1. Dec

Chapter one

Dec

(This job might actually be the right one for me)

T he last year has been a series of surreal moments for me. First The Magic Shop, then Ms. Cavenaugh's Academy for Butlers, then the internship, the interview, and now stepping out of the small airport in the middle of Colorado. The air is cool, and under the stink of airport pollution, it smells like the mountains. In the guest pick up lane, I search for and find the guy holding a sign with my name on it, standing in front of a hot pink muscle car with bright green racing stripes. It's... um... quite the sight.

I stop a few feet away, staring at the highly reflective surface of the passenger window. "I'm, uh, Dec Scion. Is this... real?" I stutter, not sure if I want to get into this bastion of pink. It cannot possibly be road safe, if only because it'll be a distraction to other drivers.

The guy beside me laughs. "It appeals to Maxime's need to stand out everywhere he goes."

Maxime Staiano, the person I now work for. He's... quirky. I loved him on sight because he is so much like my uncle. At the interview, he wore a yellow and green plaid top hat with a suit that wasn't the same pattern (but did complement it) and a bow tie/vest combo that was a similar plaid pattern but in green and yellow. He talked a lot about his massive model train collection and warned me that I wouldn't be allowed in his train room unless he was in there with me. He was interesting, charismatic, and likable. I don't mind not being allowed to see his model train collection.

Really, I don't. Butler's are not curious; they're well informed.

"That's... something." I don't know what else to say.

"I'm Ethan Staiano. Maxime is my uncle. He sent me to fetch you." Ethan has a weaselly face, and I'm sorry for saying that in my head, but it's true. Like, if he was being cast in a movie, he would be the friend that betrays the main characters, but we'd see him in the sequel being squirrely and helpful in order to get back into the main character's good graces, but obviously he'd betray them again. They'd forgive him, of course, and excuse his behavior as "antics," and we'd see him in the third "Prime Exclusive" movie. He'd literally be the only character to make it through twelve increasingly bad movies, and we'd watch every one of them for his character alone. That's the kind of face Ethan Staiano has. It's unfortunate, really, though I can't say he's unhandsome. He's fairly attractive, even with the narrow features.

It's a testament to how distracting the car is that I didn't immediately notice that Ethan dresses like a 1980's television detective from Florida. He layered a navy blue sport coat over a low cut V-neck baby blue t-shirt and a pair of slim fitting chinos that leave a rather impressive bulge. He even had his hair feather-cut like they did in the mid-twentieth century. He's got the Don Johnson vibe down to a T; the question is why?

Well, none of my business unless something about his style becomes relevant to my job.

Ethan helps me get my luggage into the back seat, then I sit next to him in the front. The inside is as pink as the outside, and somehow the man beside me fills up the space like it's as much a toy car as it looks on the outside. I didn't notice because of his face and the car, but he's really big. Huge. His shoulders are literally so broad that he's touching the door on his side and taking up all the space between our seats (not that there's much to take up). Our shoulders brush together when I sit centered, so I lean over to the side, and thankfully he doesn't seem to be offended that I'm putting space between us.

He drives normally as we get out of the airport, but as soon as we're on the highway, he speeds up way faster than I have ever comfortably gone in my life. He weaves through the traffic, only slowing down if there isn't space to squeeze through. It's terrifying until he turns on opera and blasts it like we're at a rock concert, then it's both terrifying and consummately cool. Like, how did I never know the joy of flying down the highway listening to La Traviata . It's such an extreme existential experience for me that it's a surprise when we slow down.

We've driven through mountain highways so far, but Ethan turns off the highway to take a lonely, mountain road. He hugs every curve like our life depends on it as he sings along with the tenor at the top of his lungs. My vision of the road blurs as I remember how my uncle loved this opera. I know every word and every note, but I'd never sing along like Ethan is. As much as my uncle loved it, I didn't want to ruin it for him with my inability to carry a tune in a bucket. Listening to Ethan, I'm glad I never even attempted. His voice is incredible. He could make opera his career if he was so inclined. Hell, maybe that is what he does for a living.

Midway up the mountain we've been climbing, Ethan pulls off the road and stops in front of a gated driveway. He clicks a button on the mirror of the car and pulls through the gate after it opens. The road takes us up a winding driveway through more mountainous forest. I was ok on the highway even though we were going way too fast, and I was alright on the mountain road because it wasn't too curvaceous, but the driveway is meant to be taken at half the speed we're going, and all the curves are sharp switchbacks. After a couple of minutes, my stomach protests and motion sickness sets in.

I hold on, checking to discover that he's not actually going that fast—the driveway is just that bad—and I try to focus on a single point. It works for about five minutes.

Dear lord in heaven, I'm going to puke.

"Stop!" I shout, lowering the volume on the radio to be heard. "Stop, stop, stop."

Ethan comes to a screeching halt, and I dive out of the car, hitting my knees at the edge of the asphalt and vomiting down the hill. There's not much other than water and crackers since I haven't eaten a meal in more than eight hours, but fuck, it's awful.

The car door closes behind me, and the scuff of Ethan's shoes alert me to his imminent approach. "Water," he tells me as a cold bottle smacks me in the shoulder.

I take the wet bottle, rinsing out my mouth and drinking a couple of swallows to help settle my stomach. Now that I'm not moving, I'm recovering, but I look up the road and I can't see anything to indicate this trip is going to end any time soon. "How far are we from the end?" I rasp.

"Depends on how fast I can go. I can get there in about twenty minutes, but if we go the recommended speed on this road, it's about forty."

So the weasel-face, opera-singing, speedster is going double the recommended speed. That tracks. I don't know why, it just does. It feels like that's the type of person he is. The type of person who drives too fast and listens to opera, and has a cooler for water somewhere in his car.

"So, sick for twenty or sick for forty..." Such a wonderful choice. "Can I walk?"

His laugh is just as weaselly as his face.

Ok, now I'm being unkind, and I mentally apologize to him.

"Not if you want to get there before sunset."

I'm going to want to die before this drive is over. Yay.

Standing, I brush the detritus off my jeans and take a deep breath. "Ok. I'll yell when I need to puke."

Ethan grimaces but indicates that he understands, and we get back on the road. This is absolutely not an omen of things to come.

I fall out of the car and drop to my knees as soon as Ethan parks in an underground garage. The last half an hour has been hell. We had to stop twice more before we got to a tunnel, which we entered and never exited. We drove for at least ten minutes in the tunnel (which was as unfortunately curvy as the open air roads) and it opened up to the parking garage we're in. Before he parked, I took in a collection of dozens of cars, almost all of which were some garish or flamboyant color like the hot pink car we drove in, but that's all I caught.

As soon as I catch my breath and my stomach stops gagging me like I have anything in it left to expel, I get back to my feet, looking around the parking garage. I think I underestimated how many cars were in here. They're organized by color, and we're in the pink section. There's a rainbow of colored vehicles in here, ranging from what looks like a lemon yellow model T to a sparkly superman blue Rolls-Royce.

I... I didn't think that Rolls-Royce would let someone paint one of their cars that color. It seems so wrong, but I guess maybe this is one of those things that you learn to ignore when you serve the extremely wealthy.

Ethan helps me get my luggage, and once I have it secured, he gives me a short verbal tour of the garage as he leads me through it to a door with a pin pad security lock. On the other side of the door is a vestibule with a pair of elevators.

Ethan inputs the code to the one on the right. "This is the elevator to the house. It goes between the house and the garage. The left one leads to the offices and labs. You will not have access to those."

I didn't realize that this was more than just a living space, but I suppose a lot of people live and work on the same property. If their business is something classified, I don't expect to have access to their work spaces, and I don't want to know. I'm a lot of things, and good at keeping my nose in my own business is one of them.

Yep. That's what I'm going to tell myself. Butlers are well informed, but they are never curious.

Dec Scion: totally boring and definitely not someone with a curious nature.

That's why I'm fine with never seeing the train room.

Yep.

The elevator takes us up, and it must be one of those super fast elevators, because it almost triggers my motion sickness again when we accelerate upwards. It opens to a bright foyer with floor to ceiling windows that look out over an expanse of lawn that I imagine it takes the gardener a full day to mow. Might even take a couple of mowers working together to get it mown. Beyond the lawn are hedges, and in small clusters scattered throughout the expanse are flowering bushes and decorative grasses. In the background of the picturesque landscaping, mountains rise up, snow-capped and beautiful on this sunny June day.

The foyer is covered in an assortment of tiles of various patterns that were shattered and put back together with gold like that Japanese pottery art, Kintsugi . It's shockingly beautiful, and such a flagrant display of wealth that I have to convince myself to actually walk on it. Ethan has no qualms about walking out of the elevator onto the gold floor, but he keeps walking without so much as a word.

I start following, but the click of heels behind me along with what sounds like the jingle of a collar and the clatter of dog nails on the tile has me looking over my shoulder. I turn to see Maxime—uh, Mister Staiano—striding toward me with a jaunty gait and a broad, welcoming smile, wearing a brightly-colored, floral-patterned suit with a matching top hat and bearing a cane that he certainly isn't using as a walking aid.

"Dec! You've finally arrived. Welcome, welcome. We are so very glad to have you at Chez Gargouille." The man greets me with an enthusiastic handshake, which his dog adds to by sniffing circles around me.

"Thank you, Mr. Staiano." As soon as he releases me, I lean down to give the dog a scratch. "Who is this lovely fella?" They're a beautiful, medium-size dog with a full, fluffy white coat and long floofy tail.

"Oh this is Mr. Simms. He's a Samoyed that I found wandering in a field full of wild goats in Maine. I rescued him and brought him home," Mr. Staiano says, proudly puffing up his chest.

Ethan snorts, startling me because I thought he'd walked on without us.

"You stole someone's herding dog."

Oh. That's not Ethan's voice. That voice is sexy and smooth like expensive tequila, but rich and deep like a well-aged whiskey.

Whew. Did someone just turn up the heat in here?

I turn, coming face to chest with a giant. Ok, that's not really fair. I'm shortish, and he's tallish, and I'm looking at his pecs, so he's only head and shoulders taller than me, but still. He's broad like Ethan is broad, except Ethan is standing with him and is comparatively smaller than this new man.

Unfairly, he's also stupidly handsome. Strong, clean-shaven jaw, straight nose that's neither too long or wide, and big dark eyes that appear black even in the bright light of the windows. His cupid's bow was made for staring at and lusting after, and—

Nope. No. I am not looking, thinking, or imagining anything at all.

Not that there's much left to the imagination. The guy's wearing beaded leather pants so soft and tight that I can see his dick print down his left leg (it's both impressive and intimidating—my ass is sore just glimpsing it). His shoulders are so broad that the vampire red peasant shirt he's wearing is fully open from his belly button, but it's still stretched taut at the shoulders, exposing his massive pecs and displaying the bars running through his rosy nipples.

God. Damn. He's hot.

No, Dec. You are not panting over your employer's hot... something.

"Thoren, meet Dec. He's our new butler!" Mr. Staiano exclaims, grabbing our wrists and bringing our hands together like we need prompting to shake hands.

Thoren's hand is warm and dry, and he barely squeezes mine before releasing me. "Good. We've been in need of help since we lost Arcan. When do you start?" He doesn't sound thrilled to meet me, but I guess that's expected. I'm just a domestic servant; I'm not here to become friends, and I am not disappointed about that.

I did have the impression that some families consider their domestic servants as a part of their wider family, but clearly that is not how Thoren plans to treat me. That's fine. I will probably do better with limited exposure to... all of that.

"We're going to let him get settled in today, and tomorrow he will start with Maggie," Mr. Staiano replies for me, clapping my back with a heavy, almost painful hand. Considering that he doesn't look much bigger than me, the painful hit surprises me. I will have to be careful about getting within range of his, uh, affection. He turns the hit into a shaking side-hug, smiling so happily that I forgive the pain from his hit. "We are so glad to have you, Dec. You're going to fit right in."

"Thank you," I stumble out, letting him shake my brain with his hug because he suddenly reminds me of my uncle again, and that makes me like him more than I already did.

Thoren arches a brow at me, and yeah, I understand, Dec isn't a common name. "Dec? Is that short for something?"

I give him a professional smile because there's no way I'm going to tell him my name unless absolutely necessary. "Of course it is."

He waits, expecting me to expound, but when I don't after too long, he almost smiles. "What is it short for?"

I blink at him, for some unknown reason feeling confident about defying him to his face even though that is not a personality trait I generally possess. "My mom was dyslexic and fumbled her chance to call me Cedric," I deadpan.

Mr. Staiano laughs at the blatant lie. "Come now, Thoren, Dec doesn't owe you his name. Come along, my boy, let me show you to your rooms. The kitchen is on the way; we can petition the chef for a snack."

I stifle a grin at Thoren's narrow-eyed glare and follow Mr. Staiano into the house proper.