Chapter 27
SUNDAY STRETCHES
IN WHICH JAMISON FALLS A LITTLE HARDER
Jamison barely kept them both from falling as Dessa crashed into him in front of AzRIO with a shriek that could’ve been half battle-cry.
“Hey, it’s me! What’s wrong?” The words tumbled out of him as he raked the darkness, but the only thing he could see behind her was Kiwi-Fred fluttering to AzRIO’s windowsill.
“Jamison, oh thank mercy.” Dessa heaved out a sigh of relief and whipped around to look over her shoulder.
“I…I don’t know. I thought I saw someone, but then it was a shadow, and I swear I heard a voice.
” She looked up at him, her eyes round with fear and shining in the streetlight.
“Is that crazy? Maybe I just need more sleep.”
“I don’t think so,” Jamison said, his foreboding buzzing like mad.
The burning sensation had been growing in strength all throughout the dinner with his mother, and he hadn’t been able to go back home without making sure Dessa was okay.
“Let’s get you inside though.” He opened the door, and Dessa tilted her head as if finally clocking his presence.
“Wait, why are you here?”
Jamison’s jaw worked as he struggled to find words that weren’t too close to the truth. Words his curse would allow him to say. “I needed to check on you.”
Dessa’s gaze narrowed as she walked into the office, the budgie fluttering in behind them.
Jamison turned on the light, and they both gave the open space a quick once-over.
Jamison locked the front door, and the buzzing seemed to quiet.
The tension fell from his shoulders. At least they were moving in the right direction.
Then again, would it have just been better to try to meet the threat head-on?
Except he had no idea what they were up against, and they were very much on the lower end of the food chain in the PC.
No, taking the blind offensive was not the right move.
“I’ll check the rest of the apartment to make sure it’s safe.” Jamison started for the break room under Dessa’s scrutinizing stare.
She followed him as he checked each room downstairs—the bathroom, the break room, Brad’s office, the closet. “You seem to have a knack for knowing when and where to show up in the nick of time, Jamison Kane.”
“Only for you, Blue.” He winked at her and was gratified by a pink-cheeked smile.
After checking every nook and cranny of the building, he ended his search in her apartment upstairs, blowing out his own tired sigh. “Okay, well, with the threats and the weird shadow, I think we have to assume someone’s out to get you.”
Dessa leapt onto her couch, stretching out, as if this was just a normal, casual conversation. “Maybe I can get Melba to look at the footage tomorrow to see if we can catch whoever it is. I mean, maybe there’s a way that we can use this to our advantage. Or I can draw him out somehow.”
“Yes,” Jamison deadpanned, stuffing his hands into his pockets, trying not to think of the panic that had bolted through him when the foreboding had erupted through his bones. “Let’s take a dangerous situation and make it even more dangerous.”
Dessa shrugged. “Well, the PC is always dicey. I can’t just hide forever.”
Jamison sat on the couch and ran a hand over his face with a groan. Of course she was right, but he didn’t really know how he was supposed to get used to the idea of Dessa always being at risk. Of rushing across town and hoping he would be in time.
“It’s just, I hate leaving you here alone.”
“I’m not alone, I have Kiwi-Fred.” She gestured to the bird on its perch on her desk, and Jamison shot her a look that did not convey the full breadth of his skepticism.
“Okay, well, if you’re really worried, you could stay the night,” Dessa added, and Jamison’s stomach did a slew of award-winning acrobatics.
“I mean, if you wanted. The couch folds out into a cot, and I have an extra toothbrush.”
He let out a slow breath, the drumbeat of the curse thrumming against his skin.
Someone was watching Dessa, which meant that someone would almost certainly know if he’d stayed the night.
But that didn’t mean she loved him or he her.
She’d just offered him a couch, after all.
It was like the physical embodiment of the friend zone.
She’d probably be in more danger from this imminent threat than some amorphous curse.
“Works for me.” He shrugged, pretending to be casual, when really all kinds of fireworks were going off in his chest. She’d just invited him to spend the night, and though he couldn’t close the distance between them, the opportunity to spend more time with her set his skin on fire.
He bounced on the couch as if testing the springs. “I didn’t want to drive home anyway.”
The next hour passed in an almost familiar haze as Dessa heaped blankets over the two of them, and they started their Netflix binge exactly where they’d left off.
Dessa ordered Italian, and they chattered about a whole lot of nothing.
Seconds passed like falling autumn leaves, the darkness completely banished by the light that was Dessa’s presence.
Even the budgie seemed to be enjoying himself as he hopped between their shoulders.
And, for those few hours, Jamison wasn’t lonely. He was the opposite of lonely—completely filled in every way—welcomed and belonging in a way that he wasn’t sure he’d felt with anyone else. If only the boon of his curse had been able to slow time, he would’ve probably stayed in the moment forever.
But of course, the seconds kept on ticking.
In what felt like half a blink, Dessa was in her bed, and he’d settled himself on the fold-out couch.
Kiwi-Fred was asleep on his perch, and the three of them were silent in the dark.
He tried not to imagine climbing under Dessa’s blankets instead, of curling his body around hers, but it would’ve been easier to ask him not to breathe.
“Hey, Jamison?” Dessa’s voice was soft in the dark, like it was coming out of the night itself, both so close and so far away.
“Yeah, Blue?”
“The murders of Rachel and your stepmom…that must’ve come as such a horrible shock.”
He frowned, his stomach sinking with the reality check. “Yeah, it was. Tragic and confusing and frustrating. Rachel and my stepmom were innocent; they didn’t deserve that. Then as if the murders weren’t enough, the fallout derailed my whole life.”
“Derailed it right into the paranormal world,” Dessa said. “I’m sorry that happened to them, and to you. Losing people you love like that, it sticks with you forever. And you have the curse to bear with it as well. You shouldn’t have had to carry all that.”
Jamison’s lips twisted. Though Dessa hadn’t exactly asked what his history was with Rachel, he felt the need to clarify it, for…
reasons. “I, well, it was an awful tragedy. But I don’t know if I ever loved Rachel or my stepmom like that.
Rachel and I hadn’t been dating long, and we were on the way out.
And honestly, I never knew my stepmom that well, though it hit my dad hard.
But yeah, I need to get rid of the pepper smell or whatever. It’s not a good look.”
“Do you wish that their deaths never had anything to do with the paranormal? That you could’ve stayed a Nesci?”
“Nope.” He smiled into the blackness around him, and Kiwi-Fred ground his beak somewhere on the desk.
“Even before all that happened, I never really felt like I had a purpose. Like I was being helpful or doing some good in the world.” He shrugged even though no one could see it. “It feels different here.”
A beat of silence filled the dusky, velvet air. “I’m sorry we haven’t gotten any closer to finding out who cursed you.”
Jamison chuckled. “Yeah, well, we gotta have priorities. Don’t worry about me, Blue. I’ll figure it out eventually.”
“I know Brad said he only had an intern slot for you, but I’m going to recommend he bring you on to a full position. If you want it, that is. You’re a natural at this, Jamison.”
His chest swelled in her confidence. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had vouched for him like that. “But what about you? I know you said you weren’t sure if you’d stick around. Are you still planning on finding a job somewhere else?”
Dessa’s bed creaked as she shifted. “Well, I have had a few offers, but I don’t know. I feel like this time, I don’t really want to leave. I don’t want to keep running.”
Jamison could’ve sworn a hummingbird had flown into his rib cage.
Of course, she wasn’t staying because of him, but at least she was staying.
He could work with that. “Okay, basically you’re saying if we get lucky, maybe the two of us could change this co-intern thing into a longer-term coworker thing? ”
Dessa’s soft laugh warmed him from the inside out. “Maybe if we’re lucky, Jamison Kane.”
And for the first time in he couldn’t remember when, Jamison fell asleep with a smile on his face.