Ascension

by Bailey Bradford

  He hoped Ro never let him go. Conner hadn’t really feared anything in regards to himself for a very long time, but now he feared that—and he couldn’t forget seeing Alma’s soul ascend into that brilliant blue sky. If he clung to Ro once the man pulled out and lay beside him, Conner put it down to the tender feeling of love blooming inside him. He wouldn’t give any credit to the fear of being pulled up and away from his lover.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ro was nervous. Maybe it was silly to be nervous, considering his current state, but he was. He and Conner were waiting in Laine’s office. Laine and Sev were at Ro’s funeral, and Conner had offered to go with him to observe it, but Ro didn’t feel right doing that. It seemed like a vain, ego-feeding sort of thing to do, as if seeing people mourn for him would ensure that he felt loved. Ro wasn’t cool with that.

  In the two days since his death, Ro had learned how to pop in and out of places. Thinking of where he wanted to go, he only had to concentrate then he was there. It reminded him of his fantasies of being able to teleport when he was a kid. He just hadn’t known he’d be able to do it, ever, but only if he was a spirit.

  Well, it is what it is. He’d had his life, now he was lucky enough to get to have his afterlife with Conner. He just wished he hadn’t hurt his loved ones by being such an idiot and swerving.

  “No what-ifs,” Conner told him, as if the man knew what he was thinking. Possibly he did. Ro was pretty sure there was more to Conner than even Conner knew, but he wouldn’t pry.

  “Trying. You can’t tell me you didn’t do it, too.”

  “For years,” Conner agreed. “And it sucked. I’d rather you didn’t have to go through it.”

  “I think we all have to. Second-guessing our mistakes when they cost us so much is human nature,” he pointed out.

  Conner nodded. “Sure, but you gained something too. Lucky you I’m as thick-skinned as I am thick-skulled and don’t get my feelings hurt easily. I’d hate to think you were calling me a mistake.”

  Ro tossed a wadded-up ball of paper at Conner. “Ass. Stop trying to make me paranoid. You know what I meant.”

  “Yup, I did.” Conner cocked his head, and his eyes glazed over. That look usually meant Sev was talking to Conner. “Sev said they’ll be here in ten, and not to mess with the papers on Laine’s desk.”

  Ro sighed, wondering if his uncle said shit like that just to get Conner to do the opposite, because that was surely what would happen.

  Conner didn’t disappoint him, raising every paper into the air, including the previously stuck-together sticky little yellow squares. Conner’s grin was positively evil, and he looked freakin’ adorable as he spun the papers around. The stapler floated up next, and in short order Laine’s office walls had been redecorated. Conner was just setting the stapler back down when the office door opened. It wasn’t Laine or Sev who came in, though.

  Deputy Rich Montoya’s eyes bugged and he turned white, bringing the scar that ran from his eyebrow to chin into stark relief. “Fuck,” he mumbled, stumbling back out of the door.

  “Shit!” Ro said at the same time as Conner.

  Montoya’s eyes didn’t bug any further, they just rolled right back and he hit the floor with a thud.

  “Shit! Shit, we killed him!” Ro yelled, panic flaring bright and fast. “Oh my God!”

  “He’s not dead,” Conner said, appearing beside Rich. “I think he just passed out. If you remember, Rich had very bad experiences with spirits.”

  Yeah, Ro remembered. He’d been haunted, possessed even, by the spirit of the guy who’d killed Conner and had almost killed Rich. It’d taken death to get rid of the fucker, with Rich having to be revived through CPR to be free of the evil that had almost destroyed him.

  “So he knows about us. Why’d he pass out?” Ro asked.

  “Probably because he heard you,” Sev said. Ro looked up to find his uncles rushing over to them. “Were you talking when he—” Sev glanced around, looking at the open office door. “He walked in the office?”

  “I think all I said was ‘Shit’. He startled me.” Which was a lousy thing, considering Ro was the spirit.

  Laine grunted and, after he and Sev had brought Rich back around, Ro was careful not to make the slightest sound. Rich had a wild look to him, like a horse frightened by thunder. Ro floated his ass back into Laine’s office and started taking down the papers Conner had stapled up all over the place.

  “You‘re not gonna let me have any fun.”

  Ro looked over his shoulder at Conner but didn’t answer. As far as he knew, Rich was still within hearing distance. Conner started taking papers down too, grumbling as he did so. Footsteps warned Ro of someone joining them just before Laine cursed.

  “Damn it to hell, Conner…”

  Conner snickered and rolled up a stack of papers.

  Laine narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you dare—?”

  Conner swatted him on the backside and let the papers fall to the ground when Laine spun around.

  Ro had spent his teen and early adult years being intimidated by Laine. It wasn’t until he’d really matured that he hadn’t been afraid of Laine snapping his head off. But even so, he couldn’t have teased Laine the way Conner did.

  Conner floated back and pointed. Laine’s tin star pinged when it hit the ground.

  “Enough!” Laine roared.

  Ro opened his mouth to snap back, not caring for Laine yelling at Conner one bit.

  “Don’t.” Conner grimaced and gestured, elevating the star until it wavered chest level with Laine. “I shouldn’t have messed around today. I never do know when to quit. Or when to not even begin.”

  Conner sounded so disgusted with himself Ro couldn’t help but hug him. “You were only teasing,” he said, forgetting his attempt to keep silent with Rich nearby.

  “Now isn’t the time for joking,” Laine snapped.

  Ro glared at the man but kept silent. His balls were only so big, although what could Laine do to him now?

  “He’s right.” Conner sighed and patted Ro’s back. “I was just being an ass.”

  It almost hurt for him not to speak. Ro had to bite his tongue, but he didn’t think Conner was an ass. Playful, happy, and deeper than anyone else suspected, that was Conner. Otherwise, he’d not have been worrying about Laine and Sev like he had.

  “Rich is fine, and he won’t go home,” Sev said as he walked into the office. He closed the door. “He doesn’t, however, want to hear a spirit speaking after his previous encounters with them, so he is manning the front desk for a while.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare him. I thought he was you or Laine,” Ro explained. “I was startled when it wasn’t.”

  Sev looked around the office, and Ro saw it then, the age that had crept up on Sev over the years. He guessed it’d been so subtle that he hadn’t realized how the years had affected Sev. On Laine, it was even less noticeable because he tended to be stern-looking, with weathered features by the time Ro had met him. But Laine’s hair had once been dark, and was now almost entirely a steel-gray color, and the lines he had were etched deeper into his skin. It saddened Ro and he shared Conner’s fears for his uncles.

  He realized he’d been wool-gathering while everyone else had been talking. He tuned back in, listening as Sev explained how Ro seemed to have the reverse psychic abilities of his.

  “That’s messed up,” Ro mumbled. “Yours you could at least use while you were alive.”

  Sev canted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Well, but I have to wonder. How different is it being a spirit, really? Y’all get your feelings hurt, experience the same emotions and shit that we do. You feel lust—and please, don’t even try to tell me you and Conner aren’t going at it like bunnies. Conner broadcasts accidentally sometimes, and do you have any idea what it’s like to be talking to a funeral director and have someone slam their orgasm into your head?”

  “Oops,” Conner whispered.

  Sev glared daggers at him. “Oops, my ass. I wa
lked out of there with a freakin’ erection, and that was beyond disturbing.”

  “I’d be offended but I get what he means, even if I didn’t hear exactly what he said just now,” Laine said as he hooked an arm around Sev’s hips. “Sev felt what Conner felt, and that wasn’t something he could control.”

  “I didn’t know.” Conner didn’t look overly sorry, though. “I wouldn’t have invaded your privacy like that, and I wasn’t trying to brag or anything. Ro just blew my mind.”

  “Don’t say it,” Sev warned.

  Conner grinned. “And the rest of me, yeah, I won’t name the part but—”

  “Conner!”

  “Fine, fine, Sev, chill.” Conner dropped the subject easily and was all seriousness again. “The thing about what you can do, Ro, is that it’s probably more important than what Sev can do. If other spirits find out, they’ll be buzzing you to pass on messages and what have you. You won’t have a moment’s peace.”

  Ro noticed Sev gaping at Conner before he turned to explain to Laine what Conner had said. Ro frowned at them in return. Didn’t they realize that Conner was pretty damned smart? Had they forgotten how he’d helped them catch killers and solve cases? Probably, he thought. Who liked to remember the bad things that happened? It was easier to focus on things like pranks and jokes.

  Sev finally spoke, his voice not hiding his surprise. “Conner’s right. I’ve had spirits hunt me down to reach the living for them, but it’s really hard for most of them to clarify what they want me to do or say. With Ro, they wouldn’t have a problem, not if he can be heard as clearly as we hear him.”

  “What do you mean?” Ro asked.

  Sev twirled a finger around, pointing at them. “We’ve all had some kind of brush with death, and—or—spirits. Rich, too. Maybe that has something to do with why we can hear you. I don’t know, though. It’s just a theory, and I kind of don’t believe it even if I did share it.”

  Conner’s gleeful expression returned. “That’d be easy enough to check out. All you have to do is pop out and say ‘boo’ to the first stranger you see. I wish I could do that. Man, I’d have a ball!”

  “So it’s a good thing you can’t do it,” Sev told him. “Ro, why don’t we go to the city park, and you can try it? I’ll be close by, so that if whoever you choose to speak to hears you and freaks, we’ll just say it was me.”

  Laine settled his Stetson lower on his brow and took Sev’s hand in his. “Why not just go for a stroll and have Ro say ‘hi’ to people, and if they respond, Sev, you just nod like it was you who said it. Might spare someone a heart attack.”

  “You take all the fun out of everything,” Conner muttered. “Not that I want anyone to keel over, but a yelp or two would be funny.”

  “Conner’s bitching, ain’t he?” Laine asked.

  Conner slapped a hand over his heart. “He knows me too well.”

  “He’s hamming it up,” Sev told Laine. “Okay, let’s do this, if you’re game, Ro?”

  “Why not?” Ro couldn’t help but notice that Rich seemed to look right at him as they passed him by. It was unnerving, and he was sorry for freaking the guy out.

  Outside, the sun was bright and hot—well, he’d bet it was hot. He didn’t feel it any more than he felt the wind blowing through him. He did, however, feel Conner’s hand in his as they moved along.

  As soon as they reached the small park with the walking trail, Ro looked for people he didn’t know. It was hard because McKinton was a small town, and he’d lived there for years. Most of the people had eaten at Virginia’s Café at one time or another. That didn’t mean he’d served them, but he had certainly waited on a lot of them. Still, he saw a few people he didn’t think he’d ever talked to, and when he spoke to the first one, the old man answered right back. Sev’s eyes went wide but he talked to the man for a few minutes before moving along.

  The next two people answered Ro as well, which seemed to prove Sev’s first theory that Ro could communicate with the living. He wasn’t sure it was useful, but it was nice not to have lost his uncles as completely as he could have. In fact, as far as he could tell, the main difference was that hugging them was beyond his ability at that point. Conner assured him that he would learn to make himself dense for longer periods of time, but Ro wasn’t so sure. Plus, by the time he learned it, it might be too late. Or unnecessary, depending on what happened to them when they died.

  Ro turned his morbid thoughts off. He wasn’t going to waste the time he had with them worrying about things he couldn’t control.

  Back in Laine’s office later, Sev seemed worried. “I just don’t know what it means that you can do what you can do,” he told Ro.

  “Why does it have to mean anything? Maybe it’s just something I can do. Maybe there’s no point or reason or rhyme to it.”

  Conner shook his head. “I don’t believe that. I think everything has a reason, and if someone like me thinks that, then it’s gotta be true.”

  “Someone like you?” Ro cocked an eyebrow at Conner, waiting for an explanation. If the man was dogging himself, Ro would set him straight right quick.

  “Yeah, someone who doesn’t have many deep thoughts. Don’t have room for them when I’m always making messes of offices and such. Plus, blond hair,” Conner said, confirming Ro’s suspicion that he was insulting himself, even in jest.

  “I’m sure there are several blonds who’d take offense to that.” Ro let it go for now. He’d make sure Conner knew he was intelligent as anyone else there later when they were alone. “So what would be the point of this ability of mine?”

  No one answered. Yeah, that was what Ro had thought. He supposed only time would tell if there was a purpose for him now or not. Then he looked at Conner, at his smile and dimples, and he knew that, regardless of his psychic ability, he had a purpose. Loving Conner. He’d been doing it for years, although he’d not wanted to admit it, because it had seemed pathetic to be hung up on a spirit, but it was the truth. Eventually he would share that information with Conner, but for now he was content to visit with his uncles and recline in Conner’s arms.

  Chapter Twelve

  Conner’s eyes burned as he watched Ro cry quietly. It was worse somehow than if Ro had screamed and sobbed, but Ro didn’t, wouldn’t, since they were in the room with Roger, Adela and Martin. A week had passed since Ro’s death, and he was as surprised as Ro that Adela and Martin were still in town. Neither of them could hear the reason why, because not only were they blocked from approaching Roger, there seemed to be some sort of audible block as well. It was the oddest thing ever, and Conner had never seen or heard anything like it before—or not heard, he thought.

  Either way, it extended to whoever Roger was talking with, because Adela and Martin’s words were only soundless breaths to him and Ro.

  “Dad,” Ro tried again, but just as before, Roger didn’t even bat an eyelash. Ro cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Dad!”

  Roger kept nodding at something Adela was saying, but—“Do it again, just like that,” Conner told Ro.

  This time when Ro yelled, Conner’s pulse kicked up. Usually it amused him how his spirit form mimicked his former body, but right then he was over it, because he’d seen something. “Again, Ro, please.”

  The third time, Martin jerked his head back like he’d been slapped. He rubbed the back of his neck and unobtrusively shifted his gaze all over the room.

  “He heard me?” Ro whispered, putting a hand out. It hit that invisible barrier the same as it had before. “Damn it!”

  Martin stood up and said something before walking out of the room. Conner took Ro by the arm and popped them outside to where Martin was standing on the porch. The light was off and the darkness almost complete as the sky was clouded with an incoming storm.

  Martin stepped up to the rail and leaned out, looking up at the clouds. “I don’t know where you are, Ro, or if you can hear me, but God damn it, we miss you so bad. I was a shitty little brother, but I thought…�
�� Martin sniffled, then sobbed, “I thought we had longer.”

  Ro stuffed his fist in his mouth to push back a sob of his own. Conner was going to end up crying at this rate. He caressed Ro’s shoulders for a second then nudged him forward. “Try it. Just maybe like…like a little gust of air or something.” If Ro spoke and Martin heard him, Martin might just go head over ass off the porch.

  Ro moved closer to his brother, and Martin stopped mid-sob, hiccupping as he stood up straight and turned toward Ro. Conner watched as Ro concentrated on giving his fingers some density, then Martin’s hair was brushed off his forehead and out of his eyes.

  Martin opened his mouth to scream, Conner could see it coming, feel the panic like static electricity—then just as suddenly Martin slapped his hand over his mouth and stumbled backwards. He started to tip over the rail and Conner didn’t think, just acted, not wanting Martin to land in the thorny rosebush below. He swooped and thought and pushed, all of which resulted in Martin shooting forward and through Ro.

  Both brothers yelped, and Adela came flying out of the front door. She stopped like she’d hit that invisible wall, and she cupped her face with her hands.

  “Chingada madre,” Adela hollered, eyes wide.

  “Watch your mouth, Adela,” Ro snapped, probably before he could think not to.

  Understandable, Conner figured, considering that his little sister had just shouted ‘mother fucker’ in Spanish loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood.

  Adela didn’t watch her mouth, though, cuss words tumbling out as panic twisted her features. Martin ran over to her, whooshing through Ro again, which made them both gasp, but he grabbed his sister.

  “Stop, before Dad comes out and sees this!” Martin said, giving her a shake. “He’s already stressed to the point I’m worried he’s going to have a heart attack or stroke or something!”

  Conner got his arms around Ro quickly, whispering to him even though he didn’t think Martin and Adela could hear him. “Give them a few minutes. They’re badly rattled.” Normally, Conner would have been kind of amused by their expressions, but he was learning that his sense of humor was warped and he didn’t care for it much at times. “They can hear you, I think, maybe even sense you. It must just be your dad that’s blocking us somehow.”