18. Why Worry?
A burst of giggles slipped out as Ollie stopped at a red light. “Noble wants to get to know me !”
Not only that, the man found his babbling cute! Which basically meant that Noble found him cute! He’d have preferred handsome to cute, but he’d take being described as cute over insane.
On seeing movement out of the corner of his vision, he looked over. “Oh, my God!” he huffed. “Would you fuck off?!” he snapped, glaring at the ghost, before instantly finding himself shocked that not only had he said that, but it had listened to him. “Oh…my God, I just told a ghost to fuck off…”
Ugh…now he felt bad. It wasn’t as if the ghost had done anything to him, besides appear. The man—well, he was masculine presenting—hadn’t even tried to attack him, like that one ghost had. Ollie shuddered at remembering the creepy man with sharp teeth.
Ahh, I really hope these aren’t just hallucinations, he thought with a groan.
Hell…that was where he was at now, wasn’t it? Hoping ghosts were real. Because ghosts being real was better than him losing his mind, or…having some sort of serious medical issue.
Ollie groaned again and drove as the light turned green.
When he reached the library, he found Noble already there, waiting near the door. Parking in his designated spot, Ollie jumped out, the smile on his face spreading. Why worry about ghosts when there was a hot guy with thick thighs who wanted to know him better?!
Noble grinned as he rushed over. Quickly unlocking and opening the door, Ollie waved the other man inside while the countdown for the alarm started.
He only managed to close the door behind him and move to the panel when the hissing started. Spinning around, he gasped on finding Red there. With his haunches raised, the cat looked like he was about to attack.
“RED!” he cried, while he hurriedly scooped him up. “Bad kitty.” Ollie ignored the cat’s continued hissing, while swiftly entering the code for the alarm.
Sighing as it reset, he turned around to face Noble with a hesitant smile, a still angry cat hanging from his arm. “So…umm, now what? I know you said research, but…”
‘Now what’ was a very loaded question. Noble’s gaze flicked down to Red. The cat was making a threatening rumbling noise while glaring up at him. Or rather…the familiar was. Which explained so much.
How…had he missed the signs? As intelligent as cats were, the looks Red always gave him had really been too pointed, too human. Well, not actually human, as familiars had never been human.
“Oh! Are you secretly a ghost hunter?! Or maybe an exorcist?!” Ollie suddenly gasped excitedly.
Noble blinked, his gaze flicking to Ollie’s face as his smile almost faltered at the question. So close…yet… “No, sadly I’m not.”
“Oh,” Ollie said with a cute little huff. “Too bad. I saw another one…you know. A ghost. On the way back, in my car. Well, it was the same one I saw there before. And this time, I told it to go away and it did. Which was odd, for more reasons than one. I kind of felt bad for yelling at it…him? The ghost is male presenting, at least.”
Ollie wrinkled his nose, before his face brightened up.
“You know, on top of our large witch collection, we do also have a rather nice selection on ghosts! Especially in the Rare Books section! Maybe we should start there? I imagine the more modern ones won’t be super helpful. I mean, maybe they could help. But I feel most recent books released on the subject of ghosts are leaning towards gimmicky cash grabs, rather than something informative or helpful. But we could always check those after.”
Chuckling, Noble said, “Sure, let’s start in Rare Books.”
“This way then!” Ollie chimed. Holding onto his cat with both arms, he started up the stairs.
Noble followed him into the mostly dark library.
“Sorry about the lack of lights,” Ollie said as they reached the top of the long stairway up to the ground floor. “I usually keep them off when I can to avoid higher electric bills. Same with the elevators,” he explained, as he headed towards the next set of stairs, instead of towards the intricate bronze antique elevators.
“It’s fine, my knees haven’t reached the point where I can’t manage a few stairs…yet. Who knows where I’ll be in a few years though,” Noble lied.
He would never reach the point of bad knees or joints, as he hadn’t aged since the day he… Noble shoved the memories away, as that was the last thing he should be thinking about while following a young, innocent baby witch into his home.
“We do have removable chair lifts for each stairway, in case our elevators ever break,” the man mused as they reached the first landing. He knew there were two between each floor.
“The elevators weren’t part of the original design, were they?” he asked, while following Ollie onto the second floor.
The man hummed. “They weren’t. The Cross Heritage Private Library finished construction in 1795. Elevators, as we know them now, weren’t made for passenger use until the late 1850s, and it was even later still until they became widespread, when they switched from steam powered to hydraulics.
“Even though they became more common in the 1880s, it wasn’t until 1923, when my great-grandfather, Braxton Cross, took over, that they were installed.
“My great-great-grandfather, Barrum Cross, had unfortunately gotten trapped inside one for over twenty-four hours during the earlier days of their conception…leaving him adamantly against all things elevators.” Ollie explained that last part with a giggle, before quickly adding, “Ours, of course, are perfectly safe. They are heavily maintained, and have also been upgraded since their installation in 1923, even if we did make sure to keep the original aesthetic. So, no worries about them breaking or anything.”
Noble chuckled. “I wasn’t. But thank you for assuring me that I am not going to end up trapped in your shiny bronze elevators.”
The third floor was just as dark as the second, but even though it was pitch-black, his night vision was good enough that he could see that the double doors of the Rare Books section were closed.
“Yes, being trapped in the elevators is not on the agenda!” Ollie laughed as his gray-blue gaze looked out into the darkness. “Let me run back to the light panel and hit a few switches, and then we can head to Rare Books.”