A Gift of Ghosts

by Sarah Wynde

  ***

  “Nothing.”

  It was 4:02 PM, and Akira was standing in the doorway of Zane’s office, unsure whether to interrupt. Grace was perched on the edge of his desk, her back to the door, blocking Zane from view.

  “Try again,” Grace ordered.

  “Grace, nothing means nothing.” Zane sounded both resigned and impatient.

  Grace sighed and stood, tucking a piece of paper, maybe a photograph, Akira thought, into a file folder. “Do you want her to come here or do you want to go there?”

  “Neither.”

  “Lucas took the job, Zane. It’s done. You just have to do it.”

  “Or not,” Zane grumbled, before adding, “Talk to them, tell them how unlikely it is that I can help. If they still want me, I’ll fly up there tomorrow. And tell Lucas that his next job is going to be in Antarctica.”

  Grace reached over and rumpled his hair, saying with a smile, “Lucas would love to go to Antarctica, sweetie. You’re going to do have to do better than that.”

  Zane pulled away from her. “I hate jobs like this, Grace. Tell Lucas—oh, hey, Akira.” His motion had been enough to bring him into her line of view. Akira gave him a tentative smile.

  Grace glanced over her shoulder, spotting Akira, and immediately turned and crossed toward the doorway. “I’ll let you know, but you know they’re going to want to see you. Hi, Akira.”

  Akira dipped her chin, acknowledging Grace’s greeting, but feeling awkward about having interrupted them. “If you’re busy, I can come back later,” she offered.

  She had been surprised to discover that Grace was Zane’s sister: the blonde woman looked nothing like her siblings. She’d been even more surprised to learn that the woman she’d assumed was a receptionist on her first day was actually the CEO of the business, managing day-to-day operations since Max retired. Max was still involved as Chairman of the Board, but Zane and Smithson—the heads of special affairs and research, respectively—reported to Grace. Dillon claimed that she sat at the front desk sometimes because it was how she started and she still liked it.

  “We’re not,” Zane sounded grim, but Grace also shook her head.

  Reaching the doorway, she said quietly, so that only Akira could hear, “Cheer him up if you can. Tomorrow’s going to be a rough day.”

  Akira glanced at her quickly. What did that mean? What did Grace expect? But the blonde woman just squeezed her arm in passing and continued out of the room. Akira stepped into Zane’s office. He was rubbing his forehead, looking tired.

  “Um, do you still want to see me?” she asked. Should she be here? Grace’s orders to cheer him up notwithstanding, he didn’t look as if he wanted company.

  He looked up at her and smiled, but it was strained. “Did I—oh!” It was as if a realization had struck, and his smile turned into a full-fledged grin. “Yes, I do want to see you.” He waved at the space behind her. “Check it out.”

  Akira looked. The first time she’d visited the playroom Zane called an office, Akira had laughed aloud. It made so much more sense than the barren cell he’d used for her interview.

  On the fourth floor, it was a large L-shaped room that might have been intended to be a conference room, or—if the complex had been built as a private school, as she suspected—a combination science lab/classroom. Zane, however, had turned one leg of the L into an arcade, with six old video games, a foosball table, and an air hockey table. The second leg of the L was a living room, with a comfortable couch, a couple of easy chairs, a huge flat-screen television on the wall, and more video game consoles than she knew the names of. Only the corner of the L looked like an office, with a desk, chairs, office equipment, even file cabinets.

  Now, though, in the space that she thought of as the arcade, the foosball table and the air hockey table were gone, replaced by a pool table. And not a trivial pool table—a real one, with ornate carved legs, a mahogany finish, rich green felt—the type of pool table that cost thousands of dollars. Her eyes widened.

  “A pool table?” she asked. “That’s why you wanted to meet with me?”

  “Yep.” A slightly sheepish expression crossed his face. “I guess I could have waited for next week at our usual time.”

  Zane met with all the employees of the special affairs division one-on-one, once a week, to assign new jobs, get updated on the progress of their current jobs, talk about any problems, and so on. Officially, that was. Based on her meetings with him, Akira thought that meant he probably spent a lot of time playing foosball or Halo.

  “But what happened to foosball? I thought you loved foosball.”

  “I decided it was time for a change,” he answered, standing and moving out from behind his desk. He paused next to her, their shoulders almost brushing, and she looked up at him. He was admiring the table, his smile still playing around his mouth, but he looked down at her as if he felt her gaze, and his lips quirked. “And you did say you’d play pool.”

  “I did?” she questioned. “When did I say that?”

  Every time they met, he tried to convince her to play some game: foosball first, but then usually a video game. And every time, she declined. She’d been trying to keep their meetings professional. Lately, though, as their relationship slipped over the line into personal anyway, it had been getting harder to resist. At their last meeting, she’d been laughing when she said no to bowling on the Kinect.

  “It was when you got all huffy about Ms. Pac-Man.”

  Akira thought back. That had been weeks ago. “Huffy? Just because I told you it was sexist to think I’d like Ms. Pac-Man better than Halo?” The words might have sounded challenging, but he’d be able to hear the smile in her voice.

  “Grace does, Nat does. I wasn’t being sexist, just generalizing from experience,” he defended himself mildly, crossing to the rack of pool cues. “And if you remember, you said . . .”

  “I said that girls might like Ms. Pac-Man, but that physicists like pool,” Akira interrupted him, joining him by the rack and eying the cues, before picking up one that looked about right. She hefted it carefully, checking its weight and grip before putting it back on the rack and picking up another one. “I remember.”

  “Does this mean you’re going to play pool with me?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Akira answered, lashes down, covering her eyes. “Eight-ball work for you? Call shot, open break?”

  Yes, she was definitely going to play pool with him. And not just pool. The sizzle running through her veins told her that her impulsive streak—the one that brought her to Tassamara in the first place—had just made a decision.

  The only question left was how direct she was going to be about acting on that decision. And she thought maybe the answer was very direct. Cheer him up? Yeah, she could do that.

  Zane didn’t know it yet but their casual flirtation had just been upgraded.