“What the hell is that thing?” said Isaac.
Wielding my taser and ignoring him, I reached for the shower head. Would I get to experience a physical struggle with a ghost? Elliot would be sick with jealousy. But as I reached for the nozzle, the spray of water slowed, and by the time I picked it up, it was barely drizzling.
I gently hung it back up on the wall. Cold drips splashed onto my arm.
“Let’s get out of the bathroom,” I growled.
I turned around, and my jaw dropped. Vigilance turned to lust in a blazing hot second. I had known on some level that our resident shower-wielding ghost had gotten Isaac wet — I was wet too — but I hadn’t braced myself for how hot that Adonis would look all covered in water.
The dim lightbulb hanging from the bathroom ceiling caught tiny diamond droplets clinging to his body. His hair dampened into curly strings. For a moment, I almost forgot I was here to hunt ghosts. For a moment, I was just a man in a bathroom with another man, and we’ve all seen that porn.
I tried not to look at Isaac’s boxers. They clung to the outline of something it would not be at all professional to look at. My dick began to stiffen thinking about it.
No matter what effect Isaac had on me, I couldn’t stare. Sleeping with him was off the table — not only because our values were fundamentally incompatible, but because I had to focus on protecting him. My priority couldn’t be the sexy man in this room; it was the dangerous supernatural presence.
“I should get out of these boxers,” said Isaac. He peeled the hem of one leg away from his thigh. It slapped wetly back against his skin.
I almost groaned. “You’re going to take your boxers off here?”
“I’m going to take them off in the main room. Where my clothes are.”
“Right. That, uh… That makes more sense.” What was happening to my brain? It was literally melting in the presence of a hot guy. I needed to get laid.
When it was safe to leave the bathroom, and Isaac’s junk was covered up again, I rejoined him in the main room.
As well as putting on a new pair of cotton boxers, Isaac had donned a baggy, slightly ripped t-shirt. He was one of those rare men who looked as good dressed as he did naked. I staved off another surge of arousal and licked my lips. My mouth was bone dry.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” said Isaac. He laughed and tossed his glorious head of hair.
“I mean, are you okay? You were scared earlier, and-”
“This is an old place. There are issues with the plumbing.”
“Why does everyone always talk about plumbing?”
“I never should have called you,” Isaac continued. “I don’t believe in any of this stuff. I really, really don’t.” He said it too fervently. He was trying to convince himself, rewrite the recent past.
“You know, being a devout skeptic is just as bad as blindly believing in something.”
Isaac scoffed. “Not in my experience.”
“You told me you heard someone knocking on your door. How can plumbing knock on your door?”
“The sound must have been coming from somewhere else. I was tired. My ears were playing tricks on me.”
“And you said you felt something touch your shoulder.”
He paled slightly. “I have a vivid imagination.”
“Okay,” I said calmly. Trying to convince Isaac was going to be more trouble than it was worth. He was determined to ignore what was going on in his room. “Okay, let’s say everything that happened tonight was your imagination. And let’s say I’m a paranoid conspiracy theorist. Can you humor me and let me stay until daybreak?”
It was already almost five in the morning. He wouldn’t have to put up with me for long, but ghosts were always more active in the dark. I didn’t want to leave Isaac alone, unsafe, and — no matter what he protested — afraid.
“I don’t need you to babysit me,” he said. But I could see the relief in his eyes.”
“It would make me feel better, to know you’re safe,” I said.
Isaac shrugged. “I guess. If it would make you feel better.”
I grinned. I almost had to admire his stubbornness. He took the bed, and I lowered myself into the seat across from him. When I sat down, Hannibal bolted away from me.
“You can share the bed with me if you want to rest,” said Isaac tentatively.
I couldn’t begin to imagine what a bad idea that would be. “I’d rather watch over you.”
Chapter Seven
Isaac
I managed to sleep with Roman watching over me from the other side of the room. In fact, it was easier to rest with him there. I felt safe for a change. Protected.
The last thing I thought before I drifted off was that I needed to nip this in the bud.
I got almost six hours of sleep. That was excellent for me, even on a well-lit night when ghost stories weren’t echoing through in my head.
I stretched until my bones cracked into place. Hannibal glared at me from his spot on my chest. I cringed. Hannibal was attached to his schedule. If I was late with breakfast, he would snub me all day.
“I can’t feed you until you get off my chest,” I told him.
“Is that so?” said a low voice.
I sat up so fast Hannibal almost fell off me. He would have if he hadn’t dug his claws into my flesh. I winced and carefully extracted him from my bare chest.
Roman met my eyes. He was cramped in my too-small chair, scratching notes into a pad of paper. He mustn’t have slept — had he moved a muscle during the night? — but he looked as alert as he had in the middle of the night. Just as gorgeous. It was unfair that anyone could look so sexy in cargo pants. If that were me, I would have looked like I was going to a costume party, but Roman could have taken my breath away in a burlap sack. I couldn’t help staring at the green crystal hanging on a chain around his neck — or rather, it drew my eyes to the hair-dusted dip between his pecs.
“You’re still here,” I said, tearing my eyes away from his body and back to his face. I sounded surprised to my own ears.
“I wanted to check you were okay,” said Roman.
I couldn’t stand this tenderness. I had dismissed everything Roman said and stood for, but he treated me with kindness and care. I couldn’t understand him. “I’m fine,” I said. “Last night was a fluke, I-”
“I know you don’t believe in ghosts,” said Roman.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “I don’t. So, you should probably leave.”
“I was thinking…”
I scratched my back and clambered out of bed to get the cat food. My legs buckled, body not entirely awake. “You were thinking?” I yawned. “This is going to be good.”
“Do you want to help me with my investigation into the Cressley Hotel?”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard properly. The words coming out of Roman’s mouth didn’t make any sense. “What?”
“Do you want to help me with my investigation into the Cressley hotel?”
“That’s what I thought you said. Have you decided to employ my psychic skills?” I cracked my knuckles. “Give me a minute to put on my flower crown.”
Roman actually snorted. “Not in a million years. But as long as you insist on living here, I have to insist that you stay safe. You can either stand in my way or you can help me.”
I dished up a generous helping of kibble into Hannibal’s bowl. He started crunching it down before I’d even finished pouring the food. “Why would I help you catch ghosts I don’t believe in?”
“I didn’t ask you to help me catch ghosts. I asked you to help me investigate.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “If I’m not hunting ghosts, what am I investigating?”
“You can investigate whatever you want. You can solve those murders from the 70s, if you want. Or you can investigate the plumbing.” A slight smirk played over his lips. “Prove me wrong.”
I considered Roman’s offer. It wasn
’t the kind of excitement I expected when I moved back to Seattle, but it was tickling my appetite for adventure. As long as I was planning to stay in room 1405, and Roman was planning to keep protecting me… Well, I hadn’t had the opportunity to do something this wild in ages.
“Will I get paid for this?” I asked.
“I don’t even get paid for this,” said Roman.
I shrugged. “I’ll guess do it anyway.”
Roman looked taken aback. “I thought it would be harder to convince you.”
“Why would I pass up the opportunity to prove you wrong?”
Roman examined my face with painful scrutiny. “You’re quite confrontational, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “It’s one way to stay alive.” Start a fight before your opponent gets the upper hand.
He cleared his throat. “If we’re going to be working together, there are some things we need to discuss-”
“Woah there,” I said. “I get to ask questions first. For all I know, you could have been the murderer all along.”
“The first murder was before I was born.”
“You could be a different murderer.”
“Why would you let me sleep in your room if you think I’m a murderer?”
“Maybe I have a death wish.”
Roman narrowed his eyes. “Don’t say that. What do you want to know about me?”
“What year were you born, if you weren’t around in 1972?”
“I’m twenty-four.”
“You’re younger than me?” He seemed much older.
“If you’re older than twenty-four, I’m younger than you,” he confirmed.
“I’m twenty-six.”
“So this question thing goes both ways?” asked Roman.
I grinned. “If you want to make sure I’m a fine and upstanding citizen worthy of your protection, you’re out of luck, I’m afraid.”
His eyes softened. “You’re worthy of my protection, no matter who you are.”
I laughed because I didn’t know what to say. I still wasn’t used to Roman’s tenderness. “So what do you want to know?”
“Why are you staying at the Cressley Hotel?”
Easy. “It’s cheap.”
“Why are you staying in a dingy hotel though? Where were you living before now?”
“My ex kicked me out.” I didn’t give him many details.
Roman winced. “Sorry.”
“Honestly, homicidal ghosts make better roommates.” I paused. Now I wanted to ask about him. Find out who he was underneath all that armor and ill-fitting gentleness. “Are you gay?” I asked.
He stared at me, open-mouthed. “That’s personal.”
“I answered your question.”
“Yes, Isaac. I’m gay. Is that a problem for you?” He met my eyes with a challenge in his own.
“No, no problem at all.” I grinned. “I date guys, too. Are you seeing anyone?”
“That’s personal.”
His non-answer ground my nerves. “I’m just making conversation.”
“I thought you were good at reading people. You should be able to tell me.”
“I am good at reading people.” I made my living out of it. “You’re hard to read.”
When I met Roman, I thought he could have been the kind of Youtube ghostbuster who would fall for my medium act. I’d been wrong. When I called him last night, I felt sure he would rub my fear in my face. I’d been wrong. And now he was surprising me again.
I wasn’t used to being surprised by men.
“How long were you planning to stay here?” asked Roman. “Paranormal activity notwithstanding.”
That depended on when I found somewhere new to live. The rates were cheap at the Cressley. As long as business stayed good, I could live here indefinitely. “I’m staying until I find somewhere better.”
“So if you find a good enough place... You’ll move?” His eyes glinted as though he had an idea.
“I guess. If I find the right place.” An unlikely occurrence, given my credit rating and lack of real employment.
A bright grin split Roman’s face in two. “I know the perfect place.”
***
My mother always told me not to get into cars with strange men, but she also ordered me not to get into bed with any men. I never listened.
Still, I felt edgy as I opened the passenger-side door of Roman’s SUV.
“Are you overcompensating for something?” I asked lightly. I had to hoist myself into the passenger seat as though I was getting on a horse.
“Elliot bought me the car.”
“The same Elliot that made you the ghost taser? Is he your supernatural sugar daddy or something?”
Roman fixed me a serious look. “I told you before. Elliot is my partner. We’re going to visit him now.”
“I thought we were going to find me a new place to live?”
“We are.”
If this Elliot guy had bought Roman a car, he clearly had money. Did Roman want him to buy me a house? That seemed excessive, even for Roman.
As we skidded down the highway and out of the city, my hackles rose. I had only just gotten back into Seattle; I didn’t want to leave already.
“How far away does Elliot live?”
“He lives about fifteen minutes out of town,” said Roman. “How much do you remember about what I told you?”
“What you told me about what?” I was barely listening to him. I stared out the window at the rain. Heavy water droplets splashed down onto the road and bounced back up in a fine mist. Everything outside was grey.
In the car, it was warm and bright. Having Roman beside me made it seem warmer and brighter.
“If you’re going to help me investigate the Cressley, you need to know its history,” said Roman.
“I know a few people got stabbed.” I shrugged. I’d already forgotten everything I learned about the Cressley’s sordid history. Until now, I hadn’t thought there was any use listening to Roman.
Now…
Now he wanted me to work with him?
Roman listed off dates and times and theories that scrambled in my head. I was terrible with numbers, but I framed the information into an Isaac-friendly outline. I would try to keep the details in my mind this time. I was a co-ghost hunter now, wasn’t I?
The first death on the fourteenth floor had been a brutal axe murder and the second death was ruled a suicide. But the Cressley’s dark history got its footing in the 70s, when a woman named Barbara Hennessey was strangled and stabbed to death. After that, there was a stabbing every few years. The events Roman described didn’t scream ‘ghosts’ to me. They made me think of a serial killer.
Roman’s theory was that the ghost used to be a serial killer. Even though I thought he was talking shit, I enjoyed listening to it. The passion in his voice lured me into listening to every word he said.
After the mid-nineties, the stabbings stopped, only to be replaced by different kinds of mysterious deaths. Since 1997, the fourteenth floor of the Cressley had seen its fair share of deadly falls down stairs, stabbings, and nighttime suffocations.
A few months ago, there had been another stabbing in the room I currently called my home. I had to admit, it was unsettling.
But it was an unsettling coincidence.
Roman continued speaking. “I expect other, innocuous supernatural activity has gone unreported. No one ever tells me they think they’ve seen a ghost. They’re scared that will make them as crazy as I am.” He glanced across at me with a small smile. “Aside from old Mr. Partridge, you’re the only one who’s actually used my business card.”
I flushed scarlet. Other people had withstood what I went through in that room without resorting to calling Roman? What was wrong with me? I used to be tough.
“My imagination got away from me,” I said.
“I think there’s a part of you that’s starting to believe me.” Roman spoke, as always, with complete confidence.
I rolled my eyes. “The
re is not.”
“You’re interested.”
I rolled my eyes. The only part of my body interested in Roman was tucked safely away in my pants.
We finally parked up a long driveway, in front of a mini-mansion with a large, overgrown lawn.
“This is your friend’s house?” I gaped at it.
“Elliot is wealthy.”
“I can see that. What is he, some sort of high-level dealer?”
Roman furrowed his brow. “He’s a dentist.”
I’d heard dentistry was a lucrative career, but damn. This reminded me of visiting Sasha’s friends. My skin prickled. I didn’t like Sasha’s friends.
“Let me do most of the talking,” said Roman as we got out of the door. “Elliot doesn’t like strangers, so he might interrogate you. Don’t take it personally.”
I laughed nervously. The front door to Elliot’s house was large and strikingly white. How did it stay so clean amid all the dirty rainwater around these parts? I couldn’t even get away with wearing pale pants.
Roman knocked twice rapidly, took a pause, rapped three times rapidly again, and then two times slowly. I glanced him a question.
“Elliot won’t come to the door for everyone,” Roman explained.
“Interesting guy.” I wasn’t sure what to expect from this paranoid, rich dentist. Surely, if Roman trusted him, he couldn’t be that bad… But then, Roman was acting like he trusted me. He mightn’t be the best judge of character.
The door opened.
Before I ran away from Utah, my parents had taken me to the dentist a few times. All the dentists I’d met were balding, old white men. Elliot was white as well, but he had a good head of thick brown curls, and he couldn’t have been much older than me. He was lanky, almost-but-not-quite weedy. His dark eyes darted rapidly from Roman to me and back again. I straightened up under his scrutiny.
“Come in,” he said at last. His voice was pitched higher than I expected, tinted with flamboyance I didn’t anticipate. He tousled his hand through his hair as he stepped aside to let us inside.
Inside was dim thanks to all the blinds being pulled down. Piles of old newspapers, books, and magazines were stacked on every table cluttering the house. I scanned my eyes over them. A copy of Modern Paranormal from 1989. A book called Unexplained Mysteries of the 18th Century. A bunch of scrapbooks full of newspaper clippings about UFO sightings — a bunch more about ghost encounters.
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