“GOTTA GET outta here,” I mumble, staggering to my feet. My knee buckles, sharp pain shooting up my leg and into the bruised joint. Genesis catches me midfall.
“We’re going,” she says softly, soothingly. Her arm wraps around my waist. With my greater height and weight, I nearly take both of us down, but somehow we remain standing.
Out on the lake, that soft glow returns, the one I saw the night of my crash, at the dead center.
Oh, great choice of imagery, Flynn.
I shake my head and the world rocks. Really regretting all that wine. Gen snags the picnic basket with her free hand, and we make for the car. I keep my eyes forward, not looking at the lake or the light or anything but the path. Gen glances back, almost tripping twice in her attempts to watch for the ghost’s return. Chills run up and down my arms, raising goose bumps in their wake. The shaking doesn’t let up. I can’t focus, can’t think. The trees, the dirt road, they all blur. I tunnel on the Charger, parked and waiting.
Genesis eases me into the passenger seat, buckling my seat belt like she would a child’s. Part of me wants to push her away, but I can’t make my body do what I want it to. “What’s… wrong with me?” I manage through chattering teeth.
“Shock, I think,” she says, sliding in on the driver’s side. She starts the engine, the powerful V8 roaring to life, and casts a glance sideways at me. “This has happened before?”
“Later, Gen. Just get me home.”
Home meaning her place. I’ve never referred to it that way before, and the hint of a smile touches her lips despite my current condition. Damn, I’m really out of it. She’s wanted me to move in with her for a while now, but I won’t. I can’t afford half her rent. I can’t afford a third, and I don’t feel right moving in with her at this stage when I can’t pull my own weight.
I’m aware of her talking on her cell as she drives, and I want to tell her to hang it up. She didn’t drink as much as I did because I was nervous about the public setting, and she seems pretty clear-headed, but I know I wouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel, ghost or no ghost.
We make it downtown without crashing, and Gen pulls the Charger into a space behind the Village Pub. Chris waits for us out back, and I realize that’s who she called on the cell. Heat creeps into my face. I’m closer to Chris than to my construction crew, but he still feels like one of the guys and generally accepts me as such in return. Seeing me like this will change the nature of a friendship I like just the way it is. “You had to tell him?”
Gen shrugs, unrepentant. “I can’t get you up the stairs by myself.”
“I can walk.” Probably not. But I’ll haul myself hand over hand along the metal banister if it means one less moment of humiliation.
“Sure you can.” She pats my leg above my sore knee. “Let us help you, anyway.”
I think I growl at her. I’m not sure. The door opens, and Chris crouches by my side and peers into my face. I can only imagine how I must look.
Has to have been a hallucination. All that wine, or maybe I hit my head when I fell at the site and didn’t realize it.
Except Gen saw it too.
“Shit, Flynn, you look like hell.”
As I figured. “With pickup lines like that, it’s no wonder I’m gay.”
That earns me a laugh, but it fades when he pulls me up, my injured knee buckles again, and I stumble into him. His forehead creases with worry. “How do you feel about me carrying you?”
My expression must speak for me.
“Right. I’ll take one arm. Gen, take the other one.”
They throw my arms over their shoulders. I’m not sure how we climb the stairs, but a couple of long, painful minutes later, we stand in Genesis’s apartment. In my drunken, screwed-up state, her flowery incense makes my head spin. Chris aims me at the Laura Ashley couch, but Gen draws me toward her bedroom.
“Drop her there and I’ll never get her up again. Put her in my bed,” she instructs.
He does it, setting me down on the edge, removing my work boots, and lifting my legs onto the peach-colored sheet. Gen joins us with a towel wrapped around what I assume to be ice. Chris turns away while she unfastens my belt and eases my jeans over my hips and then off. She pulls the comforter, folded neatly at the foot of the bed, up to my waist.
“Let’s take a look at those ribs.” Gen tugs my shirt up to just beneath my breasts. Chris switches on the bedside lamp, chasing away whatever might be hiding in the shadows. Her sharp intake of breath tells me how bad it is.
Chris lets out a low whistle. “Should’ve iced that down sooner.”
I crane my neck to get a glimpse of purpling bruises crisscrossing the right side of my rib cage. My knee is probably worse.
“It was dark,” Gen says, “and of course, she downplayed everything.”
“She would,” Chris agrees.
“Still here,” I remind them both, and wish I were anywhere else. I don’t do helpless. I don’t do scared. Right now, I’m the poster child for both.
“In body if not in spirit,” Gen says.
I clench my muscles to suppress a shiver. “Don’t say spirit.” Rolling away from them, onto my good side, I let them place the towel-wrapped ice on the bruising. I almost manage not to groan. Almost.
“Yeah, about that—” Chris begins, but Genesis cuts him off.
“Thanks for the help, big brother, but I can take it from here.”
I press my face further into the pillow, not looking at either of them. The bed cushions my weary muscles. The alcohol fogs my brain. If not for the shaking, I could fall asleep right now.
Their footsteps recede as they leave the room. For a panicked moment, I’m tempted to call Gen back to me. I don’t want more babying, but under no circumstances do I want to be alone. I clamp my jaw shut. Their voices carry from the living room, hushed words I can’t comprehend. Then the front door opens and shuts.
The side of the bed sinks as Gen sits next to me. She nudges me over with her hip and lies down, pulling my head against her shoulder and putting an arm around me. I take a deep breath of her perfume and that Ocean Breezes shampoo she uses. When I continue to tremble, she pulls the quilt higher over us both.
“It’s okay, Flynn. It’s going to be okay.”
I nod, but I don’t mean it. Nothing about this is okay. Nothing at all.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had the Sight?”
“I didn’t know I had it.”
“But you said this happened before.”
I don’t want to talk about it, but she won’t let it go. This is her world, her area of expertise. If I examine myself closely enough, I’m relieved to share it with someone after all this time, someone who’ll believe every word.
Haltingly at first, I relate my nine-year-old self’s encounter with my grandmother’s spirit. Before I know it, the words pour out, tumbling over one another in their haste to get free.
She strokes my shoulder and arm while I speak, the other hand combing through the tangled strands of my ponytail. When I finish, we lie in silence for a long time.
“That must have been terrifying,” she finally says.
“Didn’t sleep for a week. Had nightmares for months.” I wouldn’t have admitted that to anyone but Gen.
She stiffens beneath me. “That’s why you won’t let me read for you.”
“Yeah. Don’t invite evil in and all that.” I regret the words the minute they leave my mouth, but I can’t take them back.
“It’s not evil. I don’t work with evil.” Her tone is fierce. “It’s just death.”
Just death. Right. No big deal. For her. “I know. Sorry.”
Her tension eases. “Better than what I thought before, though.” Gen touches my cheek. “I always worried you were secretly laughing at me, that you refused because you felt what I do is silly, but you liked me, so you stuck around.”
It takes effort to sit up, twist, and look at her, but I do it. The towel of ice falls onto the bed as I take her hands in mine and face her head-on. “Never. I’ve never believed that. I respect what you do. I just didn’t… don’t… want it for myself.”
“I don’t think you have a choice.” Gen frowns, thinking hard. “People usually fall into three categories: the total nulls who see nothing, the psychics who see plenty—and there’s a wide range of those: witches and healers, mediums and walkers, channelers, potion masters, and every combination thereof. And last come the sensitives who get touched by the spirit world on rare occasions—by loved ones or others close to them who have some last words or an important message. I think you’re the last sort, which is good, because it means you shouldn’t have to deal with this often, but…. Did you know the woman at the lake?”
“Actually,” I say, swallowing hard, “I think I might have.” I tell her about the familiarity, that odd sense I had when I saw her. “But she was so far away….”
“I didn’t get a good look either,” Gen admits.
“Well, I suppose we could—” A huge yawn cuts me off, stretching my jaw until it audibly cracks.
“Tomorrow.” Gen pulls me back down beside her. “Sleep, Flynn. Saturday’s your day off, right? Sleep in. Sleep late. I’ve got a couple of morning appointments, but we shouldn’t bother you from the living room.”
She strokes my hair again. The blurry red numbers on the nightstand alarm clock read 12:47. Weights pull at my eyelids.
“Sleep,” she murmurs.
I sleep.
And wake in a cold sweat, shaking from unremembered nightmares about an hour later. And an hour after that. And an hour after that.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Fuck.
Memories of my childhood resurface with a vengeance: worried mother, missed school, the psychologist’s office. Even without admitting to ghosts, after the funeral incident, they all knew I’d suffered some kind of additional trauma and had no idea how to fix me.
Exhausted, embarrassed, and desperate, I accept one of Gen’s heavy-duty sleeping pills. Fifteen minutes later, it grabs my consciousness and drags it into the abyss.
AT SOME point, the quilt has been kicked or pulled away, leaving my legs bare, my plain cotton undershorts the only thing between me and the cool air of the bedroom.
Smooth fingertips trail along the inside of my thighs, sliding up and down both of them and winding in intricate swirls. Every nerve ending responds, muscles quivering with each teasing touch. My breath leaves my lungs in a shuddering exhalation.
Warm lips follow the strokes, a tongue darting out to tickle me almost senseless. I’m wet in seconds, the fabric clinging to my center, my hips shifting in anticipation, but each time the touches move close to where I want them most, they dart away, increasing the heat of my arousal.
Just as I open my eyes, something falls across them, rough and a touch damp—the towel, ice long melted away. I chuckle at the makeshift blindfold. If Gen wants to play that game, I’ll be a willing participant.
I’m at the mercy of my lover—a heady sensation. A nice switch. Our moment on the picnic table aside, I usually take the lead in our lovemaking. This is an interesting change of pace. And besides, it’s just a dream, right?
I reach out with my arms, but she pulls away and I wrap them around empty space. They fall limply to my sides.
A hand cups my backside, lifting me to slip my underwear off. I hear it fall to the carpeting by the bed.
We’re safe and hidden here in her apartment, here in the dream. No need to be shy, so I let her part my legs, and I wait.
I’m not kept waiting long.
Instead of fingers, I feel her mouth, teasing, tickling, tongue darting but never quite penetrating. Remembering the comment about thin walls and nosy neighbors like her brother, my dream self keeps my moans low, but they’re rhythmic and constant, hips undulating, back arching to press myself harder against her lips.
The bed creaks with my urgent motion. I’m losing this battle fast. She says not a single word, but blows softly across my center until I beg her not to stop.
Part of me feels a little guilty. Even in a dream, I should do something for her in return, but the pleasure of an orgasmic wave quickly erases that guilt.
Wipes it off the fucking planet, in fact.
Neighbors or no neighbors, I scream. Loudly.
THE SHUTTING of the apartment’s front door brings me back to reality. The reality of a silent room.
I reach up and remove the towel from my eyes. The brightness startles me, midmorning sunlight streaming around the edges of the magnolia-covered window curtains. And no one, absolutely no one else is there.
The bedroom door opens and Gen rushes in. She stares, first at me lying spread-eagle, naked from the waist down, then at my discarded underwear on the floor.
My heart rate picks up. My underwear. On the floor. Not a dream. It wasn’t a dream.
And I was alone.
My eyes dart back to the closed window curtains. Second floor. No balcony. Only one door leading in or out, and Gen stands in that doorway, so no one else came through there.
“Flynn, seriously, were you just….” She trails off, a blush turning her cheeks bright red.
Oh my God, she thinks I was…. “No.” I swing my legs off the bed, snatch up my undershorts, and yank them on. A hickey rises on the inside of my left thigh, purple darkening to a deep shade. I fixate on it, Gen following my gaze and sucking in a sharp breath. No way I did that to myself. I might have been a gymnast in high school, but it would have taken a circus contortionist to pull that off.
Not a dream. Not a dream. Not a dream, a panicked voice in my head echoes. I am so not dealing with this. Not right now.
My jeans and boots follow, each piece of clothing taking the brunt of my anger while I snap and button and fasten.
Gen says nothing, watching me.
I stomp my way to the living room and freeze.
Candles flicker, decorating the coffee table, the end tables. Two rest in holders on the floor, beside throw pillows and neatly laid-out tarot cards. The candles have been burning awhile, judging from the amount of liquid wax; the cushions bear indentations where two people recently sat—Genesis, and—
I drop my eyes, focusing on the scuffed tops of my shoes. “Please, please tell me that wasn’t a client I heard leaving.”
She wraps her arms around me, but I twist away, unable to deal with anyone’s touch right now.
“I told her the noise was newlyweds next door. Actually, I thought it was the newlyweds next door or I would have been in there much faster.”
She must mean her left-side neighbors, because Chris lives to the right. God, I hope he’s at work.
“She bought it. She left because we were done, not because of you. Geez, Flynn, what the hell went on in there?”
“I don’t know. I need to leave.” I head for the entry, but she skirts around me, blocking my path.
“Dammit, talk to me. If what just happened is what I think just happened, you’ve got bigger problems than seeing a ghost at the lake.”
My hands fist at my sides. If this were anyone but Gen in front of me, I would shove her aside. “Someone was there. In your room. In your bed. With me. She—” I pause, wondering how I know the presence was female, but it was. I’m sure of it. “I swear, I thought it was you. I never would have let… I mean… you’re the only one I want to be…. Shit.” Because I really let myself get caught up in it. I almost never allow myself that kind of… expressiveness, even with Genesis.
She reaches out, almost touching me, but thinks better of it. My heart sinks. How many ways can I screw up this relationship in a couple of days?
“I’m not worried about you cheating. I’m worried about invasive spirits. I’m worried about you being raped.”
That word strikes like a slap in the face. I suck in a sharp breath. The walls close in; the potpourri chokes me. “Leaving. Now. Move.”
She moves. “You shouldn’t be alone,” Gen says, but she doesn’t stop me again.
Throwing open her door, I go.