The bed was unmade, with the pillows all jammed in one corner, the comforter tangled with the top sheet, and a worn paperback where my pillow would normally be. “I didn’t know you’d be home today,” Jacob said apologetically. “I haven’t changed the sheets.”
Without the two of us spooging all over them, he must not have needed to. I went to his side of the bed, grabbed his pillow, mashed it to my face, and inhaled.
I dunno what I would have done if this key piece of memory felt unfamiliar. Thankfully, it was exactly like I remembered—but once I was done basking in my relief, I realized I probably looked like a grade-A dumbass, standing there sniffing the bed right in front of him. When I lowered the pillow, though, Jacob was looking at me with such tenderness, I felt a lump in my throat.
I freed him from his tie while he unbuttoned his shirt, and it was clumsy as hell with all the kissing, but we didn’t care. The only thing we had to concede defeat on was the damn skinny jeans, but with Jacob’s eager assistance, I extricated myself from them faster than I’d ever managed on my own.
The mattress had just the right amount of give. I expected to be shivering, until I remembered the way the heat rose in the cannery. So many details I never gave much thought. Overall, though, I’d known damn well I had a better life than I ever expected or deserved. And now it really hit home.
I shoved Jacob onto his back and straddled his thighs, and ran my hands down his pecs. The whorls of his chest hair—that, I remembered. And the way his nipples drew up taut when I skimmed them with my palms. I re-learned his body—it was thicker than Bly’s. Jacob was bigger-boned, and he didn’t need to keep his body fat low enough for witness protection. He worked out to bulk up, not trim down.
While my hands ranged everywhere, Jacob kept his firmly planted on my hips as if he was worried I might get away. And for all that our kisses downstairs had been urgent, now that we were in bed, the urgency shifted, and it was more important to relearn so many little nuances…at least until my body reminded me that I hadn’t got my rocks off in the better part of a month.
My dick was painfully stiff and my body yearned for him to push in. When I snagged the lube out of the nightstand, the pump was all gummed up with disuse, and it took a few tries to get it going. “You want me on top?” Jacob asked.
I’d normally jump at the chance to have him do all the heavy lifting—especially running on ten minutes’ sleep—but I shook my head. “This is perfect. Just like this.”
He was hard and ready too when I lubed his dick with a few wet strokes. Me straddling him—it was the same as the last time we’d done it, practically a lifetime ago, acting out the delivery boy scenario on the coffee table. I wondered if being inside me would feel different to him now. Then again, maybe everything was different, every time. Our bodies were shedding and regrowing their cells and the earth was hurtling around the sun, and we couldn’t be the same person at the same time in the same way, even if we tried.
I sank onto him—so damn good—and his breath hitched in a way that sounded almost like a sob. I levered myself against the meat of his chest and set a punishing rhythm, as if somehow that could make up for all our lost time. And as I did, we both watched each other like we needed to see every last precious detail. Jacob’s lips were swollen from rough kissing and his face was flushed and vulnerable. Normally, seeing him like this would feel too intense, and I’d need to look away. But I’d earned this. And so I watched his face as his breath grew ragged, sweat beaded his brow, and the ruddiness on his cheeks went dark. And I did my best to memorize it, so I could keep it with me forever.
My eyelids fluttered shut only for that single shining moment of release. Just a few more thrusts and I was dragging him across the finish line with me, but not with his jiz fetish. He wasn’t watching me shoot my load—he was staring into my eyes.
Once we’d both drifted back to earth, Jacob’s hands skimmed up my body and he pulled my face down toward his. But he didn’t plant a kiss on me. Instead, he held my head, looked me square in the eye, and said, “Intellectually, I knew you’d be back. But not knowing when was brutal. Sometimes I convinced myself it was forever—and it was killing me.”
“I was only a couple of miles away.” But when I saw the anguish in his big, dark eyes, I knew I’d be a real jerk to minimize something that was such a big deal to him…to both of us. I stroked his earnest face and said, “I’m okay. I’m here. We’re fine.”
His brow furrowed. I reminded myself that he knew exactly what “fine” meant, and as responses went, it was nowhere near enough.
I slid off and settled beside him, up on one elbow. “I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into. Shocking, I know. And I’d love to say I’ve learned my lesson and I’ll never stick my neck out again—”
“But that’s nothing you can promise me. I get it.”
“You do. Because you’re the same.” I bent my head to his and stole another kiss. It was salty with the sweat of our exertion. “That’s why we’re good together.”
I swabbed us off with the sheet, then ran my hands down his body again, more deliberately now, lingering over the swells and ridges I’d never paid much attention to before, as if the thick vein in the crook of his elbow held the secrets of the universe and his collarbone was fascinating.
“So, the pillow,” he said.
“Here I thought you were gonna let me get away with that.”
Jacob rolled to face me. He tried to work his fingers through my hair, but thanks to the goop, wasn’t very successful. Plus, I realized, my head must’ve smelled like key lime pie with coconut topping and the sweaty inside of my hat.
“I just wanted to say, I get the pillow, too. When I got home that night after Veronica told me you’d been sent into the field, your mug was the first thing I saw, and I couldn’t bear to move it. If the coffee you forgot was still there when I got home every night, I could pretend that it was just another day for us. That we’d woken up together. That you were just working late. That any minute, you’d be walking through that door telling me your day was crazy and hoping I’d give in and order pizza. I only half-believed the lie, and only for a split second. But being without you was so….” He sighed in frustration. “Any amount of relief was better than nothing.”
Did I feel ambivalent about that? No, more like bittersweet. It made me physically sick to think of Jacob in pain, but it was a huge relief that I wasn’t the only one dying inside from being apart.
We were neck deep in the FPMP, and each of us was a high-level specialist. If Laura needed us to do some critical task that no one else could accomplish, we’d do it. I truly couldn’t promise him I’d never leave—and, frankly, he couldn’t make that promise to me, either. But I could think of another promise that would set both our minds at ease—or at least take the edge off if one of us got a lengthy field assignment.
I leaned out of bed and snagged the belt loop on those awful skinny jeans. It was tempting to pretend they no longer existed. It wasn’t the jeans I was after, though, but something in the pocket.
The heart-shaped wallet I’d made from duct tape had weathered its travels crushed against my pelvis. It was only slightly misshapen, and stuck to itself in just one spot that wasn’t intentional. I worked open the front, and dumped its contents into my hand.
The fake wedding ring.
“Now, before you say anything,” I said, “hear me out. I never saw myself being married—because I was queer, obviously, and marrying another guy wasn’t an option. But even after the government finally came around, it didn’t really seem doable. I told myself I wasn’t the marrying kind. We shared a mortgage, and that was good enough. The thing that was stopping me, I guess, was that I figured this was all too good to last. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop—for you to realize that ghosts are nowhere near as sexy as you seem to think they are. Or that when all was said and done, I just wasn’t worth the trouble.
“You know what, though? I might not make the bes
t husband in the world, but I’m willing to try, if you’re willing to—”
Jacob crushed his mouth to mine before I could even finish my sentence. Leave it to him to steamroll my proposal. Frankly, though, it was a relief. I doubt I could have handled it if he hadn’t jumped at the chance to accept. The generic wedding band dropped down into the sheets—sheets that smelled like both of us again. And he kissed me for all he was worth.
When he finally pulled away, his eyes were damp. He cradled my face in his hands and said, “If this is my reward for struggling through these past few weeks without you…it was absolutely worth it. Every last second.”
35
A wave of newly-engaged giddiness can only propel you so far. Jacob and I attempted to celebrate our decision with another round of between-the-sheets couples yoga, but even his enthusiastic manhandling couldn’t help me keep my eyes open. I woke up somewhere around dinnertime, drooling into Jacob’s pillow with a dog-eared paperback stuck between my shoulder blades.
The smell of simmering basil and garlic tickled my senses. Jacob is one-quarter Italian on his father’s side—thus the mesmerizing dark eyes—and he’d managed to inherit the cooking gene, too. My stomach made an undignified sound as it realized it wasn’t about to be subjected to another shrimpy, pre-packaged excuse for a meal.
I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, I’m nothing if not resilient. After just a few hours, the cannery was taking on the feel of reality again. The bed felt like my bed, the room looked like my room, and my distress over the notion I might never have my old life back again had receded to a dull simmer.
I stripped the bed before I headed downstairs to shower. Frankly, I was a little rank from my ghost showdown, and now we’d have plenty of time to get the sheets smelling just right again. When I popped off the fitted sheet, something small and metallic pinged to the floor and rolled under the dresser where various small items crawled off to die. I’d never actually expected Jacob to wear the thing—it was more of a prop to help me get the words out. In other words, it had served its purpose. Good thing the FPMP had a whole baggie full of them.
I pulled on a pair of underwear to head downstairs. They fit a little bit saggier than the douchebag would’ve liked, but it suited me just fine. Jeans, T-shirt, flannel. None of them were douchebag-approved, and I couldn’t wait to slip them on again and fit myself back into my old life.
“How quick do I need to shower?” I called to Jacob from the foot of the stairs.
He assured me that he’d just gotten started, and I headed off to scrub away the past few weeks as best I could.
Funny how sentimental I got when I encountered my awful pastel bathroom again. Like the townhouse bathroom, it had only a couple years’ worth of wear and tear. But that was after it sat unused for two decades while the cannery waited for us to become its current owners. I showered—even got schmaltzy over my old soap. And shaved—hallelujah. And then wondered how it could possibly be that my favorite pair of jeans was pinching around the waist just as much as the skinny ones I’d been struggling into lately…until I faced up to the fact that every time Bly wasn’t around, I’d scarfed down enough pie, cake and donuts for the both of us.
We didn’t own a scale, but it was clear I’d packed on some weight. Even so, I wasn’t about to get all excited and replace my wardrobe. My weight always found a way back to its baseline. And if Jacob noticed my cheeks were a little chunky these days, he’d probably think the babyface look was just a side-effect of my recent shave.
I’d always known Jacob’s furniture was well made—he’s got expensive taste—but when I sank into the dining room chair and didn’t feel the jarring sensation of a hard wooden seat against my tailbone, I was filled with appreciation for what I had: something I always knew was good, but didn’t quite realize exactly how good.
Despite the fact that I was a few pounds heavier, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d eaten. I wolfed down the gnocchi Jacob put in front of me like a starving man. And then I had seconds.
And then I had to undo my top button.
“So, here’s the thing,” I said. “I can’t guarantee I’d never accept another undercover assignment. There’s only so many trained mediums to go around, and if anyone knows how screwed up and wonky a haunting situation can get, it’s me. But if you can resist the temptation to plunder my private record, I’ll definitely keep my visits to the tradecraft department to a bare minimum.”
“All I want is for you to be happy.”
That was a major oversimplification. He actually wanted to deliver up a big plate of happiness like it was covered in fresh grated parmesan, and then make sure he received full credit for doing it. But this wasn’t the time to split hairs. “I know that’s what you want—and so do I—but not at the cost of everything we have now. You’re in a precarious spot where maybe you can dig up enough dirt to shed light on some answers, but eventually, you’ll get caught. I’ve been lying awake at night working out every angle, and there’s no way you can research my redacted record without it raising a big red flag. Don’t sacrifice our future just to get a better look at my past.”
He settled his hand over mine and nodded, and with equal parts disappointment and relief, said, “Okay.”
I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I believed him, but before I tried to force a promise out of him that would contain only a passing nod to the truth, an incoming message dinged from my fake husband.
Laura wants dead guy at gym handled now. Meet there?
I hit reply. One hour.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t mind if I brought a date.
I broke out a suit, just in case I needed to pull rank on the gym cops who’d thrown me out, plus the waistband on the pants was way more forgiving. I briefed Jacob on the way down. He did his best to contain his shock that there was spirit activity in a locker room in which he was periodically naked.
“There’s a spot,” I told Jacob, and he nosed his car in front of a utility company van. “And there’s Bly. Right on time.”
Jacob cut the engine. “You lived with the guy for three weeks and you still don’t call him Jack?”
“What can I say? I’m playing hard to get.”
“So this sham marriage…exactly how much did the two of you need to carry on?”
“No farther than first base.”
With a chortle of relief, Jacob said, “So, you kissed him, and even still….”
“Yeah, well. No tongue.”
We joined Bly where he was waiting just inside the sliding doors, where a couple of guys I recognized from HQ stood guard in Peoples Gas uniforms. As much as I wouldn’t have thought I’d grown accustomed to Bly looking a certain way, it was startling to see him in a bomber jacket instead of his ad-man cashmere coat. And the knit cap really did throw off the gestalt of his head.
“We’ve cleared the gym with a ‘gas leak’, and Carl is waiting for us inside.”
I probably shouldn’t have felt too smug that neither of them was willing to get too close to the toilets without me, but hey, I’m only human.
The four of us trooped into the locker room, and the other three agents all watched me intently. I opened up my crown chakra and drank down white light. “What’ve you got for me?” I asked Bly.
“Artie Pelzer. Forty-six, died from a coronary in the locker room on his third visit.”
“Jibes with what I picked up.”
“Do you want your salt weapon?” Carl asked. “Should I cast a circle?”
“Not just yet—it might all be overkill.” And kind of insulting to the dead guy, too. I headed over by the toilets and opened up my internal faucet wide. “Artie? You here?”
“Wow—check out the suit. You look like a real pro. I wouldn’t have known you if you weren’t all lit up.”
I turned toward the sinks. There was no cold snap or gooseflesh to herald his arrival. Just a human-shaped distortion that bent the light. I cleared my throat and said to my team, “He’s here.”
�
��Who are these guys?” Artie said. “Lawyers? Tell me you brought lawyers.”
“He wants to make sure the gym takes responsibility for the part they played in his untimely demise. Can we make that happen?”
Bly dinged a report over to my phone, and his voice hardly shook at all when he said, “It already has. Tell him that Halsted Fitness reached an out of court settlement upwards of a quarter-million dollars.”
“Is that true?” Artie asked me.
I checked the info. “Who’s Celeste?”
“That’s my sister.”
“Well…Celeste got a nice payout two months after you…ah…. After the incident.”
“No one told me.”
“And now you know.”
“The liability, though. Did they admit they should’ve given me a warning?”
The last thing I needed was for him to get stubborn and force me to shoot him with my new toy. “Isn’t the quarter-mil enough of an admission of guilt?”
The distortion wavered. “But the rowing machines….”
“Look, I had to initial three pages’ worth of disclaimers just to get a day pass, but if it’ll put your mind at ease, I’ll get the gym to put up a sign. Think about it this way, now that you know everything’s settled, you can move on to the next big thing.” Kind of like me and the big lug at my side who could hardly quell his excitement over hearing me talk ghost.
I knew where Artie was coming from; I could relate. Sometimes it seemed like I ran on stubbornness. But was it really worth wallowing in all the injustices I’d suffered at the hands of Camp Hell when I could be going forward instead?
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