Bat
twenty-four
The Lancasters were long gone, yet the words you’re fired still echoed in my head, each syllable a dagger twisting deeper into whatever passed for my ghostly soul.
When Harrison had said that, I’d felt like I was dying.
All over again. But worse this time, because I could remember it, and I knew exactly what I was losing.
It was silly, really, but in my head, Charlie and Brad were going to be here for weeks, getting the runaround, whilst Charlie and I spent the evenings talking, laughing about Brad, playing my guitar, cuddling, watching rom-coms, eating crisps, and of course, having mind?blowing sex.
I’d imagined lazy mornings where Charlie would wake up reaching for me, afternoons reading in the library or messing about in the piano room, nights where I’d learn every sound he made when I touched him just right.
Now it was already over. They’d be gone tomorrow afternoon.
And there was nothing to do about it aside from being devastated.
Charlie spent a good hour cleaning the mess in the corridor whilst Brad pretended to help.
I watched Brad disappear to “make tea” three separate times, only to return empty?handed and examine the wall damage with exaggerated concern.
He spent ten minutes rehanging broken picture frames that clearly needed binning, holding them at ridiculous angles whilst Charlie actually tackled the mess, slowly, to avoid cutting himself on the shards of glass.
“This one’s definitely salvageable,” Brad announced, wrestling with a frame whose glass had shattered completely.
Charlie didn’t even look up from where he knelt on the floor, attacking a particularly stubborn mark with a cloth. “Just bin it, Brad.”
“No, no, I think I can—” The frame promptly fell apart in Brad’s hands. “Right. Tea, then?”
And off he went again.
I’d constantly reminded Charlie he really didn’t need to bother cleaning the corridor—what were the Lancasters going to do if they returned tomorrow and the mess was still there?
They’d already fired them. But Charlie scrubbed at the tiles until they were spotless, muttering under his breath that his mother wouldn’t believe this if she saw it.
I left Charlie just for a moment to search for Molly, dreading the worst—that I wouldn’t find her, that Brad’s stupid gun had permanently erased her from this world.
I couldn’t bear the idea. Molly was the closest thing I had to a mother here.
Hell, she was the closest thing I’d ever had to a mother, period.
My own mum had spent most of my teenage years looking at me like I was a particularly disappointing stain on her carpet. Apparently, wearing eyeliner and playing electric guitar every evening were unforgivable sins.
Molly, though? She’d never once looked at me like I was broken. When I’d first materialised here, with a wound between my ribs I couldn’t remember getting, Thomas had brought me straight to her. She’d squeezed my hand and told me it would be alright. That she’d look after me.
She’d been the one to explain what we were. Where we were. Why the world kept moving on without us whilst we stayed frozen in place.
I eventually found Molly in the garden with Thomas, relief flooding through me. She was shaking like a leaf, her translucent, ghostly form flickering at the edges.
“That horrible man,” she whispered. “That horrible, horrible man.”
Thomas patted her shoulder awkwardly. “There, there, Molly. He’s a right bastard, that one. I’ve a mind to give him a piece of my mind before he leaves.”
The thought of gentle Thomas confronting Brad made me smile despite everything. I couldn’t really imagine Thomas hurting a fly, let alone a six-foot rugby player with anger management issues.
“They’ll be gone tomorrow,” I promised.
Molly caught my eye. She patted my arm with trembling fingers. “In that case… make sure you tell that nice young man how you feel, Master Bartholomew. Else you’ll regret it for the rest of eternity. And we both know how long that is.”
I floated back to find Charlie standing alone in a spotless corridor, and immediately dragged him upstairs so I could finally have him all to myself again.
“Bat, slow down,” Charlie laughed, stumbling as I pulled him along. “What’s the rush?”
I spun around to face him at the top of the stairs, my hands already reaching for his face. “The rush is that you’re leaving tomorrow, and you spent an hour pointlessly cleaning glass and coffee off the floor.”
We tumbled through his bedroom door, shutting it quickly behind us. The click of the latch felt like sealing ourselves away from the world—from Brad’s stupidity, from Harrison’s dismissal, from the ticking clock that counted down our remaining hours.
I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen once we were through, but it wasn’t for Charlie to pace up and down the small room, sighing deeply like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“What’s wrong?”
Charlie stopped mid-pace, running both hands through his messy blond hair.
“Bat… I can’t leave until we find out what happened to you.
There’s nothing online about Michael. So…
I’ve decided I’m going to walk to the town, ask around.
There are loads of old people there—one of them will remember Michael and his parents. ”
“No way!” The words ripped from my throat, way too loud. “You’re not wasting our time on that. I told you, Charlie, I don’t even care.”
Had he completely lost the plot? I couldn’t bear the thought of spending our last precious stolen hours together watching him spiral into detective mode when all I wanted was to memorise the way he looked at me, soak up the sound of his voice, the warmth radiating from his skin.
“But you do care!” Charlie spun to face me, blue eyes blazing behind his wonky glasses. “Of course you do!”
He crossed the room in three quick strides and placed his hand over my shirt, right where the wound gaped between my ribs. I leaned into the touch.
“You died, Bat. And we can’t undo that, but we can at least understand it. Find your bones and bury them properly, in a lovely part of the garden. Find out what happened to Michael too. Give you the closure you deserve.”
The earnestness in his voice sent a stab through my chest that had nothing to do with phantom wounds. Here Charlie was, ready to sacrifice our final hours together for my sake, and I wanted to shake him and kiss him in equal measure.
“Charlie, listen to me.” I caught his free hand, intertwining our fingers.
“We have mere hours before you walk out that door and I never see you again. You are the best thing that’s happened to me in twenty-seven years of monotonous hell.
I’m not wasting a single second chasing answers I might not even get. ”
His shoulders sagged, defeat written across every line of his body. “I just want to help you.”
“You have helped me,” I said, bringing his knuckles to my lips. “So much, baby. You’ve helped me feel alive again. And now I get to live with that memory forever, even if I can’t have you.”
Though even as I said it, a treacherous voice in the back of my mind wondered if this taste of happiness was worth it—whether I’d be absolutely despondent when Charlie left, knowing what I was missing.
Charlie sighed again, this time heavy with resignation. “Fine!”
“Come here.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist, trying to ignore how he shivered at my touch. Another sliver of self-hatred pierced through me—for what I could never give him. A warm body. A life outside these walls. A future that extended beyond tomorrow afternoon.
My gaze fell to my guitar propped against the wall. “Take my guitar when you leave.”
“But—”
“It would make me so happy, to think of it out there in the world, being played by you.”
Charlie nodded, then reached up to capture my chin between his fingers. “Any other requests? Want to taste some more food together?”
I curved my lips into my most devilish smile. “Hmmm. Well, there are other things I want to taste again.”
“Oh yeah?” That lovely flush adorned his cheeks, spreading down his neck.
I backed him towards the bed, hands on his hips. He went down easy, and I followed, knees bracketing his thighs. Solid. Real. I concentrated—pulled substance into myself, let gravity remember me. The mattress dipped. Charlie’s chest compressed beneath my weight, and he gasped, hips jerking up.
“Would you do me the honour of letting me fuck you again, Charlie Hayes?”
Out of Charlie’s mouth came a tiny moan, and he bucked his hips up again, this time in a slow grind against me. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He caught the hem of my T-shirt, yanked it up and off my head so quickly that the fabric snagged on my ear piercings.
“Fuck!” I yelped, pressing my palm to my ear.
“Sorry, sorry—” Charlie’s hands fluttered around my face, checking for damage.
“Just kidding. I can’t feel pain.” I winked. “So feel free to hurt me as much as you like.”
“You little shit,” he said, reaching to attack my jeans.
“Wait.” I snatched up both his hands. My gaze flicked to the bedroom door. “I don’t trust that asshole not to come and disturb us.”
Charlie scrunched up his nose. “He’s already seen me come all over your face. If he wants to watch you rail me, then he’s welcome to the show.”
Upon hearing there would be railing, my cock twitched to life, but I stroked across Charlie’s face, thumb tracing the sharp line of his cheekbone. “Nah. I don’t want Brad’s horrible beady eyes on your lovely body.” I tugged Charlie up and off the bed. “Let’s go to the attic.”
Charlie’s eyes widened, pale blue deepening to stormy grey. “The attic? There are so many spiders up there…”
I pressed a kiss to his nose. “Remember my promise to protect you?”
Charlie sighed. “Okay. The attic.”
We gathered up the duvet in a tangle of limbs and fabric. Charlie grabbed his rucksack whilst I found more blankets stuffed in the bottom of the broken wardrobe—moth-eaten wool things that smelled like old roses.