by Brynn Stein
Elliot shrugged, still watching Sheri as she danced exuberantly to the music, seemingly not the least bit bothered by the tiny torture chambers on her feet. “Practice? I guess?”
Malcolm shook his head. “Not for the first time, I am extremely glad I’m not a woman.”
Elliot had to agree on that.
They sat silently for a minute or two, watching their respective—Elliot didn’t want to use the word dates—gyrate around on the dance floor. He didn’t really mind the lack of conversation, but it seemed to bother Malcolm. Elliot could tell he was trying to think of something he could talk to Elliot about.
There was really only one thing they had in common.
“So I’ve done some more research on your ghost.” Malcolm raised his voice enough to be heard over the music. “Well, actually it’s more about the Buckner place in general than your ghost in particular.”
Elliot leaned in. “Yeah? What did you learn?” He appreciated Malcolm’s continued research and didn’t want to tell him that he’d only been interested in the Buckner family as it pertained to Ben.
“There have been tales over the years that the place is haunted.”
Elliot feigned shock. “You don’t say.”
Malcolm chuckled nervously and worried the napkin under his mixed drink, breaking off little pieces and rolling them into balls. “Yeah, I guess you already knew that part. My point is that you aren’t the first one to claim there’s a presence there.”
Elliot traced a pearl of liquid running down the outside of his soda glass. “I don’t know how much Sheri told you, but I’m more than sensing a presence now.” He looked up slightly just to see Malcolm’s reaction. “I talk to him in dreams. He’s even trying to speak to me during the day using the laptop.” When Malcolm didn’t seem to launch into the tirade he usually got from Sheri, Elliot continued. “So I more than just suspect there’s a ghost.”
Malcolm laughed and searched for Sheri in the crowd. “Yeah, I guess you do.” When he couldn’t find her, he returned to napkin-destruction duty. “I’m really glad he was there to save you that day.” Malcolm cleared his throat. “I’ve never heard of ghosts doing that before.”
Elliot took a sip of his soda. “Yeah. Ben is definitely one of a kind.”
Sheri and Daniel slipped through the crowd and appeared at the table as if by magic.
“That was great.” Sheri collapsed into her chair and leaned on Malcolm. “But I’m still going to get you to dance one of these days.” She looked at the growing pile of balled-up napkin pieces. “Tell me you two didn’t sit here in silence the whole time.”
Elliot tried to get Malcolm off the hook. “No, we talked.”
“Oh good.” She snuggled up closer to Malcolm. “What did you talk about?”
Malcolm gulped loudly, and Elliot thought it was probably better if he didn’t answer either.
Sheri sat up abruptly and smacked Malcolm on the shoulder. “Oh come on, Mal. You did not bring up that damned ghost again.”
Elliot sat forward, arms crossed on the table. “How can you still not believe in Ben?” He had to raise his voice to get over the music, but he made sure his tone showed his anger. He was getting tired of this. “I’ve shown you my conversations with him. Well, his side of the conversation.”
Sheri rolled her eyes and picked up her cocktail.
“What? Do you think I typed it myself?” Elliot could feel his face heat. Daniel placed a hand on his arm.
“No, Elle, but—” She leaned forward too, meeting his anger head-on.
“But what?”
Sheri shrugged but said nothing. She took a sip of her drink.
“I can’t see a whole lot of possible explanations here, Cher.” Elliot shrugged off Daniel’s hand. “Either I have a ghost; I’m lying about the whole thing, including falsifying evidence; or I’ve had some kind of psychotic break.”
Malcolm had been looking back and forth between the two friends as if following a tennis match. But he jumped in then before Sheri could answer. “The last one doesn’t fit the evidence unless Daniel and I have also taken leave of our senses. And the second one only works if you think Daniel and I are in on some kind of elaborate deception.” Sheri looked defeated and sank back in her chair as Malcolm continued. “I was just telling Elliot that he’s not the only one through the years who thought there was a ghost in the Buckner house.” He put his hand cautiously on her arm. “Come on, is it really that hard to believe?”
“That Ellie is cohabitating with Casper the Friendly Ghost,” she said incredulously as she moved away from Malcolm. “Yeah, kind of hard to believe.”
“Oh, believe it.” Daniel apparently decided he needed to join the conversation too, instead of just trying to calm Elliot. “But I’m not so sure about the friendly part. He throws stuff at me.”
Elliot smiled and sat back in his chair again, anger dissipating slowly. “It’s hard for him to move things, so he’s not going to have much power anyway.” He slung an arm around Daniel’s shoulders. “But I think maybe he needs to get to know you first. Then perhaps he won’t be so hostile toward you.”
Daniel cuddled up to Elliot. “Yeah. Either that or he’s just biding his time until he finds out how to murder me in my sleep.”
SHERI AND Malcolm eventually excused themselves and left the club. Daniel suggested that maybe tonight was a good time for the ghost to get to know him. Elliot took that as code for “I want to have sex” and took Daniel home. For the first time in what felt like forever, Elliot actually felt up for that activity.
They pulled into Elliot’s driveway, and Daniel could barely wait for the car to stop before he unbuckled his seatbelt. As soon as the vehicle stopped, he jumped out and ran around the car. He had Elliot’s door open and was trying to get Elliot out of the car even as Elliot was fumbling with his seatbelt.
“Wait a minute, Darrell. Geez.” Elliot chuckled. “I’m getting all tangled up here.”
Daniel laughed. Whether at the name or the visual, he didn’t say. Elliot figured it was probably both.
They finally got out of, and away from, the car and fumbled to the front door. Elliot had to push Daniel away and hold him against the door with one hand while he fished his keys out with the other. Daniel laughed uproariously but stayed put against the door until Elliot unlocked it. They stumbled inside, and Daniel pushed Elliot against the door the moment it was closed.
They started losing clothes almost immediately, throwing them this way and that, so it took them a little while to realize that the clothes were being thrown back at them. When Daniel was hit in the back of the head with Elliot’s T-shirt, he fell against Elliot, laughing again.
“See? I don’t think your ghost likes me.”
Elliot wasn’t nearly as amused. “Ben, cut it out.” A T-shirt hit him in the face. He pushed it off, but it fell on his shoulder. “I mean it, Ben. Stop it! I’m finally feeling better enough to enjoy myself and I’m going to do it, dammit.”
There was a long pause, then the T-shirt on Elliot’s shoulder floated to the ground. Elliot watched small objects fly off of furniture in a trail toward the kitchen. Ben was obviously still mad, but he was moving away.
Daniel clutched Elliot, trying to get his giggles under control. “Is he done now?”
“I think so.” Elliot dropped his head onto Daniel’s and just held him close. “But I’m kind of out of the mood.”
Daniel started fiddling with Elliot’s belt. “Let’s see what we can do to get you back in the mood.” Daniel had the belt unbuckled in no time and started pulling it through the loops.
Elliot let his head rest against the wall. “Yeah, we can try. At the very least, you can sleep over.”
Daniel shifted his gaze from Elliot’s belt to his face. “Sleep over? What are we? Twelve?”
By the time they made their way to Elliot’s bedroom, he was very much back in the mood. He pushed Daniel onto the bed and scrabbled at his button-fly jeans.
“Really? Y
ou thought sex might be in the cards and you wear button fly?”
Daniel chuckled and spread his legs a little, trying to improve Elliot’s access. “I like how it makes my package look.”
Elliot rolled his eyes, but by then the buttons were undone and he pulled down the pants down to reveal said package.
“Button fly and commando? Doesn’t sound like a comfortable combination.”
“Effective, though,” Daniel purred.
Elliot had to admit Daniel was right. He pulled the jeans over Daniel’s feet and flung them across the room.
“Why’d you do that?” Daniel lifted his head and looked around, apparently trying to find where his jeans might have landed. “My lube was in there.”
Elliot smirked as he crawled up Daniel’s body. “Look in the bedside table.”
Daniel flung out an arm and fumbled around in the drawer until he found something the right shape. He brought the item into his field of vision and had to laugh when he read the label. “Edible lube? You dog, you.”
Elliot silenced Daniel with his mouth while he worked the bottle of lube open. They didn’t talk again for quite a while.
ELLIOT KISSED Daniel goodbye the next morning, sent him on his way, then ambled to the bathroom. He was stalling. He knew that. He didn’t want to face Ben yet. Elliot had half expected to talk to Ben in his dreams last night, but he was somewhat relieved that he hadn’t. He wasn’t sure what he would have said to him. Elliot had thought he could have sex with Daniel as always, without being continuously aware of Ben, but he was wrong.
He went down to the kitchen the next morning and set up the laptop as usual.
“Hi, Ben.” Elliot tried to be cheerful, but there was no answer. “What? You’re not talking to me now?” There was still no movement. “Really, Ben?”
Finally the keys slowly started to depress.
Hurts
“Hurts?” Elliot was puzzled. “You’re a ghost. What can possibly hurt?” Elliot didn’t mean to be hateful, but he realized the second it was out that it did kind of sound that way.
Ben didn’t seem to mind, though, or at least he didn’t address it. He simply answered the question.
C u with him
“Text speak?” Elliot was curious but also avoiding the topic of Daniel. Maybe. Just a little. “How do you know that?”
teenagers
Oh yeah. Ben had said he picked up a lot of stuff by watching the teens. Elliot could go off on that topic—what were the teenagers like? What else had Ben seen them do? Did Ben know how to operate cell phones? Did he play video games?
But Elliot wasn’t that much of a dick. Ben seemed to want to explain why he was angry around Daniel, so Elliot changed the topic back to that. “Seeing me with Daniel hurts you?” Elliot scrunched up his face. “Why?”
never mind
Well, that didn’t go as planned. Here Elliot was going to broach the subject, even though he didn’t want to, and then Ben just left. Elliot wasn’t sure how he knew, but he could sense that Ben wasn’t in the room anymore. Maybe Elliot should have asked all those questions about the teenagers instead.
He raised his voice and looked toward the ceiling. “I expect you to talk to me about this tonight.”
He didn’t get an answer, so he went about his day, working around the house on a bunch of small projects. Ben didn’t help for the longest time, but then finally, when Elliot dropped a pencil he was using to sketch plans, it floated from the floor back to his hand.
“Thanks, Ben.” Elliot grasped the pencil and glanced over at his laptop. “Are we good again now?” There was no answer, but Elliot felt Ben’s presence. Slowly, Ben started answering direct questions. Elliot tried to tell himself that Ben was just conserving energy, but he could tell that wasn’t it. Ben had been deeply angered, or hurt, and Elliot wasn’t exactly sure how.
Later in the day, he talked to Sheri.
“Come out with me tonight?” she asked over the phone. “Just for dinner?”
Elliot balanced the phone against his shoulder and ear, and continued fixing lunch for himself. “I don’t know, Cher. I’m feeling really exhausted.”
Elliot struggled getting out just the right amount of sliced ham for his sandwich, but he still heard the concern on the other end of the line.
“Are you okay, Ellie?”
“Yeah, I think so. I don’t have chest pains or anything, and I have my nitro in my pocket in case I do. I’m just really tired.”
“Well, take care of yourself. Are you eating?”
Elliot laughed. “Right this minute, actually.” He’d finally gotten the ham on the bread and turned back to the fridge for the mayonnaise. “Fixing myself a sandwich.”
“It doesn’t have loads of bacon on it, does it?” Her voice managed to be snippy and gently teasing at the same time.
“No, Mom.” Elliot sneered at the jar of mayonnaise in lieu of Sheri, since she wasn’t present.
Sheri chuckled. “I’ll leave you to it, then. I have éclair shells coming out of the oven soon anyway. I’ll check back with you later, though.”
Elliot abandoned the effort of trying to hold the jar, scoop out some mayonnaise, and hold the phone to his ear, all at the same time. “Okay, Cher. Have fun filling your éclairs.”
He pressed End and got back to making his sandwich.
ELLIOT SEEMED to be popular that evening because Daniel called him later.
“Can I come over tonight? Or do you still have a pissed-off poltergeist?”
Elliot had barked out a laugh as he stretched out in his recliner, having given in to the exhaustion he’d felt all day. “No, I think maybe we better lay low for a while. Ben’s really upset for some reason.”
“I still think he has a crush on you.”
Elliot knew Daniel was teasing, but he wasn’t so quick to brush it off. Ben had said he liked Elliot. Was that how he meant it? Why else would it hurt Ben to see Elliot with Daniel? He would make it a point to ask Ben about it that night.
“But”—Daniel cut into Elliot’s musings—“you sure you don’t want company at least? We could just watch a movie or something. Nothing to earn the wrath of Beetlejuice.”
Elliot snorted out a startled laugh as it occurred to him that he didn’t really want to talk about Ben like that. He knew Daniel was just trying to lighten the mood, though, and not being any more irreverent of Ben than he was of anyone else. Elliot actually kind of appreciated Daniel treating Ben like everyone else, as far as his sense of humor was concerned.
“No.” Elliot lifted an arm above his head as he used the other to hold the phone to his ear. “I think I’m going to just putter around the house for a little while longer, then go to bed.”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “You’re feeling okay, aren’t you?”
Elliot’s first instinct was to fuss about everyone asking him that, but he reasoned that they did have a valid excuse. The heart disease had gotten this bad before diagnosis because he wasn’t tuning in to the symptoms. “Yeah. Well, as far as the heart is concerned anyway.” Elliot snuggled down into the recliner to find a more comfortable position. “Just tired.”
Daniel’s tone of voice told Elliot he didn’t really buy it. “I could come over and just be there in case you needed help.” A pause, then, “I’d even sleep on the couch if you wanted.”
Elliot shook his head and belatedly realized Daniel couldn’t see it. “No. I don’t think I need a babysitter. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” Elliot thought he heard hurt in Daniel’s voice. “Just be careful, all right?”
“Sure thing.” Elliot tried to turn it into a joke. “You know me. Take care of number one.”
It fell flat, however, as Daniel ignored it. “Yeah, um, call me if you need me, okay?” Daniel said and then hung up.
ELLIOT DIDN’T get nearly as much more done on the house. He was a little afraid to push himself. He had a couple of episodes where he had trouble getting his breath or his heart felt
like it was racing, but they subsided quickly enough, so he put them out of his head for now. He grabbed the laptop to take upstairs. Taking it everywhere with him so that Ben could talk whenever he wanted had become second nature.
As he pulled his weary body up the stairs to the master bedroom, he couldn’t wait to hit the bed.
ELLIOT SITS up in bed and Ben is there, standing by the window. He’s not on the bed.
So he’s still mad at me, Elliot thinks. It isn’t unusual for them to end up by the window, but Ben almost always starts out wherever Elliot is. Aloud he says, “I was hoping you’d be here.” Elliot gets right to the point. “You want to tell me what that was all about today?”
“I don’t like him.” Ben whirls around to face Elliot, with his arms across his chest like a petulant child.
“I get that. But why can’t I like him?”
Ben looks shocked and suddenly deflates as he sinks back against the windowsill. “Do you like him?”
“I’m not asking him to pick out china patterns or anything, but he’s fun to be with.” Elliot gets out of bed and joins Ben at the window.
“I’m fun to be with.” Ben’s pouting, and Elliot thinks Daniel might be onto something.
“Ben, you’re a ghost.” Elliot touches Ben’s hand. “I love our nightly meetings, and even talking to you with the laptop, but it’s not like we can truly have a relationship.”
Ben puts his hand over Elliot’s. “Why not?”
Elliot’s mouth falls open as he stares at Ben. “Daniel was right. You’re jealous.” He touches Ben’s cheek with the backs of his fingertips. “Ben, we can’t—” The rest of his words are swallowed as Ben kisses him. It is such a gentle and loving kiss.
“We can have it here.” Ben pulls away long enough to look him in the eye. “Can’t that be enough?”
Elliot runs his hands through Ben’s hair just above his ear. “I know you must be lonely, Ben, but—”