho-Bastian. Thank you.” He smiled, stepping back so Bastian could come inside. God, he was as nervous as a teenager right now.

Bastian kind of grinned at him, wrinkling his nose. “So. This isn’t weird.”

“Right?” He rolled his eyes at himself. “But it doesn’t have to be.”

They were both adults, right?

“Oh, I can’t think of any reason that it wouldn’t be weird. Everything about our relationship, thus far, has been pretty outside the norm.”

But at least Sebastian was starting to say that they had a relationship. That was a plus.

He nodded toward the bottle Bastian had a death grip on. “I’ll have to call down to the kitchen and ask if they have a corkscrew we can borrow.”

“Hey, now, I’m classy. I brought a screw top.”

“Oh, you are a smart little guy, aren’t you?”

Sebastian gave him the raised eyebrow. “I’m not that little.”

Colton’s cheeks heated. “No, you’re not. I’m just really nervous. I’ve never had a dinner in my room with the father of my child before.”

“Really? Neither have I.” Sebastian gave him the great big, wide, patently fake fluttery gaze, and he just cracked up. What else was he supposed to do?