by Kris Tualla
“That’s fine,” Hollis said as casually as she could. “My work schedule has stepped up, so I’m not sure what that will look like.”
“Saturday I’m going to Tucson and will be there until Monday.” He looked up at her. “Dinner Monday?”
Hollis smiled. “Absolutely. Where?”
Everett considered the view. “Would you hate coming back here?”
Hollis laughed as much from relief as the silly question. “Not at all. The food is good and the view is amazing.”
“Great.” Everett stood and held her chair once again. “I’ll be in touch.”
When he kissed her goodnight, she almost forgot to breathe.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Friday
October 9
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Hollis wanted to kick something—and might have if everything wasn’t in such disarray already. “What the hell was he thinking?”
All of the crates on the porch had been moved. Not just the ones she marked as Egyptian. All of them.
“Ezra was so meticulous with his stacks and now his system has been blown to bits by that pissy asshole!” Hollis stomped her feet like a two-year-old having a tantrum. One big enough to hurt somebody. “I can’t even believe this! Aaaarrrggghhhhh!”
The interns were silent, eyes rounded with fear inside their clear plastic goggles.
“Do you remember where everything was?” Tom asked, his voice barely loud enough to be heard.
“Tell them yes, Hollis,” Sveyn urged. “Tell them you need to be left alone to reorganize everything. I will help you.”
Hollis turned around and stormed from the porch into the big bedroom. The boys followed her at a reasonably safe distance.
“It’s not that I don’t remember. It’s that this even happened at all,” she fumed. “It’s like Tony never had any training to begin with. Who knows what stuff might have been damaged!”
“Maybe the Egyptian guys did it,” one intern offered.
Hollis was so angry, she was shaking. “Tony Samoa was still in charge. This happened under his watch.”
The three twenty-something interns—all taller than her—cowered near the bedroom door.
Sveyn moved in front of her. “We can fix this. You and I, working together. Tell them to finish this room.”
Hollis shook out her fisted hands. “Yes. Fine. We can fix this.”
“What do you want us to do?” Tom asked, this time sounding a smidge more confident.
Will I ever learn? “Sorry, Tom. By we, I meant me. I’ll go try to restore order on the porch. You guys finish this room. Today if you can.”
A subdued chorus of yes, ma’ams followed her from the room.
“I’m going to the van for my Bluetooth,” she said over her shoulder. “This mess is definitely going to require some conversations.”
*****
“I don’t know what I would have done without you today, Sveyn.” Hollis was stretched out on her couch after taking a long hot shower. “I’m so tired I don’t even have enough energy to eat.”
Sveyn looked sad. “I wish I could feed you.”
“So do I.” She huffed a laugh. “Or lift boxes for me. Or rub my feet. Or call for take-out. I wish all sorts of things.”
Sveyn dragged his hand through his hair. Then he stared at his fingers.
“What?” Hollis asked.
“I felt something.”
She sat up. “You felt your hair?”
“Not precisely. But I felt something. Something similar to when Tony walked through me.” His face took on a gaunt, haunted look. “Emotion must trigger it.”
“Negative emotion, so it seems.” Hollis wrapped her arms around her knees. “What were you feeling just then?”
His voice was low and rough. “Frustration. Anger. Deep, deep regret. Regret like I have never before experienced.”
“What do you regret?” Hollis whispered.
A variety of expressions flickered over Sveyn’s face. “I regret not dying. I regret that my will to live was so strong that I became as I am.”
Hollis felt tears threaten. If he had died, she would never have known him. And though there was no way for her to be aware of that lack, she now knew her life would be lessened without his presence in it.
“I regret that I have found you only now,” he continued, staring into her eyes. “And I regret that I cannot be the man you need me to be, no matter how strongly I desire it.”
Back off, Hollis.
Don’t try to touch him. “And so, when all of that welled up inside you, you felt something on your hand?”
“Yes.”
“But when I felt hope, that had no effect.”
“No.”
“Well that’s just great.” She loosed her legs and swung her feet to the floor. “The only way you can feel anything is if there are sufficient amounts of anger or sorrow involved. That’s just wonderful news.”
Hollis stood and walked to the kitchen. She pulled a tub of semi-sweet-chocolate-chip and coconut cookie dough from the fridge, and a spoon from a drawer. This conversation warranted comfort food of the highest degree.
And wine.
She set the tub down and opened a bottle of chilled Muscat. It was a beautiful pairing.
Hollis returned to the couch, cookie dough and dessert wine in hand. Time to change the subject.
“At least the boys came close to finishing the other bedroom. I’ll switch places with them on Monday and complete that job.”
Hollis took a bite of the dough. Its gritty sweetness melted on her tongue as she chewed the coconut and chocolate chips.
“Mmm. Why does anybody bother to cook this stuff? It’s so good straight from the tub.”
Sveyn looked askance at her. “This is what you say, but I cannot imagine such a thing.”
She took a small sip of the sweet golden wine. “And the combination is a-may-zing.”
“You did not receive a call from Everett Sage today.”
Hollis made a face at him. “Don’t try and ruin this, Viking. Just because you can’t taste it.”
“It is not because of that.”
“Why then?” Hollis took another bite.
“It is true that I only heard your words in your dinner conversations,” Sveyn admitted. “While you talked about yourself, did you learn much about him?
“Of course I did.”
“Tell me.”
Hollis sipped her wine while she tried to put together what Everett did tell her. “Let’s see. He turned forty years old in August. Never married. His Ph.D. is in Bio-Chemistry. He likes dogs—”
“You already knew that,” Sveyn pointed out.
“Works for Calico Labs—”
“You knew that, too.”
“He has two older sisters.” Hollis pointed a finger at Sveyn. “And he looks like his mother’s brother.”
Sveyn chuckled. “See this? You are learning.”
Hollis spooned another chunk of the dough. “He is in Arizona to do research on native people’s lore regarding immortality.”
“Did he ask about the velsignelse av gudene?”
Hollis stopped chewing and stared at him. “The Blessing? Yes. Why do you ask?”
“It has ancient lore, as you call it, regarding immortality.” Sveyn shrugged. “I would expect he will want to see it.”
“He didn’t ask to.”
“I think that he will.”
“Damn YouTube.” Hollis jammed the spoon into the dough and set it aside. She grabbed the wine glass. “Well, he’ll have to wait. I see a very busy week ahead.”
Sveyn leaned closer. “Remember to take care when you handle it, Hollis. I do not know if touching the thing has the power, or if being near it is enough.”
She tapped her temple with the spoon. “Or if it’s all just in here.”
The Viking didn’t smile. He tapped his own temple. “There is power in here. Have we not discovered this already, you and I?”
His words sent an unwelcome surge of electricity through her groin. Hollis stood in defiant rebellion against it and carried the cookie dough back to the fridge. She refilled her wine.
The idea of having dream sex with Sveyn claimed her thoughts every night when her head hit her pillow. She always wondered if he would imagine her after she fell asleep, but was equally relieved and disappointed when he did not.
Yet she didn’t have the courage to ask him to do it. That didn’t seem right, somehow.
Hollis returned to the couch and picked up the remote. “What are you in the mood for?”
“You decide,” he answered. “As yet, I do not know all of the choices I have.”
Hollis flipped through some channels. “No cooking shows. That just seems mean since you can’t eat. What about house stuff? Buying houses in different parts of the world?”
“That is a good choice.” Sveyn pointed at the television. “Wait. What was that?”
Hollis backed up. “Old movies. Why?”
Sveyn looked at her. “I think I have seen this. What is it called?”
She pressed the info button on the remote. “For Me and My Gal. With Gene Kelly.”
A smile split Sveyn’s face. “Yes. He was very talented. Might we watch this instead?”
Hollis shrugged. “I guess.”
“Have you seen it?”
“No.” She snuggled into the couch cushions, wine glass clasped in both hands. “Why?”
“It has singing and dancing, and a love story.” He winked at her. “I saw it with the soldiers during my last manifestation.”
Though initially semi-interested at best, Hollis found herself caught up in the unique story of a vaudeville act and a three-way love triangle during World War II. When the hero’s deliberate act to avoid being called up backfired, his struggle to prove himself left her in tears.
“That was better than I expected,” she admitted. “And Gene Kelly was a super hottie.”
“Did he make more moving pictures?” Sveyn asked.
“I’m sure he did, but I only know about one—Singing in the Rain—where he did an amazing dance routine in the rain.” Hollis searched YouTube videos on her television. “Here it is.”
Sveyn watched the entire dance scene three times through. “And you say that all of this was created inside a building?”
“Yep. A huge warehouse called a soundstage. Maybe I can take you on one of the studio tours in Los Angeles to see for yourself.”
The concept in her casual jest caught her by surprise.
Maybe I actually will.
He grinned at her. “I would like that. No one has ever offered to make a journey for my benefit before.”
She stretched and yawned. “Time for bed. What do you want to watch?”
“Will there be more films?”
Hollis checked the info again. “Looks like one after another.”
“Good. Will you leave it on this channel?”
“Sure.” She set the remote on the coffee table, stood, and stretched again. “Good night, Sveyn.”
“Good night. And, Hollis?”
She paused at the hallway and turned back to look at him. His deceptively solid-looking form glowed blue-ish by the light of the LCD screen.
“Yes?”
Even in the dark she could see the impish spark in his eyes. “I hope you have very pleasant dreams tonight.”
Monday
October 12
Pleasant was far too weak a word. During the last three nights Sveyn’s imagination seemed limitless, and she never slept better than in the aftermath of one of his varying scenarios.
Facing him in the morning afterward was becoming a little easier, but her enthusiastic physical response to his manipulations was still embarrassing. Without an actual body to exhaust, his tireless mind was exhausting hers.
How could she explain her recent lack of sleep to anyone? She’d be locked in a psych ward before she could say, just kidding.
“Please leave me alone tonight,” she begged him last night. “I have a hard week ahead of me.”
“And dinner with Everett Sage tomorrow,” he reminded her.
A terrible thought jolted her. “Is that why?”
He had the decency to look guilty. “It is not the only reason, Hollis.”
She jabbed a finger at him. “You wanted to stake your claim and make sure I was thinking about you, not him!”
“Do you blame me?” he growled.
“Yes! No. I don’t know. Ugh!” She scuttled her fingers through her long curls in imitation of his habit. “The thing is, Sveyn, you are not permanently here. I don’t have a future with you. You’re a ghost.”
“Ghosts are spirits of dead people,” he corrected. “I never died.”
“Whatever!” she shouted. “You have to let me look out for myself and don’t interfere with my life!”
This morning he opted not to ride in the car with her.
When she passed Tony in the hallway, he didn’t look happy either. Hollis avoided making eye contact with him.
After she returned to the office on Friday, she gave Miranda a detailed report on the condition of the porch following the Egyptians’ reclamation under Tony’s supervision. Miranda promised to say something to the other collector. Maybe she already had.
Hollis walked into Stevie’s office. “What object are we posting today?”
Stevie turned away from her computer. “And good morning to you, too.”
“I’m sorry, Stevie. I’m distracted. Too much going on.” Hollis did a complete circle turn and flashed a bright smile. “Good morning, Stevie! How are you?”
“Fine thank you.” She turned back to her keyboard. “And as soon as I finish uploading the description of these British World War Two Imagery Intelligence documents from Danesfield House, you can tell me all about your date with Doctor Sage.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hollis pulled down the cuff of her latex glove and shoved back the cuff of her jumpsuit until she could see her watch.
“Oh crap!”
Sveyn had followed her out to the van and he intuited her concern. “What is the time?”
She looked at him while she decided what to do. “It’s five minutes to five. I’m supposed to meet Everett for dinner at six.”
Hollis strode back into the Kensington house. “Come on, guys! It’s time to go! Bring ‘em if they’re ready, leave ‘em if they’re not.”
“Coming…” drifted from the porch.
Hollis stripped off her gloves, mask, and goggles. She unzipped her suit and reached for her phone. “I’m going to cancel.”
“Why?” Sveyn asked, though his delight was clear.
“Look at me! I’m sweaty and all mashed up.” She dialed Everett’s number. “By the time we unload at the museum, and I drive home, and take a shower, and get dressed up, I won’t make it to the hotel until after seven—closer to seven-thirty.”
“Hello, Hollis!” Everett sounded happy.
“Hi, Everett.” Hollis turned her back on Sveyn. “I’m afraid I have to cancel our dinner tonight.”
The tone of his voice shifted immediately. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Can I ask why?”
“I’m still at work at the house. And I’m a mess. It will take me a couple hours to get presentable enough for the Rock.”
“We don’t have to eat there. Would you like me to bring Chinese to your condo? We could have a relaxing night in instead of out…”
Something in Hollis clutched. While Everett seemed like a very nice, stable man, the idea of letting him into her home made the relationship seem more serious than it was. At least, at this point—though there was definitely hope.
“My condo’s a mess, Everett. I haven’t had time to clean since we’ve had to step-up our schedule for the opening of the new wing.”
“That’s disappointing.” He was quiet for a beat. “What about meeting for something easy? A come-in-your-sweats kind of meal?”
“Wel
l…” The idea was tempting. If Everett saw her looking normal, and still wanted to pursue a relationship, that would certainly take some of the pressure off.
“Please consider it. I really don’t want to eat another room service meal by myself. I’d much rather enjoy your company, if only for an hour in a pizza joint.”
He pled a good case and Hollis succumbed. “All right. How about I call you when I get home and we’ll set a time?”
“Awesome.”
The joy in his voice made Hollis smile. “And, since you mentioned Chinese first, there’s a cute place off Mill Avenue. I’ll text you the address.”
“Thanks! I’m looking forward to it.”
Hollis turned to see the interns tromping toward the van, each carrying two plastic boxes. “So am I. Talk to you soon.”
*****
Sveyn was quiet on the way home.
“Don’t be jealous,” Hollis chided. “In all honesty, you’ve become my closest friend. You know more about me than anyone in Phoenix. More than Matt knew, even after ten years.”
Sveyn gave her a crooked smile. “Being near you every minute of the day, and hearing every word that you say, does generate a certain amount of intimacy.”
Hollis rolled her eyes. “It certainly does.”
“It is because you are a woman that I am having this struggle.”
“I know.” She stopped at a red light and looked at him. “You never thought about sex with any of your men.”
Sveyn was clearly horrified by the suggestion. “No! I most assuredly did not.”
“So this is a struggle for both of us.” She faced forward once more and hit the gas. “Please remember that.”
Half an hour after arriving at the condo, Hollis stood in front of her closet, hair wrapped in a towel, trying to decide what to wear.
“Wear those jeans and that t-shirt,” Sveyn suggested. “They fit your body well.”
Hollis pulled out the comfortably worn items that Sveyn suggested. “If he likes me in this, he’ll like me in anything I suppose.”
She got dressed, combed out her damp curls, and tied her hair in a low ponytail. A quick application of mascara to make her pale red lashes show up and a swipe of lip gloss were all the make-up she was willing to use.