by S. E. Harmon
All the questions coursing through my mind made my head hurt.
“Rain?” Danny’s tone was patience personified. “You should probably say something now.”
“We don’t even have any peanut butter,” I blurted.
“Okaaay.” He squinted at me. “I should’ve been more specific. You should probably say something that makes sense now.”
Well, if my brain cells would fucking hold hands, I would. “I just… we’re not even married.”
He turned into a painting—Daniel McKenna, Still Life. I didn’t blame him. We didn’t have to be married to have kids. Some families did the co-parenting thing, and when they did it well, it was pretty amazing. But marriage wasn’t just a piece of paper to me. It represented a level of commitment. I blushed, almost embarrassed by old-fashioned ideals I hadn’t even known I had.
“So… what are you saying?” he asked. “You want to get married?”
I stared at him for a few wordless moments, wondering how we’d gotten here so quickly and why the hell it was so flipping hot in here all of a sudden. I cleared my throat when the silence went on a little too long. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
“Well, maybe you should.”
“And you have?” I frowned at him. “I mean, come on, D. Don’t just put this all on me. Don’t act like you’re all in and I’m just dragging my heels.”
His mouth tightened, and he got out of bed. I was left standing there as he brushed by me and walked over to the dresser. I watched, nonplussed, as he pawed through his underwear drawer. And I was only sidetracked by his perfectly shaped butt only a teeny bit. Those muscular globes flexed, and I allowed myself one more long look before getting back to the subject at hand.
“What are you looking for?” I demanded. And what’s so bloody important that you can stop reaming me out for not thinking about our future?
He made a sound of satisfaction as he pulled something out of the drawer. Before I could even ask, he flipped it my way. I caught it instinctively, bobbling it in my hands for a few seconds. When I was sure I wouldn’t drop it, I looked down at the box in my hands… the small, velvet box.
My heart actually stuttered in my chest. I only hoped if I had a heart attack, he’d remember to put some pants on me before calling the paramedics.
“Open it,” he said.
I flipped open the box to find a ring, silver in color with a matte, brushed finish. It was gorgeous and simple and just my taste. I knew it would be a perfect fucking fit because that’s just the way Danny rolled. I looked up at him dumbly.
His voice was soft. “I’ve thought about it, Rain. I’ve thought about it a lot.”
“When did you….” I couldn’t seem to finish a complete thought, and I tried again. “When did you?”
“Before you left for DC. I mean it now even more, if possible.”
Christ. He obviously didn’t care if I ever had another coherent thought again. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“You wanted to go.” He furrowed his brow. “I figured it would’ve been wrong to try to force you to stay.”
His phone rang on the dresser and we both stared at it, so lost in our conversation that reality was an almost vulgar intrusion. The loud ringing stopped and the call went to voicemail. Before I could speak, the ringing started again.
He swore loudly as he grabbed it and answered gruffly. “McKenna.”
I had no idea what he said after that, mostly because I was staring down at the ring again. He’d had the ring for five years, then. Five fucking years. All this time, I’d been blaming him for not being all in when I was the one who needed to get myself together.
I closed the ring box and clenched it in my fist.
“We have to table this discussion,” he said when he hung up. He went back to the dresser again and this time came out with a pair of jeans and a shirt. “That was my mom.”
I watched him getting dressed, still trying to switch gears. It took me a few seconds to process what he said. “Paula?”
“That would be my mom, yes,” he said dryly. “A piece of the roof came down in the middle of the dining room.”
I widened my eyes. “Good God, is she okay?”
“Yeah, she wasn’t even home. Uncle Charlie’s over there already and I want to give him a hand.”
I snorted. “Yeah, you guys did a real bang-up job last time.”
He sent me a sizzling glare as he pulled on his jeans. “Things were a little more complicated than we originally thought. Uncle Charlie’s bringing a helper who used to work with him in construction.”
That just showed how unsettled I was—I couldn’t even think of one “three idiots on a roof” joke. I stood there like a lump on a log as he finished getting dressed. He had to walk around me no less than three times before he disappeared into the bathroom. I was still standing there when he flipped off the bathroom lights and came back in the bedroom, his hair now neatly tamed.
He gave me a concerned look as he pocketed his keys and phone. “You sure you’re okay?”
I bobbed my head like a puppet with a broken string. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
“Because you’re standing naked in front of the window, and your parents are outside, gardening.”
I whipped around, only to find my mother mid wave. I scuttled off like a crab to the corner of the room, my cheeks heated. “You could’ve said something,” I said exasperatedly.
“I just did.” He approached me carefully in my corner like I was a spooked horse. He skewered me with a painfully perceptive gaze. “Look, this conversation wasn’t meant to pressure you. I just thought it would be good to talk about everything. Get it all out in the open.”
“No, I… yeah,” I finished weakly. “Totally agree.”
“Did I throw too much at you all at once?”
“No… I, uh… no.”
I hadn’t been this incoherent since the time the team took me out for birthday drinks and karaoke. I sang “I Will Always Love You” with an equally drunk Kevin, and yes, we tried to hit all the high notes.
Feeling too exposed with him staring at me like a bug under glass, I waved a hand lamely. “You know, I have a session with Dakota soon.” We both glanced at the clock on the dresser. Neither of us commented on the fact that my session wasn’t for another three hours. “I should probably shower.”
“Okay,” he said slowly. “I’ll be back in a little while. Since I don’t have time for the crockpot thing, maybe we can go out to dinner.”
I nodded. I made a good show of standing in front of the closet, deciding what I was going to wear… at least until he called out goodbye and the front door slammed. As the sound of his engine faded away, I sat on the edge of the bed. It was only then that I realized my fist was still clenched around the ring box.
I flipped the box open and stared at the band. I was glad Danny had been in too much of a rush to take it back. Although he wasn’t a forgetful person by nature. Maybe he left the ring on purpose, just to give me something tangible to look at while I thought about it. If that was the case, it was an unnecessary measure; I couldn’t stop thinking about it. What do you say to a man who’s wanted to marry you for five fucking years?
I plucked the ring from its velvet bed and slipped it on my finger. As predicted, it was a perfect fit.
You say yes.
Chapter 22
I’d come to look forward to my Saturdays with Dakota. Cool, collected, and logical behavior was discouraged, which made our sessions an excellent way to let off some steam. Generally, I let him pick the venue, and he always opted for something where we could commune with nature. We talked about all things kooky and ghost-related and it was something of a relief.
Until today.
I hopped up on the surfboard, planting my feet as Dakota had instructed me to do. He kept telling me to channel my inner core. I did a mental body check and shook my head despairingly. I was pretty sure my inner core was made of marshmallow fluff.
“Again,” I said, going back down on my stomach.
He let out an exasperated laugh from his position, cross-legged in the sand. “God, you’re such an irritating perfectionist.”
“Well, I don’t think the waves are going to be quite as accommodating as the sand in the art of not killing me,” I informed him. “Now show me again.”
“You’re on your own,” he said, waving a hand. “I told you that you’re ready.”
He’d lost a lot of ground with this surfing shit. I should’ve known better. When someone begins a phone call with the word “brah,” you hang up immediately, and when that person also tells you to meet him at the beach and “don’t bring a thing,” you say no. Despite my better judgment, I’d thrown on some hideously orange, flower-patterned board shorts and headed down to the beach near Lighthouse Point.
I was relieved to have something to think about other than the ring Danny had given me. Technically it wasn’t mine, so I didn’t feel right wearing it. After all, he hadn’t really asked me yet. I hadn’t wanted to put it away, either. In the end, I’d threaded it onto the same cord as my pendant. Dakota’s eyebrows had gone up when he saw it, but he only smiled.
I continued to practice hopping up on the board in the sand. I felt—and probably looked—like an idiot, but I wasn’t getting out in the water until I was satisfied with my form. While I practiced, Dakota got back to his topic.
“I think eventually you’ll be able to control your channels, but you’ve got to be patient. You’ve been very careful about tamping down your abilities your whole life because you thought it was abnormal. Strange.” He leaned back on his elbows. Even though he was more fair-skinned than a vampire, he swore up and down he never burned. “You can’t just call on it now and expect everything to work perfectly.”
I grunted as I went flat on the board again. “But it all boils down to our symbiotic transfer of electrochemical energy with the earth.”
“Yes and no. For years, ghost hunters used Einstein’s theory of energy to prove the existence of ghosts.” He shrugged. “If we’re made of energy that can neither be created nor destroyed, then when we die, that energy must remain.”
“But scientists came up with a good rebuttal to that argument,” I said. “When we die, our energy is released in the form of heat and absorbed into the environment. Dead bodies are eaten by worms and bacteria, then something comes along to eat the worm, etcetera, etcetera.”
“That was plausible until I met you. Your very existence as a medium blows that explanation out of the water.” He pushed glasses up on his nose. “Scientists may not ascribe to the theory of ghosts, but when we die, we now know that electrochemical traces linger behind.”
Just call me a real life Myth Buster. “The real question is why do some ghosts try to gather more than their share of that electrochemical energy?”
“I assume it requires a lot of it to break through metaphysical barriers. If they can’t make it, then they need to gather it,” he said. “Quantum physicists have all sorts of scientific quanta regarding universal energy—”
“The Photoelectric effect,” I broke in, rising on my board again as I warmed to the topic. “String theory. Bohr’s model. Even quantum entanglement itself—”
“Directing this energy is key. Once you know where it is and how to find it, you can grab hold of it and control the flow.”
“As a conductor.”
“You should probably start off as a vessel,” he suggested. “Open yourself up to the transmission of information and close yourself off when you’re ready.”
“That’s in theory, though.” My experience merging with Joseph was never far from my mind. “When I’m open and receiving energy, what if the ghosts try to take me to a dark place?”
“You can’t follow.”
“What if I don’t have a choice?”
“You always have a choice. The ghosts may be determined to do things their way, but you are the vessel.” At my frown, he clarified further. “Think of yourself as a water bottle. When it’s full, you can keep pouring water into it all you want, but it’s not going to fit.”
“No, the water is just going to spill over and create a huge fucking mess.”
“That’s not the vessel’s concern. You receive the flow of information, and when you’ve had enough….” He mimed putting the cap on the top of a bottle. “You close the connection.”
My sigh spoke volumes. When we landed on scientific quanta, things briefly made sense, something Bohr or Einstein would be proud of. But we’d left logic behind. Apparently, I was now a human Aqua Fina bottle who was leaking all over the floor.
“You told me once that the ghosts said your energy looked like a beam of light,” Dakota went on.
“Did I?”
“You did,” he confirmed. “I remember all the weird things you tell me. Like that time you said I should be charged with a felony because I don’t like the show Chopped?”
I nodded. “Now that I remember. I started drafting an arrest warrant, but Danny said no.”
“My point is that if you look like light to them, the reverse should be true. Have you seen that glow around any of the ghosts?”
“I… haven’t paid much attention.”
“Maybe you should. When you find it, you should practice grabbing on to it and transferring their energy to yourself,” he said. “Better to know what to do now, when there’s no pressure.”
“There aren’t any ghosts around,” I hedged, ignoring the little boy building a sandcastle on the beach.
I wasn’t sure if I could do what Dakota was asking me to do, or what it would do to the ghost. But I didn’t want to experiment on a child dusted in sand, his chubby cheeks alight with happiness. As if he could feel my regard, he glanced over at me shyly and waved.
I smiled in return as Dakota looked at me suspiciously. “There aren’t any ghosts around?” he asked skeptically. “Not even my nana?”
That made the fifth time he’d asked me about his nana since we’d begun our sessions. I felt awful that I had to tell him, yet again, that she hadn’t shown up. “She probably died peacefully,” I said kindly.
“I sincerely doubt that,” he said cheerfully. “She was a miserable old witch who hated everyone and everything. And she was homophobic to boot.”
I stared at him for a few moments, my mouth hanging open. “Then why on earth do you keep asking about her?” I asked exasperatedly.
“Because I was afraid to come out to her when she was alive.” He sighed. “I was hoping she’d be around in the afterlife, knowing I was having all the gay sex.”
“You ever hear the phrase living well is the best revenge?”
“Yes, but you know what’s better than living well for revenge?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Actual fucking revenge.”
I laughed. “Maybe you have a point. But if you think I’m going to channel your homophobic nana, you’ve got another think coming.”
“Then how about you go talk to whatever it is over there that you keep looking at?”
I flushed under his knowing gaze. “Am I that obvious?”
“If you’re paying attention.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose again. “Your last five tries on that surfboard weren’t half bad. Why don’t we try it out on real water?”
“Out there?” I glanced at the ocean. I’d grown up swimming in it, so I wasn’t afraid, but I’d never tried to walk across the surface of it on a glorified piece of wood. That seemed more like a Jesus thing.
I looked back at Dakota. “I don’t think I’m ready.”
“You are,” he said firmly.
“I don’t know that I trust you,” I said honestly.
“Don’t. Trust yourself.” He smiled, and I was sure he was just talking about surfing.
I looked back at the little boy as he scooped sand in a pile. His blue and green trunks were circa the sixties, so clearly he’d been here for a long time. Maybe someone was waiting for him on the other side, like his mot
her and father. There should be a better future for him than eternally playing with a half built sandcastle.
I searched his pale, wispy body over thoroughly, looking for even a glimmer of light. Nothing. I squinted as I pushed deeper into his body, past skin and bone, and into the organs beneath. It was both macabre and beautiful, testament to the amazing working machine that is the human body. And then I spotted something—a slight glow, right behind his lungs.
I watched the tiny glow pulse for a few moments. I didn’t know if it was energy, but it was something important. Instinctively, I stuck out my hand, forgetting I was reaching for something I couldn’t touch. Or could I?
Metaphysical met corporeal as the golden glow wound around my hand. It was warm and viscous as it moved almost like a living thing, flowing over my wrist like heated honey.
I grabbed the tail end of it and made a circle. Then a loop. I tried to form a heart, but it just pooled back in my hand. I let the light slide from one hand to the other like a golden slinky, sparkling like tinsel, kinetic energy at my fingertips.
Dakota let out a little gasp, breaking my concentration. “Your eyes,” he said, looking a little spooked.
“What about my eyes?”
“They’re all freaky again.”
“Freaky?” I scowled. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“It’s happened a few times before,” he said, staring intently at my eyes. “I thought it was a trick of the sunlight, but I guess not. They look like gold. Melted, molten gold.”
“The transmission of energy isn’t an exact science. I’m sure it’s just spilling over into other places.” My scowl deepened. “Besides, I got these eyes from my grandfather.”
“Then your grandfather has freaky eyes, too.”
“You never had a problem with them before.”
“I thought it was the sunlight before,” he countered.
“Do you mind?” I huffed. “I’m trying to concentrate.”