Chapter 12
An indeterminate but satisfying amount of time later, I was sitting on the edge of the sofa, back in my boxers.
Danny was still laid out on the sofa behind me, nude as the day he was born.
He had pulled out his vape pen—which he knew I didn’t approve of—and was blowing blueish-gray clouds towards the ceiling behind me.
I reached up and ran a hand through my disheveled hair and shook my head, amused.
“Blue Raspberry?” I snorted. “What are you? Twelve?”
“It tastes and smells good,” he chuckled.
“Smoke cigarettes like a grown up.”
“Ah, but then I’d get cancer and you’d have another ghost to swindle my mother over.”
I ignored the invitation to another fight.
“Those things aren’t exactly safe,” I said. “They might be causing new diseases that we don’t even know about yet.”
“Why don’t you look in your crystal ball and let me know?”
“I’m a medium and clairvoyant. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Isn’t that convenient?” Danny snorted. “Your powers are only useful when you need them to be.”
I turned to glare at him on the sofa behind me as he blew another plume of fog into the air.
“You know what?” I growled.
Danny reached up and put a hand over my mouth, silencing me. I continued to glare at him as he let the hand slide from my mouth to the side of my face. He kept it there, rubbing his thumb tenderly along the apple of my cheek as he smiled up at me.
“I didn’t come here to fight, Si,” he said. “Don’t.”
“Stop prodding me,” I quipped.
He raised an eyebrow.
“You know what I mean,” I said as my cheeks burned.
“All right.”
He let his thumb play along my cheekbone a moment longer, then his hand slid down to my neck, over my chest, and back to his side. He took another puff of his vape.
“You’ll get that ‘popcorn lung’ or whatever,” I said.
“You told me I’d get lip cancer from the dip in high school,” Danny said as he opened his mouth wide. “So far, so good.”
“That’s because I convinced you to quit before it was too late.”
I stood from the sofa. Danny stared up at me, his eyes hungry.
“That’s a sight,” he said softly.
“I could say the same thing,” I replied.
He grinned evilly.
“Oh,” I waved him off, “get up. Put your clothes on.”
“Suddenly you don’t want me here?” Danny grinned and swung his legs over the side of the sofa. “Didn’t seem that way a few minutes ago.”
“I don’t get afterglow,” I retorted, “I get annoyed. How long are you going to keep doing this anyway?”
Danny stood and took a puff of his vape right in my face.
“I figure as long as Mom keeps paying you, someone should be getting her money’s worth.”
I glared at him for a moment.
“I would be offended if that wasn’t slightly complimentary. However, for what I charge your mom, you shouldn’t be getting the full-service package.”
He laughed. A real laugh, throaty and amused, his head tilting back as he guffawed. Then he was looking at me again.
“I’m going to keep doing this as long as you let me,” Danny said softly. “But I still want you to leave my mother alone.”
I gave him a sneaky kiss on the lips and stepped away.
“Not going to happen. Get dressed.”
Danny slipped the vape pen into the pocket of his jeans on the floor and slipped into his underwear, jeans, and pulled on his t-shirt. He’d gotten his socks and shoes on when he finally spoke again.
“You know,” he said, standing before me, “you really will swindle the wrong person one day and end up in jail.”
I saw no point in trying to prove I wasn’t a fraud to Danny for the millionth time in my life.
“Or I’ll end up rich and famous like Victor Grimm with my own T.V. show and theater tour.”
Danny gave me an amused shake of his head. I saw no point in further discussions about my abilities or Rhonda Milner and her deceased husband.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
He gave me a contemplative look.
“I could throw something together,” I said. “I don’t have anything fancy, but I could make something. Gotta eat anyway, so if you want to join?”
“Nah,” Danny replied after a moment. “I really should probably go. I shouldn’t have even—”
Before he could finish his thought, headlights poured through the window, diffused by the curtains, and painted the living room walls. With a frown, Danny turned to glance out the window. After a quick peek through the panels of fabric, he turned back to me.
“It’s Max,” he said.
Slapping a hand to my forehead, I realized how easily I’d been distracted from my evening plans by Danny’s appearance on my porch.
“He’s bringing a cupboard,” I said. “Someone dropped it at his store and he said it’d look nice here.”
“How does Max know what would look nice in your house?” Danny squinted at me.
I waved him off.
“Max has a wife and kids,” I rolled my eyes. “But you don’t own me, either way.”
Danny’s frown disappeared, but he didn’t appear convinced that his competition in Sage Grove was scarce.
Not that anyone had to do much to compete with Danny.
Our encounters were never going to be anything more than a fling.
I knew it, Danny knew it, and no one else knew anything about what happened multiple times a week between Danny and I.
As far as I was concerned, the two of us were waiting for the lingering boyhood crush from high school to fizzle out so we could both move on.
Someday, I thought to myself as I yanked on my pants, shirt, socks and shoes under Danny’s supervision.
I headed to the door and swung it open, just as Max was sliding down from the seat of his truck.
He waved excitedly, then gestured at the cupboard in the bed, strapped down with rope. From over my shoulder, Danny spoke.
“It does match the walls,” he said.
I nodded and stepped out onto the porch. The ghost that had arrived home with me was doing loops around the oak tree further out in the yard, like a hula hoop, floating weightlessly around. I paid him no mind other than to notice his presence, and gave Max a wave.
“Brought a dolly!” Max hollered as he dashed to the back of his truck. “Should be easy!”
I turned to Danny.
“How about I get the full-service from you for once and you go help him?” I muttered.
He said nothing, but ducked around me to dash out into the yard to Max’s truck.
The two men exchanged pleasantries and general chatter as they worked together to unstrap the cupboard and slide it out of the truck onto the ground.
Max had brought the dolly to move the cupboard, as he mentioned, but between the two of them, they were able to lift and carry the cupboard from the yard up to the porch.
With a proud grin, Max slapped the side of the cupboard as he presented it to me on the front porch.
As if presenting the cupboard for my approval, and that I would ultimately purchase it, I couldn’t help but feel forced into my decision.
Now that the cupboard was out of the truck and on my porch, I felt I couldn’t really refuse to buy the cupboard.
Telling Max and Danny to reload the piece would have seemed cruel.
The cost of the cupboard made it seem exceptionally cruel.
“Well,” I said, “it does match the walls.”
“Kinda shocked you’re surprised to see it,” Max said.
“You did text me last night. I guess I shouldn’t be.”
Max frowned. “No. Someone taped a note to it. Thought you knew it was being dropped off at the shop to buy.”
“A note?” I asked, glancing at Danny.
“Well, a tag, maybe? Just said ‘Silas’ on it,” Max said with a shrug. “I assumed someone thought you might like it, and, well, I don’t know. I guess if you knew it was coming, they’d have dropped it at your place.”
I had no reason for why someone would leave a cupboard at Max’s shop with my name tagged to it.
Of course, like Max, someone might have known the color scheme of my house.
In cleaning out old stuff at their house, they might have assumed I’d be interested in some of their old furniture.
Who was to say? It was on my porch and I’d offered Max fifty bucks for it.
“As I said, it matches the walls,” I replied.
Max’s grin widened. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his baggy work jeans, faded and worn over the years, and looked it up and down lovingly.
Obviously, he felt that he had found the perfect match for the piece of furniture that had been unceremoniously dumped at the front of his store.
Danny examined the cupboard, squatting and bending to check it out for structural problems or any damage.
Unaware that I would pay the agreed upon price regardless of what he found, I left him to his inspection.
“It looks solid,” I said, looking the cupboard over.
“Solid wood for sure,” Max nodded, his mop of black hair waving with the movement. “Not quite sure what type of wood, though. I can’t get the drawers or doors open. Probably been painted shut by the last person. They were probably using it as a show piece instead of storing stuff.”
“Aesthetics over function.” I nodded.
Danny tugged at the knob on one of the drawers and found it sealed shut. He repeated the action with the left side front door at the top and found himself rejected by the cupboard once more.
Walking around the cupboard, I examined its length, depth, and height.
If I was able to strip the paint and get the doors and drawers functional, maybe replace some hinges and tracks, then repaint it a color that wasn’t so matchy-matchy with the house, it could be a real find.
It would at least be decent storage for dishes or family heirlooms. Even better, it could become the place I stored my most cherished books.
“All right,” I said. “It looks like it’ll be pretty functional once it’s restored. I’ll take it.”
As if there was ever any doubt.
“Great!” Max clapped his hands together. “Fifty?”
I nodded. “If you help Danny move it inside.”
He laughed. “You’re the boss, boss!”