That last probably explained why, though he’d enjoyed watching Laine and Sev and some other people having sex, it hadn’t really occurred to him that he could do any such thing. After all, if, when you died, you were free from physical pain—except in your memory—and able to zip around the world, and get to fuck, where was the downside to dying then? Granted, not everyone who died turned into a lingering spirit, but some did.
What would happen if two lovers, completely devoted to each other, died, and only one was a spirit? Conner shivered, more of a wispy movement for him but the same concept, he thought. He didn’t know where the people went who didn’t hang around post-death. And he didn’t want to find out. Conner liked being where he was. Going somewhere…else scared him.
Maybe that was why he was still on the planet.
Conner’s musings ceased when Sev and his nephew came in through the front door. Conner had had what he called ‘jumpy brain’ lately, his mind not being able to focus on any one thing for long.
For the first several years after his death, Conner had been unable to concentrate for long. He just wanted to have fun, but he’d been able to focus when it’d been important to do so. Death had made him more of a flighty person than he’d been in life. Once he’d realized that, it had started to bug him. He didn’t want to be vapid in form and personality both.
So he’d started trying to have more substance, started paying attention to those around him more. Part of it was that he’d taken an innocent spirit under his wing, so to speak, and the rest was that he couldn’t deny the changes in those living people he cared about.
Just like his worries and observations about Laine and Sev aging, and yes, whether or not those two would get to be together in death, either in spirit form or wherever they’d go after. Conner worried, but he just couldn’t focus on it. To do so made him jittery. He’d even dropped Sev’s ridiculously expensive eye cream a few days ago when he’d just meant to hide it behind the towels. Jesus, Sev could shriek.
He could also laugh and sound just as young as he’d been all those years ago when Conner had been a lost and terrified spirit with a message he’d needed to get to Laine about who had killed him. Hearing that laugh made Conner warm inside, so he floated up to the ceiling, his spiritual form no more substantial than the air that he let hold him up. Less, actually, he guessed. He’d always sucked at physics. All he could say for sure was he was up.
And that it wasn’t just Sev’s laugh that made Conner want to hang around and observe for a while. Though it made him feel like a skeevy pervert, he couldn’t force himself to disappear when Sev’s nephew, Rogelio Martinez, was around. The boy was beautiful, and Conner knew he wasn’t really a boy, having had an eighteenth birthday party some time ago. Years, but how many, he couldn’t remember. Enough that Rogelio’s form, though lithe and on the short side—yeah, even in death, Conner wouldn’t have admitted that to the kid—was obviously that of an adult. It showed in the slight delineation of muscle and the confidence with which Rogelio carried himself.
When Conner was around him lately, all the memories of arousal that he had suppressed tried to come back to the surface. He’d learned that touching another spirit felt like he remembered it did when touching as living beings. He just hadn’t applied that to a sexual manner of touching. Possibly because his main companion in the spirit world was Stefan, who, despite having died as an adult at nineteen, still seemed like a kid to Conner.
Part of that was because Stefan had been… Conner searched for the politically correct term. Things had changed a lot since he’d died, and he liked trying to keep current. Intellectually challenged? Conner shrugged. Stefan didn’t seem so different now, as if death had freed him of the physical limitations of his body and mind. He’d always be a kid to Conner, though.
“And so will Rogelio,” Conner murmured, needing to hear himself say it. Sev cocked his head and frowned and Conner slapped a hand to his own forehead. He knew Sev could hear him on some level. Sometimes he heard him clearly. Other times, like today, hopefully, not so much.
Sev held a hand up to shush Rogelio, who glanced nervously around the room and whispered, “Is he here?”
That wasn’t a thrill he felt at hearing Rogelio enquire about him. The kid wasn’t interested in him. For God’s sake, he was dead! That was probably it. Morbid fascination on Rogelio’s part. Conner wasn’t around the kid constantly, because even dead, he had a life. So to speak. He’d deliberately kept himself from teasing Rogelio, because—well, he wasn’t sure why. Probably because it was Sev and Laine who were Conner’s friends, and Rogelio had been an awkward teenage boy when he’d moved to McKinton. God, Conner wasn’t sure of anything right then as Rogelio turned his head toward him.
Rogelio’s eyes widened when he looked to where Conner was floating. Conner twitched, feeling that gaze like a heated breeze over his skin. It was too weird, too…intense for him. Conner zipped himself right out of the house, popping in instead on Laine in his office.
Laine, still handsome, still sheriff, but damn, he was sure looking his age. Conner tried to figure out how old that was exactly but gave up when he spotted Laine twirling his tin star badge on the desk top. That was Conner’s job!
It didn’t take much more than a thought to have the star shooting out of Laine’s hand and doing slow, steady circles in front of Laine’s scowling face.
“Conner, I’m trying to think here.” Laine smiled when he said it, though, and leaned back in his chair as he watched the star. “That’s a neat trick. I’ve never gotten tired of it after all these years. You should do that at my retirement party. Scare the shit out of the incoming sheriff.”
Great, I’ve established myself as a cheesy entertainment source in my afterlife. Conner swatted the star into the trash can, put out at being seen as nothing more than a party trick.
“Aw, stop pouting. You weren’t this moody before,” Laine drawled. He leaned over the arm of his chair and plucked the star out of the trash bin. “You know you mean more to me than a lot of living people.”
Before. Conner hated that word. ‘Before’ meant when he had been a living, breathing man. When he had been bound by gravity and morals and his own physical restraints. ‘Before’ meant what he’d lost, and he couldn’t dwell on that. It caused a confusing mix of emotions that he didn’t want to trudge through. He did stop pouting. There wasn’t any point to it. Laine was Laine, and he’d never been deliberately mean or particularly gifted with words.
“I think Matt’ll make a good sheriff, don’t you?”
Conner sat on the edge of Laine’s desk. He reached over and tapped Laine’s hand, a bare touch that Laine probably only felt as a tingling sensation. It was enough, though. Laine smiled crookedly and pinned the star back onto his shirt. “Sev’s been wanting to go places, you know. Well, I’m sure you do know, much as you and him do your chatting thing. He’s nervous about leaving his sister and them behind, but I think they’ll be all right.”
‘Them’ being not only Alma but her husband and children as well. Conner supposed he could pop in on them more often. There wasn’t much he could do besides that. It wasn’t like any of Sev’s family had his talent for communicating with the dead.
Conner remembered the way Rogelio had just been looking at him—well, maybe not at him, but still—just a few minutes ago. That had to be pure luck. Rogelio hadn’t ever seemed to be sensitive to his presence before then, not unless Sev or Laine mentioned Conner being there. Or unless Conner decided to goose his friends or some other such prank in front of Sev’s family.
At least Sev’s sister Alma had finally quit crossing herself every time anyone mentioned Conner’s name. Jesus, he wasn’t evil incarnate, just a dead guy who got bored too often. Conner shivered thinking of Alma and her body mutilated by necessity as the disease ravaged her. It wouldn’t be long before she joined him, and he couldn’t decide whether it’d be a good thing or not for Sev to be there when that happened.
Conner listened to Lai
ne ramble on until another deputy, Rich, came into Laine’s office. Conner wasn’t up to messing with Rich. That guy had had it bad enough, almost dying at the hand of the same psycho who’d killed Conner.
It was weird, how he had more of a family in death than he’d had while alive, Conner mused as he searched for Stefan. Usually he found the younger spirit hanging around Stefan’s brother Lee, and his partner Darren. Conner could add all of them to his friends list, too. When he’d been alive, he’d been outgoing and popular, but he hadn’t had many close friends. Well, one, really, and that’d been Laine. He’d been so deep in the closet, he hadn’t been able to risk letting anyone besides his lover too close.
Granted, he couldn’t communicate with most of the people he popped in on, but they almost all knew about him. When he let them know he was there—if he let them know, generally by tumbling things in the air that shouldn’t be tumbling in the air—they greeted him with a warmth he didn’t think any of his friends from his living time had. Except for Laine, when they had been alone.
Today was just going to be one of those days, he supposed. The past kept bubbling up in his mind, and a sense of melancholy and loneliness pervaded his normally happy persona no matter how much he tried not to let it.
Stefan was laughing, his eyes lit up with joy as he zipped along beside Lee. Conner didn’t want to intrude, not when he was feeling every bit the moody mess Laine had called him out on being. He settled his feet on the ground, pretending for just one moment that he was alive again, that he didn’t have to concentrate to feel the hardness of the earth beneath his feet. He glanced up at the brilliant blue sky, squinted at the sun’s glare that, even though he was a spirit, still made his eyes burn and water. He would never figure out stuff like that. He only knew it happened, that his spiritual body could still feel and his heart could ache with loneliness.
Conner looked down at the ground. He saw his boots, his favorite pair he’d worn so often when he’d been alive. Faded denim jeans hugged his legs, and a tight blue T-shirt covered his upper body. Why was he even wearing clothes? He was dead, and they weren’t real. Stefan was clothed, too, and all the other spirits he’d seen were as well. Had he manufactured the clothes when he’d been in that place between death and dying?
This is getting too deep for me. Conner had been moderately intelligent at best. There was no way he was going to figure out all this afterlife shit. It was a sign of how bored he was that he was even trying. Conner snorted at himself, at his stupid fancies, trying to pretend he was human and whole again. His eyes burned more from the damned sun, that was all it was, and he shot up into the air like a just-fired missile. He wasn’t trying to flee from his thoughts—that never worked—but if he could just lose himself in the beauty around him for a while, he’d take it. It was the only thing he could really have anymore.
Chapter Three
Ro couldn’t explain it, but he had felt the oddest sensation when he’d been talking to Sev. It was almost like he’d heard a buzzing in his head, then Sev had shushed him and Ro had known Conner was in the room. It was kind of like the way he’d felt the other day at dinner when Conner had shown up, but this time it was more intense.
Conner Sutherland. Ro had of course heard stories about Laine’s deceased lover. He’d even Googled the man years ago. The horrific account of Conner’s death had made him cry. The tragic parting of lovers had twisted his youthful heart into a knot of regret for Laine and Conner.
Then Ro had met Laine, and seen how much Sev loved him, and vice versa. He supposed it was fate or something that had brought Laine and Sev together. Or Conner. Ro liked to think Conner had loved Laine enough to want him to be happy in this life.
Ro pulled a file out of his desk drawer. He’d put the clippings together what seemed like ages ago, when he’d been a young, dumb kid full of romantic idealism. He snorted at that innocent boy now. The only romance he’d ever have would be in his head, unless he left the town of McKinton. Gay men weren’t exactly falling off tree limbs here. Ro snickered, imagining sexy studs floating to the ground like leaves on a fall breeze. McKinton would become a very popular town if that were to happen.
Inside the folder were articles Ro had printed out and clippings from actual newspapers. Different cases were tagged with colored tabs, but it was the blue ones he found himself fingering. Ro didn’t know whether to be amused by himself or disgusted. Maybe he was pathetic for not wanting to leave town and have a different life, but he didn’t care. He had to do what his conscience told him to. And he had to listen to his heart. He’d tried ignoring both a time or two and, granted, that’d been out of sexual curiosity, but what a disaster each one had been.
Ro pulled out the picture he’d been seeking. The colors were fading on it, but he could still see Conner’s blond hair and bright blue eyes well enough. There was that secretive smile, and it just hurt Ro to know the man’s life had been cut short. Here’s a man who had more to offer the world…
A knock on his bedroom door startled Ro into slamming the folder shut without tucking Conner’s picture away. “Yeah?” he called out as he set the papers down and leaped up from his chair.
“Son, can I come in?”
“Sure, Dad. It’s not locked.” Ro opened the door, though, because his dad wouldn’t ever just walk in. Once Ro had turned eighteen, he’d been afforded as much privacy as he could have when still living in his parents’ home.
His dad looked old, and tired. Ro’s breath hitched as he asked, “How’d Mom’s appointment go today?” Normally he’d have checked in on her himself, but her door had been shut and his dad had been in there with her.
Roger walked in and sat on Ro’s bed, slumping as if his shoulders couldn’t carry their burdens any longer. Roger was only twenty-one years older than Ro, but he looked like a man in his sixties rather than in his late forties just then.
Roger ran a hand down his face, then curled his fingers into a fist and rubbed at one eye. “Dr. Hebert doesn’t think she’ll be—” Roger’s voice broke, his breath catching on a sob. Ro darted to the bed and sat beside his father, embracing him awkwardly owing to their positioning. “He doesn’t think she’ll make it more than a few months. Her kidneys are barely functioning, and Alma wouldn’t accept a transplant even if she were eligible.”
“No, she always said she wouldn’t,” Ro murmured. His mama was terrified that her loved ones would develop the same disease she had, and wasn’t willing to let them donate a kidney when it might very well cost them their life later on. Add to the diabetes the heart disease that was killing her and there was no hope left for Ro. He couldn’t stop the tears, and didn’t care that he was almost thirty, sobbing in his father’s arms. They were going to lose his mama, and he’d never be ashamed of mourning that, of mourning her.
Roger cried right along with him, great sobs that shook the bed even if they weren’t very loud. Neither of them would risk Alma hearing them. Ro felt scalded inside, as if he’d been made raw from the pain of knowing the loss they’d soon face. It wasn’t a surprise—they’d had years to see it coming, but there simply was no way to truly prepare for the loss of someone you loved so much.
“I need to call your brother and sister,” Roger said some time later, the words tickling over the top of Ro’s head as his dad’s exhale ruffled his hair.
“I can—” Ro started but his dad cut him off.
“No, it’s my job as their papa,” Roger said. He tugged gently on Ro’s long hair until Ro looked up at him. Roger’s eyes were swollen and red, as was his nose, but he was still the big, strong man Ro had always admired. “You can go sit with your mama for a while, if you want to. She’s sleeping, but…”
But it might be one of the last chances Ro had to be alone with her. He couldn’t force himself to ask anything more specific, the child in him still wanting his parents. It didn’t matter how old you were, he couldn’t imagine it was easy to lose the people who’d loved you unquestioningly and supported your hopes and dreams. Ro s
niffed and got up. He went into his bathroom as his dad left with a quiet murmur.
Ro checked his reflection in the mirror and grimaced. He looked like shit, with an almost bruised tint to the skin under his eyes. His face was ruddy and his nose red. He looked away and turned on the faucet. After splashing his face, he got that weird sensation again, as if he were being watched. Ro tipped his head to one side and contemplated the feeling. It was like an electrical current sparking up and down his spine, sending streams of awareness throughout his body.
Was it Conner? Ro wiped his face on the towel then blew his nose, cheeks going hot as he did so. How embarrassing would it be to have Conner see him cleaning out his sinuses?
“Don’t be an idiot,” Ro muttered to himself. He wasn’t being watched, he was just a mess after that talk with his dad. Ro’s eyes burned, tears threatening again. He grabbed the towel and pressed it to his eyes, fighting to stem the tears that didn’t seem to want to be dammed. “Stop it, stop it, stop it,” he chanted, until finally the words seemed to penetrate and he was able to blink back the excess moisture.
Ro realized something then. That electric sensation was still thrumming through him, and… He gasped as he dropped the towel. Something that felt very much like a hand was stroking his hair.
As soon as he gasped it stopped. “Conner?” he whispered, his skin pebbling with goosebumps all over. Ro still felt it, not the touch but that thrumming. He felt like all kinds of a fool, looking all over the bathroom. He knew he wasn’t going to see Conner, but Conner could see him, and Ro couldn’t think of any other spirit that would be popping up.
Ascension Page 2