Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
Iago loved to watch Xander cook.
It was easy to tell that this was where his lover was at his happiest, where he felt the most comfortable.
He sighed and went back to checking emails and working, eyes on his man periodically. Iago could do most of his stuff on the computer, and he had a window open with the guys on silent, the chat right there so he could talk to them without disturbing Xander.
Xander was very distressed about the whole ghosts in his house thing.
Very.
But tomorrow they were going to go spend the day in Secret Springs. They’d go to the pool, then have lunch. He was allowed the pool as long as he stayed out of the superhot therapy pool…
And he would check in with Devon at the birth center.
“Hey, Xander, we have a picky kid in tonight.” Amanda, one of the hotel owners, breezed into the kitchen, her baby girl strapped to her chest in a carrier. “Can you toss in some chicken nuggets and fries?” She tacked an order to the board above the grill.
“You bet. The special is going well.”
“Everyone likes roast and potatoes, baybee.” She winked at Iago. “How are you doing? I hear congratulations are in order.”
His cheeks went hot, a nervous laugh bursting from his throat. God, he would never get used to this small of a town.
“Thanks. I— yeah. We’re excited.” He glanced at Xander, hoping it was the truth.
Xander beamed at Amanda. “Yeah. It’s wild, huh?”
“I’m so happy for you both.”
“Thanks, lady. Is there anything I can do to help?” Iago felt weird sitting while everyone else was working.
Well, he was working, but on the computer.
“Would you mind rolling silverware? Somehow the breakfast shift didn’t manage to do their side work this morning.”
Xander chuckled. “After this week I can start doing split days again. I know Carrie has a hard time holding down breakfast alone.”
Iago had met Carrie, who worked at the hotel part time while she worked on her online degree. She was sweet and wonderful, but not as efficient as his Xander.
Xander would tell him, he wasn’t a chef, only a cook, but Iago thought Xander was whichever one meant that amazing food was being created and making people happy.
And the food really was amazing.
There were no tweezified plates in Xander’s little hotel kitchen. There was a deep fryer, a huge oven, and lots of burners along with this amazing griddle.
His Xander made this normal, yummy, deeply satisfying stuff — food meant to truly feed the soul.
“Okay, show me what you need me to do with the silverware.”
Amanda rolled up a fork, spoon, and knife for him to see, and showed him where the little sticky tabs were. Taking over, he got to work, earbuds in, as he listened to the chatter of the guys back at the house.
They’d found that the long tunnel went down about fifty feet, and they were itching to explore it. Right now Mason was sending a camera down to look while Gent worked on trying to get access to the mine — or at least find out that they didn’t need permission to access it.
They were going to need some kind of geologist, he thought, one way or the other, just to make sure it was safe and that they weren’t destroying anything which was precious.
“Hey, Iago, can you check out who owns the properties on either side of Xander here and the one across the street?” That was Law, who was running around with a clipboard in one hand and a small video camera in the other.
“I want to make sure we’re in good with the neighborhood before we do anything that might cause issues, and Gent’s a little busy right now. ”
He grabbed his laptop and typed, “Sure man, not a problem. Two shakes.”
Then he asked Xander, “Hey, who lives across from you? Who are your neighbors?”
Xander arched an eyebrow at him over a big vat of...he didn’t know what. Mmm, smelled like beans. Yeah, maybe there’d be cornbread, too. “Are you working?”
“I’m just answering a question.”
“Uh-huh. You’re supposed to be rolling silverware.
” Xander winked at him. Those green eyes were just sparkling.
“Let’s see. Next door on the right-hand side, if you’re in the house, is a young couple who just moved to town.
I can’t remember his name, but her name is Syndey.
On the other side is Mr. Olson, who I shovel the walk for in the winter, and across the street it’s a historical part-time museum event thing.
Apparently that house was a big deal back in the day of the mining stuff.
” Xander shrugged. “Really, the person you should ask about that is Bastian. He’s always been way more into that sort of stuff.
He and Hank, I mean; that’s how they became friends, over history and ghosts.
All of my friends I’ve been friends with since I was a kid. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Ho ho! Because that’s not mean.” Iago got it, sort of. All of his friends were because of Mason and Law, Colton and Gent insisting he was their friend.
“Yeah, you know how it is.”
“I do. I understand. Gent is the one who kept me in this fold, and I didn’t really have a chance to say no either.” Not that he wanted to anymore, and it wasn’t fair to just say Colton and Gent were his only friends. Law and Mason were good guys, too, and they adored him and he loved them back.
But Colton and Gent had been the rock solid foundation for all of them.
“So, does the city own the house across the street?” He hadn’t known to ask at the archives, and, while he was totally going to ask on his next volunteer day, folks were a little grumpy at him.
Maybe it was just them being polite because he was pregnant and had almost passed out in the building…
“I don’t think so, because if it did, surely the little archives room would be in there, right?” Xander stirred and pursed his lips. “Let me call Xavi.” He grabbed his phone, put it on the counter, hit a button, and said, “Xavi, you’re on speaker.”
“Do you want another coffee already? That can’t be good for your omega. It’s going to give him a nasty tummy. Hi, Iago.”
“Hi, Xavi. That’s not why we’re calling, but thank you.” Xavi was really kind to him.
“Oh? What do you need?”
“You know that house across the street?” Xander started.
“You mean the not library?”
Xander shot Iago a confused look. “What?”
“Oh my God, you never pay attention to anything.” Iago could see Xavi rolling his eyes in his mind. “Okay, so the house across the street used to be owned by some mogul who was going to come up here and build some kind of ski lodge or something. He realized there’s no room to build a ski lodge—”
“Or something,” Xander mouthed, making him giggle.
“—and that we were just this tiny little town, so he sold it for like nothing to this guy who had won a bet or something. I don’t know, but this guy was a librarian, and he came in and was going to live here and start a public library.
At the time, the town council, they were old and bitchy, and this guy was our age, right?
This was ten years ago, and he was a kid, and they were just like, “no,” he said, “fine,” and so he just has this house.
He runs it through some management company from Secret Springs, and the guy won’t let anything else happen to it because he wants it to be a library. ”
That was a lot of information for a really simple question.
“Wow.” Xander seemed to agree with him. “That’s wild. I don’t remember that at all.”
“Well, you were kind of busy cooking at the truck stop over in Secret Springs at the time.”
“Yeah.” Xander got this fond expression on his face. “That was a good job. Shit drive.”
“Is this job better?”
“Oh, yeah. I love it here. It’s like cooking for family, you know?”
Iago grinned. “So, I need to find this librarian, Xavi. Do you have a name?”
“Ask Bastian.”
That was Xander’s and Xavi’s answer for a lot of questions, Iago noticed.
He got it. If it was techy and not cameras, his guys said, “Ask Iago.” research? Unless Colton or Gent had a contact, “Ask Iago.”
So, yeah. He got it.
“Okay. I’ll call. You need anything?” Xander asked Xavi.
“Just save me some cornbread and beans?”
“You got it buddy. Maybe tomorrow I’ll make poutine.”
“O-M-G, you’re the best. Love you.” Xavi hung up before they could answer.
Xander tapped a few more things on his phone, and it rang again. Xander moved to chop carrots, the knife banging out a rhythm.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Bastian. How do I get a hold of the librarian guy across the street?”
“Oh! Hank gave me his contact information when I lost it. Uh, I’ll send you a text with his card. Are you working, Iago? I thought you guys were taking time off.”
“Only while Xander is cooking. Then we’ll be off for a day and a half, at least.”
“Oh, good. You should totally be resting, having a good time, not stressing.” Bastian chuckled. “Anyway, I have his card around here somewhere. I’ll text you the info. He’s an interesting guy, that’s for sure.”
Iago’s head tilted, his attention caught. He did love an interesting guy story.
They often led to interesting spirit stories for the team to explore. “Yeah? How so?”
“Well, he was just so determined. He intended to have a library, and he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I mean, even when it meant that he wasn’t going to get to live in the house.”
Iago glanced at Xander, who shrugged. “I’m not sure I understand. Why couldn’t he live in his house?”
“Well, that’s sort of my point, right? I mean, it was his house. He could live in his house. He wanted to use the bottom floor as the library.”
“So why didn’t he?” That didn’t make any sense.
“The city said no.”
“So? Who not start a private lending library?” That would make more sense than just walking away.
“I don’t know. Like I said, I didn’t know him well. He was a character. Maybe he just wanted what he wanted. You know people that are like that, don’t you? If they don’t have what they want, then they don’t want what they have.”