22. Aster
Chapter 22
Aster
T rapped.
Well that’s fucking great.
I enter the kitchen, scanning the ceiling and corners for the Horror, but only catch a shimmer of light. It’s good to know he’s depleted right now. I need time to figure out my next steps.
Crash appears next to me on the counter while I prep the coffee pot. “Soooo?”
“Yes?” I pour water into the back of the machine.
“You and the writer are an item, huh?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. You didn’t watch us, right?”
“Nope.” He makes a gesture like an X over his chest. “Cross my heart. Two of the house spirits watched. They were fascinated. Some of the others peeked but were scandalized.”
Chuckling, I shake my head. “Awesome.” A flicker of guilt niggles the back of my mind. “Did I break any rules?”
“When?”
I give him a hard look. “When I hooked up with my client?”
“Ooooh.” He does a little shimmy on the counter. “Nope. It’s extremely common. It’s practically a perk. Obviously, not all client-Chaser partnerships are compatible ones, but you’d be surprised how often they are. If I had to guess, I’d say there’s something in the selection criteria that makes for affable pairings.”
“Interesting.” I lean against the counter while the coffee brews. “So I’m not getting a stern look from Farnsworth anytime soon?”
“Not for that.” His face lights up. “I was helping this new Chaser years ago. He had to help a married couple, and long story short, he ended up being their boyfriend when all was said and done. He still is.”
That news causes an odd flutter in my stomach. “You can stay with people?”
Crash tilts his head, a sympathetic look coming over his features. “You didn’t read the love bond section, did you?”
“I mean, yeah, but I didn’t really focus on it. Why?”
“Dude. It’s how you keep people.”
“I don’t understand.”
Crash shakes his head, but then with a flick of his wrist, an open book appears in front of me, stopped on the page describing the love bond.
“‘When a Soul Chaser chooses a human soul to unite with, the Love Bond Ceremony must be conducted to seal their life forces,’” Crash reads aloud with a strange tone to his voice, like he’s suddenly become an old-school movie trailer narrator.
“What does ‘seal their life forces’ mean?”
Crash gives me another ‘are you kidding me’ look before he continues reading. “‘Upon sealing your life forces, the mortal takes on the Chaser’s immortality and strong defenses.’” Then he levels me with a look. “You don’t die, he doesn’t die. You die, he dies.”
As the words sink in, I open my mouth to speak, but I’m literally speechless.
“I know,” Crash says. “It’s heavy, but you’d get to keep him. You can be partners in soul chasing.”
“Wait.” I rub my forehead. “He’d be a Soul Chaser too?”
“Well, not officially, but what we’ve seen is there tends to be a natural partnership over time.”
“Wow.”
“There are some risks though.” He swipes his finger through the air to turn the page. “Your soul partner is often a target for a tenacious Horror. The biggest risk though is that if anything happens to you, it happens to him.”
“But it’s hard for me to die.”
“Hard. Not impossible. If the Horror had been stronger with better aim, he could’ve thrown a knife at your heart. You must protect your heart, remember.”
The scent of coffee fills my nose, temporarily distracting me. “Thanks, Crash, but none of this matters anyway. What’s going on with me and Hudson is just… stress relief. I’m sure once I deal with the Horror, he’ll be more than happy to see me go so he can get on with his life. A normal life.”
“Maybe.” Crash swings his legs. “Maybe not. Anyway, at least you know now.”
“Yeah.”
“By the way…” Crash slides off the counter, notching himself between me and the coffee pot even though I can’t actually feel his presence. “Did you read the fine print?”
“Of what?”
“The love bond, Aster. Keep up.” Reaching behind me, he drags the book back in front of my face and taps on the page where there’s barely legible print.
“I can’t read that.”
Crash chuckles. “That’s kind of the point. Fate is tricky that way.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Fate. The being responsible for the love bond. Call her a hopeless romantic, but she’s a sucker for love. Hence the fine print.” He taps on it again, and the print enlarges so I can actually read it.
“‘Be careful, Soul Chaser. Words become promises.’” I blow out a breath. “What does that mean?”
“Like I said, Fate can be a trickster. You have to mean what you say, but only say what you mean.”
“Explaining a riddle with another riddle. Sweet.” I open the cabinet to get two mugs down. “Try again?”
Crash laughs. “Mortals say a lot of things they don’t always mean in the truest sense. Things like ‘I love your smile’ or ‘I wish we could stay together forever.’” His grayish eyes glimmer with a hint of blue. “A wish is a promise. Love… is a promise.”
I think it’s starting to sink in. “So if I said in the heat of the moment that I wanted to keep him or that I loved him…”
Crash nods. “Fate’s ears perk up. She’s a literal being. You can’t say love and really mean you just like it. You can’t say things like you want to be with someone forever and not mean it.”
I nod. “Got it. How does the love bond actually happen?”
“Fortunately, you have to directly ask for it. In your case, Farnsworth would facilitate it. But…” He taps the page again where the fine print is. “If your intentions are mucky and your words are promises, Fate could intervene and force the bond. It’s happened, and there’s nothing worse than being bonded to someone you don’t like. So be clear what you want with Hudson.”
“Like I said, it’s not like that with us.”
“Yet.”
Ignoring the comment, I grab the carafe and fill our mugs. “What’s in it for Hudson or any mortal? Besides a long life, who would want to be with a Soul Chaser long term?”
Crash’s face is blank for a second. “I don’t think that matters. Love is love, right? You take the good with the bad.”
Finally, everything he’s told me sinks in. “I wouldn’t have to…” I pause, swallowing down the lump of emotion forming in my throat. “I thought I’d be alone from now on.”
Crash’s expression softens as he smiles and shakes his head. “No. You’re just as worthy of love as any regular mortal is. Heck, even a spirit can fall in love. It’s one of few emotions that transcends any realm.”
“Thanks. I still don’t think it’s relevant right now, but it’s good to know.”
“If you end up in his bed again, it’s relevant. Words are promises, remember.”
“I hear you.”
I carry the coffee back to the living room to find Hudson on the sofa with a laptop and Otto curled up next to him. He looks up and smiles at me, and my stomach does a little somersault.
It’s important that I don’t mislead him and end up tying him to me without his consent. I like him, and after last night I’m pretty sure he likes me, but like I told Crash, this is just a passing thing; two men who need each other in different ways.
“Thank you,” Hudson says, taking the mug from me. “Everything okay? You look a little off.”
“Do I?” I sit in the armchair beside the couch. “I’m fine. I was just doing some quick research while the coffee brewed.”
He sips his coffee, gazing at me over the lip of the mug. “How is everything? Is he still there?”
“Kind of. Weakened, as we heard. I had no trouble making the coffee.”
“What did you find out in your research?”
Crash appears behind the couch, waggling his eyebrows at me.
“Nothing pertinent right now.” I settle into my seat. “What are you doing?”
His smile brightens as he sets his mug on the coffee table. “It’s kind of amazing, but I got an idea for this book I’ve been stressing out about for months. I’ve had the worst case of writer’s block.”
“Understandable.”
He nods. “I guess, but it’s unlike me. Normally I write five to six hours a day, no problem.”
“Wow. That sounds like a lot.”
“It can be, but it’s the only thing that makes me feel alive. Like I have a purpose.” He scoffs. “That probably sounds so dumb to you. I write gay fantasy smut. I’m not exactly curing cancer.”
“Hey, don’t short sell yourself. Books can be a lifeline for a lot of people.”
“You believe that?”
I nod as memories of my high school best friend flood back. “I had a friend in high school, Liz. I met her because I was struggling with the concept of this book we had to read in English and I always admired her answers in class. I saw her in the library one day and asked if she could help me understand it.” A smile tugs at my face. “She was shy, but she said yes. We started meeting every day after school and talking about books. She loved them and had a rough home life. She told me how escaping to these fictional worlds saved her life more than once. She saw beauty in the world beyond her own experience.” I rub my forehead and clear my throat. “She wanted to be a teacher when she grew up.”
Hudson’s face falls. “What happened to her?”
“Rare form of blood cancer. She was sick for months with all these weird symptoms, but her mom was too checked out on drugs to get her help. When Liz started losing weight and doing poorly in school, a school counselor called for a welfare check. She was taken to the doctor and at that point the cancer had progressed beyond being treatable. Her family couldn’t afford it anyway.”
“Oh my god. She died?”
“The summer after junior year. I was with her that day. My parents took her in because her mom couldn’t deal with the guilt and ended up overdosing. She was in the hospital the same day Liz died.”
“Aster. God.”
I nod, sipping my coffee. “I felt shitty for so long. Like I should’ve tried to get her help sooner. I should’ve gone to the school, but she begged me not to.”
“You were a kid too, Aster.”
“I know. It was a long time ago and I’ve worked through it for the most part. Her mom actually came to see me once. I was about twenty-four. She had finally gotten clean and wanted me to have Liz’s favorite book. It was about these kids who had troubled lives, but they found a treehouse in the woods and whenever they went through the door, they entered a world where their lives were different. They had loving parents and plenty of food and nice, safe homes.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It was. They always had to go back though. When the sun set, they had to return home. But one day, one of the girls decided she wasn’t going back. She would stay in her make-believe world even if she died.”
Hudson nods. “I know that book. She wouldn’t die. Everyone else she loved would.”
“If she stayed, yeah. So she had to decide whether her happiness was worth the sacrifice of everyone else.”
“She went back, if I remember correctly?”
“She did. In Liz’s copy, she wrote in the margin that she would go back too so I wouldn’t die.”
“That’s powerful.”
I shift my gaze to his handsome face. “So yeah, books don’t cure cancer, but they can help take the pain away for a while.”
Hudson offers a soft smile. “I’ll remember that.”
“Good. Can I read something you wrote?”
He points to the bookcases flanking the fireplace. “They’re all there.”
“What’s your favorite?”
He sets his laptop on the sofa and rises to join me. He chooses a thick book with a black and purple spine.
“This one. I’m working on book four in this series now. It’s the one that got my name out there and changed my life money-wise.”
I hold it in my hand, admiring the cover. “Gay smutty dragon shifters?”
Hudson nods with a shy smile on his lips. “The main character is who I wish I could be in real life.”
“In what way?”
“He’s confident and brave. He goes for what he wants, and he’s not afraid of anything. Not even the dragon who threatens the land.”
“Yeah? Does he fall for the dragon?”
Hudson nods, searching my eyes. “He’s not even afraid when the dragon turns into a man right before his eyes. He’s not afraid of the man’s aggressive touch, demanding kiss, or the way he knows exactly how to unravel the hero.”
“He’s not afraid of the dragon’s fire?”
“No.” Hudson flicks his tongue out to wet his lips as he steps just a tiny bit closer. “He craves it even if it means his destruction. He’d rather go up in flames with the dragon than live without him.”
“And how is that like you?”
Hudson sways toward me slightly. “Have you ever wondered what a love like that would feel like? A love so intense and powerful that you’d sacrifice yourself to keep it?”
The love bond rules dance in my head and I find myself nodding. “Yes. Something like that.”
“I suppose that’s a weakness I share with my hero. All we really want at the end of the day is someone to love us.”
“Yes.”
“Have you been in love before, Aster?”
“Once. I guess it was love. Maybe it was infatuation, but for nine months my world revolved around his sun.”
“What happened?”
“He wasn’t ready to settle down.” I chuckle darkly. “He fucked every guy who moved in a twenty-mile radius and made no attempt to hide it from me, but he came back to me all the time and I let him. I don’t know why I let him. I guess he made me feel something I needed to feel at the time.”
“How did it end?”
“Ironically he met someone who he wanted to settle down with. All the things I did, all the ways I tried to be the man he wanted were meaningless in the end. I was never gonna be the one for him.”
“Does it still hurt you?”
“Not specifically him, but the lack of romance and love in my life makes me a little sad sometimes.”
“I understand.” He runs his hands down my chest. “The pursuit of love has led me to bad places. That’s why you’re here.”
“I hope you find everything you’re looking for, Hudson. I know I don’t know you well yet, but I’d like to think I’m good at reading people. I sense the goodness in you and the love you’re waiting to give. Anyone you choose is a lucky guy.”
Hudson’s bottom lip quivers for a second before he tears his gaze away. “I wish I believed that, but experience tells me otherwise.”
He walks back to the couch and I follow him.
“Have you been in love before?”
Hudson scoffs. “Too many times to count. I fall too fast. That’s my fatal flaw. I’m always chasing what I can’t catch.” He rubs his growing beard. “Not anymore though. Eyes wide open from now on.”
“Smart.”
“So don’t worry about me. Last night was… awesome. Needed.” His gaze moves to the empty space in front of him. “But I won’t make it weird.”
“I wasn’t worried about that.”
“Good.” He glances at the book in my hands. “What’s it like for you now? Dating, I mean. It must be hard to answer the ‘what do you do for work’ question.”
I chuckle. “I haven’t had to yet. Just with you.”
“Oh.” His hand brushes against mine and he shifts his eyes up to meet my gaze. “Do you still hope to fall in love someday?”
“Yes,” I admit. “It’s more complicated now, but I guess hope hasn’t died.”
“Good. One thing I’ve learned is you never know what life has in store for you.”
“That’s definitely true.”
The silence lingers between us, and I don’t know what Hudson is thinking, but I’m thinking about how nice it would be to sink into his gorgeous mouth again. I want to rub all over him like a feral animal and mark him with my scent, and it’s not at all lost on me how unusual those thoughts are.
“I should let you get back to writing while the mood is hot.”
He blinks like he just snapped out of a daydream. “Uh, yeah. I should. What are you gonna do?”
“Read my handbook for more tips. I need a plan.”
Hudson nods, but before I can shift my attention, he leans in and presses a soft kiss to my lips.
“Thank you, Aster. I know it’s your job and everything, but I’m grateful you’re here.”
“So am I.”