by Pandora Pine
“Good morning,” Truman said with more cheer than he felt. He needed to snap out of this and focus on having a great day with his best friend.
“You look exhausted. Were you two up all night doing the horizontal hula?” Cassie burst out laughing.
“No, we had a quiet night. Carson was upset about something and it worried me a bit.” He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to share with Cassie, but with her being a woman, she might have an insight into Carson’s problem that he might not be able to see himself.
“What’s he upset about?”
“Nothing specific. He just said that he was going to screw up in the future and do something stupid and he hoped I would forgive him when that happened. Then he cried. Ugly tears, Cass.” Truman couldn’t get that image out of his head.
“So he was really upset, not just being dramatic?”
Now that Truman thought about it, Carson really was upset about something. He seemed downright terrified. “I think he’s scared of something.”
“Something in his past maybe?” Cassie sounded concerned.
“I don’t know.” Shit. Maybe they should have spent a bit more time talking about their lives and a little less time getting to know each other with their lips and tongues.
“I know you’re not really into the idea of talking to a psychic, but maybe you could ask this guy a question during my reading?”
Truman was about to turn her down, but really, what could it hurt? “Okay. If he doesn’t mind, maybe I will ask.”
“Really? Truman, that’s so cool!”
“I was also thinking about asking about some kind of talisman or charm for Carson. Maybe something that would help with his anxiety. Do you think that’s a good idea or am I overstepping?”
Cassie parked the car across the street from West Side Magick and turned to look at Truman. “You are buying a gift for your soon-to-be-fiancé out of love. How could that possibly be overstepping anything? Come on, you’re gonna love this guy!” Cassie hopped out of the car.
“What’s his name anyway?” Truman asked as they crossed the street together.
“Oh! That’s so weird. His name is Carson too! I never made the connection until now. Two Carsons in a city as small as Salem. What are the odds of that?”
Truman shrugged. “It’s a different name but not as odd as naming your kid Apple or Saint.” He grabbed the door and pulled it open.
“Hi! Welcome to West Side Magick. I’m Cole. Let me know if there’s anything I can help you find.”
“I’m Cassie Wilkes. I have an 11am reading with Carson.”
“Oh, hey, Cassie. Carson’s just finishing up with a client. He’ll be with you in a moment. Feel free to browse around. Let me know if you have any questions.”
“Thanks, Cole.”
“Okay, now that is weird. My Carson has a brother named Cole too.”
Cassie turned around to look at him when the door opened.
“You are so welcome, Mr. Provencher. I hope speaking with your daughter today will bring you the closure you deserve.”
Truman froze. He’d know that voice anywhere. It had whispered his name in the middle of the night. Yelled for him to go faster, harder when they were making love and told him “I love you.” That voice belonged to the psychic who Cassie had come to see today. That voice belonged to his Carson.
Truman couldn’t breathe. Carson was a salesman for the shoe company that was next door to Gemtronics. What was he doing giving psychic readings at this shop? More to the point, why hadn’t Carson ever told him that he was a psychic?
Was this what he’d been upset and crying about last night? Or was there more his boyfriend was hiding from him?
“Carson, Cassie is here for her 11am reading.”
“Hey Cassie, I’m Carson Craig. Is your friend here for a reading too?
Truman pulled off his hat and turned around, watching closely for the moment Carson recognized him.
“Oh.” Carson said, his entire body deflating and sinking toward the floor. He reached out for the counter, but his fingers slipped off the polished wood.
“Jesus, Carson!” Cole grabbed him just before he hit the floor. “Who are you?” he asked once he had hold of Carson.
“Truman Wesley. I’m your brother’s boyfriend. Or didn’t he tell you? Seems there’s an awful lot he’s been keeping from people.”
“Oh, my God. Truman?” Cole said, with shock in his eyes. He half-dropped Carson the rest of the way to the floor and stood back up. “I should have recognized the green eyes. Carson and I talked about what and when to tell you and I guess…” He ran a hand through his dark hair. “I should shut the hell up now.”
“Oh, no, keep talking. At least one of you has the knack.” Truman had no idea what was going on here. He could feel his temper rising along with the rest of his emotions. If this kept up, he’d be crying and screaming like a shrew in a few minutes.
Carson slowly climbed back to his feet. “Why don’t we all have a seat in the reading room? Cole flip the closed sign, would you? This is going to take some time to explain.”
“Is this what you were going on about last night, Carson? Is this what you were crying about?” Truman’s hands were balled into fists at his sides. His feet felt rooted to the floor, which he guessed was a good thing. At the moment he could knock Carson out.
Carson nodded. “Yes.” There was defeat in his tone of voice.
“God damn it! I knew you were too good to be true. I just knew it!” Truman needed to get himself under control. He could feel the shrew inside of him quickly rising to the top.
“Truman, please calm down for a minute,” Cole said. “Just listen to what Carson is going to tell you, please. I promise you are going to want to hear every word.”
“And then what?” Focusing on Carson’s brother seemed to be helping him keep his temper under control, for the moment, anyway.
“And then you can decide what happens next,” Carson added. “You said last night that there wasn’t anything I could do that you couldn’t forgive. I’m hoping you meant those words.”
“Are you fucking around on me?” Truman’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“No, Truman. I never lied to you about my feelings. I’m going to explain everything else, but I never lied about being in love with you or wanting to spend the rest of my life loving you and raising a family together. I swear it.” He took half a step toward him, but stopped dead in his tracks when Truman moved backward.
Truman stared at the man, who up until ten minutes ago, he’d been ready to marry at a moment’s notice. He thought he had his whole life mapped out in front of him. He wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
Cole had asked him to sit and listen to what Carson had to say. Carson had said he wasn’t cheating and wasn’t that the worst offense he could commit? Truman would sit and he would listen.
At this point, it was all he could offer to the man he’d thought was his now, his future and his forever.
29
Carson
Carson was surprisingly calm for a man whose entire world had just come crashing down around him. Maybe it was because he’d been rehearsing this speech in his head for days now. After asking Cole to flip the closed sign on the shop, he’d also asked his brother to grab something from upstairs. The story he was about to tell was going to make Truman even more angry and emotional than he was now and he was going to need a visual aid.
He waited until everyone was settled in his mother’s reading room before following them in and taking his mother’s usual seat. “Truman, thank you for agreeing to hear me out.”
“Yeah, well. I’m sure this story is going to be a good one.” Truman crossed his arms over his chest and rolled his eyes.
Taking a deep breath, he looked around the table. He knew this moment would come sooner or later. The fact that he’d been rehearsing this speech in his mind for weeks now was of no comfort. He still had to say the words out loud to the man he loved. “I’m a
sham. A fake psychic,” Carson began.
Cassie gasped. Truman slapped a hand on the table and Cole groaned. “Jesus Christ, Carson. Way to go.”
“I promised Truman the truth, Cole, and this is it.” He turned back to Truman.
“That’s your lead off?” Truman muttered, one eyebrow raised high.
Carson ignored Truman’s comment and powered on. If he started to break down now, he’d never get through it. “Our mother had the gift. She could talk to Spirit, she had premonitions, and could use the crystal ball.” Carson reached out to touch it, but pulled back at the last minute, remembering he could use it now too. “Our father was a charmer and a fast-talker. The type who could sell ice to an Eskimo.”
“Obviously you favor him.” Sarcasm dripped from Truman’s lips.
“Tru,” Cassie set a hand on his arm. “Please give him a chance. You’ve been gushing over him for weeks now, about how in love you are with him and don’t forget our chat yesterday.” She raised an eyebrow at him before turning back to Carson.
Carson shot her a grateful nod. Whatever she was hinting at got Truman to refocus on him. “You’re right, Cole and I do take after him. Our mother opened this store in the early 1980s. She did readings and our father ran the store. He was also a pick-pocket. After my brother was born my mother kicked our father out and we haven’t seen him since. I was ten years old when that happened. I’d come home from school and help with the store and with Cole.”
“This walk down memory lane is fascinating, Carson, but-”
“Truman…” Cassie warned.
This wasn’t going the way Carson anticipated, but then again, he wasn’t expecting Truman to be so frosty toward him either. He was hoping Truman would at least be open-minded enough to hear him out and then decide what happened next between them.
This man wasn’t the Truman Wesley he’d fallen in love with. “When our mother was dying from breast cancer last year, she begged Cole and me to keep the store open. It was her life’s work. She knew neither one of us had any genuine psychic talent like she did, but it was so important to her to keep this store open, so we did.”
“So every reading you’ve done since she passed has been a lie?” Cassie asked gently.
Carson nodded. “A lie in the sense that I wasn’t getting any information from Spirit, but I can read people, Cassie. Like I could tell when I saw you this morning how much had changed in your life in the six months since I’ve seen you last. The cloud of sadness hanging over you is gone and you’re ready for a new relationship.”
Her mouth dropped open and she exchanged a surprised look with Truman. “Your whirlwind relationship with Truman has been an inspiration to me,” Cassie admitted.
Carson could see Truman rolling his eyes and knew he needed to get on with the story. “Anyway, I was a fake psychic, until December 1st. One of my regular clients had to reschedule her Tuesday appointment to that Friday. She was the last reading of the day and after I checked her out and locked up after her, I came back into this room to blow out the candles and say goodnight to my mother. The Tibetan chimes on the wall behind me are hers and ever since she passed, I always ask her to ring them if she’s in the room with me. She never does, so I ring them. I said goodnight to her and was passing by the table and ran my hand over her crystal ball. I heard a rumble of thunder and saw a flash of lightning. The crystal ball started to get cloudy and I tried to pull my hand away from the glass but I couldn’t and then I saw…”
He sucked in a harsh breath. It wasn’t that it was the moment of truth and that he had to tell Truman about the vision. It was that he could see it again. He could see the whole vision playing out in his mind’s eye. Carson could feel tears starting to build.
“It’s okay, Carson.” Cole set a hand on his shoulder.
“What did you see?” Truman leaned forward in his chair.
“I saw a handsome man with dark hair and green eyes.” Carson looked up at him. “The man was wearing a white dress shirt and a tie with Christmas trees all over it. He was holding his arms up in the air like this.” Carson put his hands up like he was being robbed.
Cassie gasped.
“Then his body jolted and a patch of crimson appeared over his heart and started to spread. A second later his body melted to the ground. I could see the dark marble floor he landed on. It was blackish, with threads of iridescent white running through it.”
Truman and Cassie exchanged a shocked look between them.
“A short blond woman ran to the man’s side. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but another person came into the picture and started dialing 911. The woman started doing CPR, but…”
“But what, Carson?” Truman asked. When he didn’t answer, he looked around the table. “But what?” he shouted.
Tears cascaded down Carson’s cheeks. “I watched the light and life drain from the man’s eyes. I watched him die, Truman. I watched you die.” Carson looked up at Truman who was just staring back at him with his mouth hanging open silently.
The room was silent for a minute. “Then my eyes snapped open again and I was on the floor. I could hear the chimes ringing only there was no way I could have rung them. I told Cole about the vision and we both decided that Mom sent it to me.” Carson paused to look up at Truman who was now wearing an unreadable look on his face. “I decided that I needed to find the man that I saw, uh, die, and save him.” Carson saw the look on Truman’s face change to shock.
“How did you find him?” Cassie asked.
“When Truman was standing with his hands up, there was a banner behind him that said, ‘Merry Christmas from Gemtronics,’ so I had a jumping off point.”
“A jumping off point?” Truman sounded dubious.
“Yeah, I Googled the company. I’d never heard of it before. I mean, there wasn’t much I could do if the company was in California. I don’t have a lot of money, but, when I saw it was here in Massachusetts, I got in the car and programmed Google Maps to take me there. I sat in my Honda and watched for you and then when I saw you run to the little café, I followed you in.”
“Wait!” Color flooded Truman’s face. “You stalked me? You followed me into the restaurant and sat down with me at lunch, all on purpose?”
“I didn’t stalk you, Truman.” Christ, he was making Carson sound like a criminal.
“You showed up the next day too, like it was some kind of fucking coincidence. Like you never thought you’d see me again, but you’d been sitting in your car watching me like some kind of a stalking sicko!”
“I didn’t stalk you!” Carson swiped away at angry tears. Talk about worst-case scenario.
“What the hell would you call it then?”
“I was running intel.” Carson threw up his hands. “I saw a man I didn’t know die. What was I supposed to do, Truman, let you die? I took time away from my life and my business to track down a total stranger. At the time, I didn’t know if you worked for Gemtronics or if you were someone’s plus one. I couldn’t walk into the building and ask if a dark-haired, green-eyed man worked there because how crazy is that? So I sat in my car in the freezing parking lot all morning, hoping to find you. Then, when I did, I had to go to the bathroom so bad, I was on the verge of having an accident.”
Carson swiped away at more angry tears. He thought Truman would at least listen to what he had to say, but honestly hadn’t expected this much open hostility from him. He knew how crazy this story sounded, but shouldn’t the love Truman had for him earn Carson some good faith?
“So I followed you into the restaurant and watched you order your lunch. I was praying the whole time that you’d eat-in so I could run and pee and not miss you leaving. When I came back out, my adrenaline wasn’t pumping as hard anymore and I realized I was starving. I only had a donut that morning, so I grabbed lunch too.” Carson took a deep breath, this memory of there only being one empty seat in the place was his favorite. He knew Truman would sneer over it and he just wanted one more moment for it to be sp
ecial without it being ruined. “I was going to sit near you and just watch you, but the only open seat was the one right across from you. Shit, Truman. For the last two weeks you’ve been talking about how we were meant to be and how it was fate that brought us together that day.”
“It was a crime that brought us together that day,” Truman sneered, reaching into his back pocket for his phone. “I should call the cops on you right now.”
“For what? Trying to save your life?” Carson threw his hands up in despair.
Cassie grabbed his arm and yanked him back into his seat. “Truman, I swear to Christ. Shut the hell up and let Carson finish. I know you’re angry, but look at him. This is a man who loves you and telling this story is tearing him apart. He watched you die, Truman.”
“Three times,” Carson whispered.
“What?” Truman sounded stunned.
“Tell him the rest,” Cole urged.
“There’s more?” Truman looked like he couldn’t believe there was more to the story.
Carson nodded. “I didn’t know if the first vision was a lark or… I didn’t know what it was, so I came back in here with Cole and asked my mother for more help. I told her I wanted to see the shooter or see more of what happened to you. I figured the more information I had, the better I could protect you.” Carson shrugged and took a deep breath. “This time the vision wasn’t like the first one. This time I was you. I was the one who was shot. I could feel the pain. I could see through your eyes. I hit the floor and I could see the color of the marble tile and I could see everyone’s shoes. The shooter was wearing dark work boots. Snow was melting off them and was making puddles at the base of them. He had on dark blue or black jeans and a stained tan-colored Carhartt jacket and a dirty Red Sox hat. His eyes were bluish and filled with rage. He held the gun in his left hand. A blond woman bent over me. I know now it’s Cassie. She kept yelling, ‘Stay with me, Truman. Stay with me.’ I tried to focus on her when she was doing CPR, but it kept getting harder and harder to do that. Finally my sight, your sight, Truman, faded out altogether.” Carson took a harsh breath. He was battling not to break down into tears again.