Rush

by Minard, Tori

  My phone rang and I answered without looking at the caller I.D. “Kincaid Design Group.”

  “Is this Max Kincaid?” said a familiar female voice.

  “Selene?”

  “That’s me.”

  Selene was a member of my circle and a former lover. I hadn’t seen her in a few months. The last time had been when the circle helped me move down here. For them, it had really been more about visiting with Brad and Marie—who’d preceded me in the move—because I didn’t have a lot of stuff to haul. I hadn’t actually needed help. But they’d come down with me and we’d all hung out for a while. Selene had spent the night in my bed.

  “How are you?” I said. Why was she calling? We weren’t a couple anymore, not that we’d ever really been together in the first place. Our relationship had been more fuck buddies than boyfriend and girlfriend.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “How are you? Are you surviving small town life?”

  “Yeah. Actually, I like it here.” More every day, come to think of it. Could have to do with a certain blonde.

  “Really?” Her voice oozed skepticism. “I can’t imagine. It looked like the kind of place that’s crawling with rednecks when I visited.”

  “It’s a college town. There are a few non-rednecks here,” I said dryly.

  “I guess.” She must not have liked my answer, judging by her tone. “What do you do for fun around there?”

  “I’m too busy for fun. Work and school take all my time.” Except for when I was chasing Caroline. Somehow I didn’t think Selene would want to hear about that.

  “I’ve been working a lot, too. Overtime. I wish they’d fill that empty position so we weren’t always being called in.”

  “Sounds like a drag.”

  I didn’t want to talk about work. In fact, I didn’t much want to talk to Selene at all. Our hook-ups had been fun at the time, but that was over. I wanted Caroline.

  “I have tomorrow and Wednesday off and I was thinking about coming down to visit you,” she said. “I had to work over the holiday and I could really use a fun break.”

  “I think you’d be bored out of your mind. All my time is taken up with work. I’m falling behind because of school.”

  “You can’t even spare an afternoon?”

  “Selene, you know it would take more than an afternoon. Besides, it’s a long drive down from Seattle. Why would you want to spend all those hours on the road just to turn around and do it again on the way home?”

  “Well, I thought maybe I could spend the night.” Her voice became a suggestive purr.

  I bit back a sigh. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Selene was a friend, and still a member of my circle. However, I wasn’t especially excited to sleep with her, fuck her, whatever you want to call it. I’d thought that part of our relationship was over.

  She practiced polyamory, which for her basically meant she screwed anyone she felt like screwing. When I’d wanted exclusivity, she hadn’t been interested. After I’d thought about it for a couple of days, I’d decided that was fine with me because I wasn’t all that attached to her. We’d parted ways amicably and I’d given her very little thought since, except to compare her with Caroline.

  “You’re hesitating,” she said. “That isn’t good. Do you have someone else?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  A one-night stand with Selene might take my mind off Caroline. Maybe if I fucked someone else, I could get my semi-permanent state of arousal under control. My mind would clear and I’d be better able to plan my attack instead of simply reacting to the raging lust she inspired in me. Because I was close to going off the rails with her. My desire to be with Caro was getting way too close to overtaking my need to hurt Trent.

  “I’ve got a bottle of wine to share,” Selene said coaxingly.

  “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  “Awesome! I should be able to make it by early afternoon.”

  ***

  Selene knocked on my apartment door at noon on Wednesday. That meant she had to have been on the road at the crack of dawn. She must have been eager to see me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

  I opened the door and she threw her arms around me. “Max! It feels like it’s been forever.”

  “Hi, Selene.”

  She pulled my head down and kissed me on the mouth. Given how sexually frustrated I was, it should have sent me into instant arousal, but it was strangely unstimulating. I kissed her back, a bit dutifully, until she decided to come up for air.

  “It’s so good to see you,” she said.

  “Come in.” My neighbors paid no attention to me, but I still didn’t want to stand on the landing and make out with her.

  She pranced into my living room and turned in a slow circle. “It’s still completely bare.”

  “Not completely. I have a desk now.”

  “Ooh, a desk,” she said, pretending to be impressed. “But no couch. No chairs. Don’t you ever have anyone over?”

  “Not really, no.”

  She gave me bedroom eyes. “I hope you have somewhere nice to sleep.”

  “I’ve got a mattress on the floor.” The same one she’d spent the night on when she’d “helped” me move in.

  “It’ll do.”

  She dropped the overnight bag she carried on my floor and sashayed back to me, swinging her hips. The snug, black knit tunic she wore left nothing to the imagination and I could see that her nipples were hard under the tight fabric.

  She twined her arms around my neck. “Why don’t you show me the bedroom?”

  “Aren’t you hungry? You’ve been on the road for hours.”

  “I’m starving, but not for food.” She rubbed herself against me, pulling my head down to hers. Her mouth tasted like cola, not one of my favorite flavors for a kiss.

  I pulled back. “I’m hungry. For food. I’ve been working all morning without a break.”

  Selene pouted. “Can’t you wait?”

  For the first time in my life, I put food before sex. “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, all right. Where should we go? I don’t want fast food.”

  “There’s a cafe a couple of blocks from here that’s pretty good.” I stepped back from her clinging arms with a surprising sense of relief.

  Selene and I had had quite a few good times in bed, so I didn’t really get my own reluctance. She wasn’t going to move in with me or anything like that. She was only here for one night, and then she’d return to Seattle and I wouldn’t have to deal with her. This wasn’t even a small commitment.

  Yet I wasn’t really looking forward to having her. Even the minor contact I’d had with Caroline excited me more than Selene’s well-rehearsed moves. What could I make of that? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  We had an amiable lunch at the cafe, talking shop, discussing the occult scene in Avery’s Crossing—not that there was one. The town was extremely quiet, but we both agreed there were probably at least a couple of working groups here. They simply didn’t advertise. We didn’t either, so no surprise there.

  I could have told her about Caroline’s ghost, but for some reason I held back. I didn’t want to share Caroline with Selene. For one thing, Selene would never approve of my plan to get revenge on my stepbrother. If she knew about it, she’d try to talk me out of it. For another, Caroline was in a completely separate category from the booty call of my former fuck buddy. I didn’t know what that category was, and I didn’t want to define it, even for myself. All I knew was I didn’t want to mix the two.

  Selene and I made our way back to my apartment and my bedroom. The sex wasn’t what I remembered. It wasn’t much better than if I’d taken care of matters on my own.

  Chapter 9

  Caroline

  She wore a halter top in bright red and a pair of hip-hugger jeans that barely clung to her narrow hips. Her long, pale hair was held back by a leather headband tooled in a floral pattern and dyed red. A beaded Indian-style choker in red and blue wrapped her nec
k. She looked like a poster girl for Woodstock.

  The air in the room felt icy cold. Outside, a songbird called in the tree by my window.

  The girl leaned over me where I lay on my back in bed. My heart zoomed out of control. I couldn’t move. All I could do was stare up at the young woman leaning over me, her hair slipping forward over her bare shoulders.

  Her mouth opened and her lips moved. Was she trying to say something? I couldn’t make out the word. I was no good at lip-reading. She made the same motions again, and again there was no noise. It was like watching TV with the sound turned off.

  A look of frustration came over her. She frowned at me and repeated the word, her face contorted as she said it again. She seemed to be silently shouting at me.

  Sweat trickled down my sides. I wanted to tell her I couldn’t hear her, but I couldn’t move my lips. I couldn’t move my arms. My whole body seemed to be frozen in place.

  The girl pressed her lips together, still frowning. She shook her head, her eyes traveling back and forth across the wall next to my bed like she was trying to think of some other way to get through to me. Her hands came up to her head.

  She was really upset that she couldn’t make me hear. I tried to force my mouth to open, but my muscles refused to obey me. The girl turned her head to look back over her shoulder at something behind her. The only thing I could see was my dorm room, so I had no idea what she was looking at.

  She turned back to me with regret and frustration in her blue eyes. Then she disappeared.

  The instant she was gone, I could move again. I sat up in my bed, shivering. What the hell was that? Outside, the little bird still sang.

  Had I been dreaming? That was the logical explanation, but it had seemed so real. Much more real than any dream I’d ever had. And there was no sense of awakening, of transitioning to the ordinary world. It felt all of a piece.

  Could Max be right? Maybe Retro-girl wasn’t a figment of my imagination or a dream character, but a real ghost. Of course, I didn’t believe in ghosts...but I did believe in trusting my own experience and intuition. And my intuition told me I’d just seen a true apparition. A ghost.

  Either that or I was following in Aunt Jo’s footsteps. I wasn’t sure which possibility was worse.

  ***

  The River House was a pricey restaurant on the second floor of a nineteenth-century building downtown. A long bank of windows looked out on the Willamette River, which was bounded by trees and brush, a few leaves in varying shades of orange, brown, red and gold still clinging to mostly bare branches. My parents had taken me and Trent there for lunch, since they were on their way down to Eugene to visit my grandma. We’d taken a table right at the window.

  It was the beginning of dead week, the week before finals, so I couldn’t go with them to Eugene. I had to study. And study. And study.

  My mom has hair like mine, except she spends what seems to me like hours every day making it so straight and smooth you can almost see your reflection in it. I guess I could do mine the same way, if I could get the hang of it, but as with high heels, I don’t have the patience or motivation to master the technique. Instead I bumble along with my wild curls vining around my head like Medusa’s snakes.

  My siblings, Lily and Landon, chattered almost nonstop to anyone who would listen. They always got overexcited when they came to campus to visit me. Maybe it was something about the idea of a school the size of a small town that got them going. They were fascinated by all the buildings and the fact that I lived at the school.

  “I wish I had a room like yours,” Lily told me, bouncing in her seat. “I’d paint the walls pink. Or maybe purple.”

  “We’re not allowed to paint our walls,” I said.

  “Oh.” She pouted for an instant, then smiled. “Can you put decals on them? I’d use decals.”

  “You’d put a bunch of girly stuff up,” Landon said with withering scorn. “Unicorns. Gag. I’d have Superman decals.” Superman was his current obsession.

  My mom smiled at me as we picked up our menus. “I could swear your hair is getting curlier every day.”

  “Not really, Mom. It’s pretty much the same.”

  She looked at her menu instead of answering.

  “How are your classes this term, Trent?” my dad said in the hearty tone that meant he was trying to keep things pleasant.

  “Good so far,” Trent said in a neutral voice.

  “Getting ready for the day you take over Kincaid Construction?”

  That was the construction company owned by Trent’s stepdad. Max’s father. It hit me suddenly that Trent was going to inherit the business that should have gone to Max, if he’d stayed with his family. How did Max feel about that? Not that I cared.

  “I’m not looking forward to my stepdad retiring,” Trent said. “But I am anticipating being able to work for the company full time.”

  “I’ll bet,” my dad said.

  “I haven’t heard anything about your career plans lately, Caroline,” my mom added.

  I stifled a sigh. “That’s because I don’t know what I want to do yet.”

  “You know, now is the time to get in all those extra-curricular activities that can help you get a job after you graduate.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  “Employers look for young people who are involved in things besides their studies and partying.”

  Another sigh attempted to escape me. “I know that. I’m not a partier.”

  “You’re not a joiner, either.”

  I looked at Trent, hoping for a bit of support, but he just smiled at me. Maybe he agreed with my mom.

  “I’ll look into it, okay?” I said, hoping to placate her enough to get her to leave me alone.

  “I hope you do,” she countered. “You’ll meet new people, too.”

  “I met someone new this morning,” I said. “She was standing over my bed.”

  What on earth had made me blab that all over the lunch table? Now everyone was staring at me and I had to explain.

  I laughed nervously. “I saw a ghost this morning. She was in my dorm room.”

  My mom laughed too. “Was she carrying her severed head by the hair?”

  “No. It was a real ghost. She looked like a regular person.”

  My dad pursed his lips. “How do you know she wasn’t one of your dorm mates?”

  “Because she disappeared right in front of me.”

  Trent looked at me with a puzzled and disbelieving expression. “You never said anything to me about it.”

  “That’s because I was in a hurry to get ready.” And because the stupid urge to confide hadn’t hit me yet.

  “I’m sure you were just dreaming, honey.” My mom patted my hand.

  In the past, my parents’ skepticism had always kept me quiet on matters like these. In fact, I’d mostly agreed with them. After all, being like Aunt Jo was my worst nightmare and I would have done anything to deny my connection with my former favorite. This time, some stubborn part of me refused to let go of my ghost. I knew what I’d seen.

  “It wasn’t a dream. I was awake the whole time.”

  Both my parents raised their eyebrows.

  “Don’t tell me you actually believe in that stuff,” Mom said.

  “I don’t know. I just know what I saw.”

  “Caroline, you’re starting to worry me.”

  And I was beginning to get upset. “You know, there are intelligent people who believe in ghosts. Intelligent, non-alcoholic, non-drug addicted people.”

  “Well, I haven’t met any of them,” Mom said.

  My dad chuckled.

  “I have a friend who goes here and he believes in them.” Referring to Max as a friend was stretching things quite a bit, but they didn’t know that.

  Trent looked at me sharply, while my mom and dad just continued to chuckle indulgently.

  “Are you talking about Max?” he said.

  I shrugged. “I know several people who believe in ghosts. The point i
s, believing in them doesn’t make you an idiot or crazy.”

  “You made fun of me at Halloween once because I was worried about them,” Landon said.

  I gave my little brother an apologetic smile. “I know and I’m sorry about that.”

  “So ghosts are real?” Lily said.

  “No, honey, ghosts are not real,” my mom told her.

  I gritted my teeth. She was undermining me. I didn’t want Lily and Landon to feel unsafe, but it wasn’t exactly fair to make me look like I was delusional.

  “If you’re talking about Max,” Trent said, “you should know he thinks he’s some kind of magician.”

  I frowned at him. “Magician?”

  “Yeah. Not a stage magician. I mean a real magician. He thinks he can do real magic.” Trent snorted at this idea.

  Max practiced magic. Why hadn’t he told me? Probably because he was afraid I’d react just like my parents were, with contemptuous laughter. Plus he didn’t know me all that well. To be honest, I didn’t know what to think about this revelation. Magic wasn’t real, right? It was make-believe, something you saw in movies or read about in books. It was Disneyland stuff.

  I thought about all those drawings in his sketchbooks, all the dragons, demons, and skulls. He’d sure been fixated on that stuff. God, maybe he was crazy. Delusional, like Jo. Maybe I should make sure to stay far, far away from him from now on.

  But then there was my ghost. If she was real, maybe magic was real, too.

  “Who is this Max guy?” my dad said. “He sounds like quite a character.”

  Trent rolled his eyes. “He’s my crazy stepbrother.”

  “I had no idea you have a stepbrother.”

  I glanced at my mom, who raised her eyebrows. That probably meant she’d told my dad about Max but he’d forgotten the conversation.

  My dad was now studying Trent as if he’d never seen him before. “How does he feel about the business going to you instead of him?”

  “I have no idea,” Trent said. “But he ran away when he was sixteen and he’s rejected every offer to come back to the family, so I assume he doesn’t care.”