Chapter Six
Iwake up to texts from Georgia, Cathy, and Claire, all asking if I’m okay.
I’m hungover, my head hurts, my eyes hurt, and my mouth tastes like horrible cotton candy.
Water. Aspirin.
Peeing. So much peeing, staggering in the dark because light is evil.
As I shower—still in the dark—I start to remember the weird dreams I had about my cat talking and a lonely ghost named Lucius, and then...
My pounding head clears long enough to remember the most vivid part of my dream. Rolling over and seeing him there, in my bed, his handsome face, almost as if carved from gray marble, the sensuous lips, the strong, narrow chin.
Something out of the smutty fantasy books we read for book club, no doubt.
In the dark, he reached out and cupped my cheek. Whispered a heavy, struggling “Thank you” as if it hurt him.
My heart races in a mixture of confusion, fear, and a smidgen of misplaced desire.
Is my apartment haunted by a handsome ghost?
I’d prefer that to deteriorating mental health. At least you can exorcise a ghost.
Not that I’d want to get rid of...
What was his name again?
The adrenaline fades back to puzzlement. My dream visitor told me his name. This whole thing seems so real, but it’s probably just the reason they tell you not to mix medication and alcohol.
“HI.” I SLINK INTO WORK ten minutes late. I texted Alban like he asked me to do if I were ever running behind, but I still feel terrible and am waiting for the firing to commence.
Instead, Alban sits next to me and winces. “Last night was a little too much fun?”
With a groan, I remember that his wife and sister-in-law both attend book club. That’s the blessing and curse of living in a small town, I guess.
“I promise I don’t normally drink. Not to excess. It’s been a long time, that’s all. I... In college, I had to start taking a cocktail of mental health meds. I’m down to just two now, and I shouldn’t have mixed them with alcohol. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, I’m not prying into your personal life like that! I just wanted to see if you wanted to take the morning off. I’m happy you like it here. If you stay in Pine Ridge, Alain and I don’t have to hire a new paralegal,” Alban chuckles.
“You really... You really want me to stay?”
“Yes!”
Alain’s head appears in the doorway. “Alban, what the hell are you doing?”
“Nothing!”
“Did he tell you that you’re amazing and we want you to stay?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. That’s good. Thank you for not screwing up, you dumb potion-pusher.”
“Alain!” Alban whirls to face his cousin, his face taut with anger.
“Potion-pusher?” I ask. “Like... Witch’s brew?”
“No! No, no. I mean... Alban’s on a health kick lately. He’s always pushing people to try his new green wheatgrass smoothies,” Alain babbles. “Health potions. I thought maybe he was trying to convince you to get one.”
“Oh, I could use something healthy this morning,” I murmur, rubbing my temples.
“I’ll go get you one of my green smoothies. From The Pine Loft.” He glares daggers at Alain.
“No, no. I’ll go.” Alain seems happy to flee.
“What’s up with him?” I ask.
Alban rolls his eyes. “He left his brain in his briefcase, that’s all. I hope he didn’t upset you. I would never try to get my employees to change their diet or drink anything they didn’t want.”
“It’s cool, really. A healthy smoothie instead of a firing? I’ll take that any day.”
“Why would you get fired?” Alban asks, getting up.
“For being late.”
“Ten whole minutes one time? I’m not an evil warlock.”
That’s the second time in five minutes that magic has come up in the conversation. I’m taking it as a sign. “Do you believe in magic? The supernatural?”
Alban is silent. Alain stops by the front door, his keys in his hand and his sunglasses now perched on his forehead. “Oh. There are lots of things you can’t explain in the world. Seems like a lot of them happen in small towns like Pine Ridge,” he says.
I may be hungover, but I’m well aware that his answer is more like a non-answer.
“Do you?” Alain asks.
“Um. Well. No, not exactly, but I’m open to the possibility of ghosts. I was wondering if my apartment might be haunted.”
“Where do you live?” Both men ask in unison.
“Why?” I have to laugh at their twin cries and expressions. “Some buildings in town are known to be haunted, and some aren’t?”
“You could say that. I remember now, you live at the apartments across from campus. Not far from the River House.”
“That’s right.”
“Nothing haunted in that building—that I know of. That I’ve ever heard about,” Alban fumbles over his words.
“Is it a nice ghost?” Alain asks sharply.
“Guys, I don’t know! I thought you’d tell me I was imagining things!”
“Oh. Ha ha!” Alain laughs. “Oh, right. I mean, you could be.”
“But if you weren’t, we wouldn’t laugh. We’d believe you. I’m open to the possibility of supernatural things.” Alban smiles, a tense, wide smile. “What makes you think the apartment is haunted?”
“I don’t know. An odd noise here and there. A dream I had last night that seemed too real. Sorry, I shouldn’t be talking about this crazy stuff at work.”
“Supernatural things aren’t ‘crazy.’ Don’t let anyone tell you they are,” Alban warns with a stern look. “One needs professional medical help, and the other needs... understanding. We won’t think you’re imagining things if you tell us. A good lawyer trusts his client.”
“I’m not your client! You’re not some small-town ghost-busting team, are you?”
“Not at all,” Alain cuts in. “Alban just means we have your back, okay?”
“Okay.” I can’t wipe the grin off my face.
I have friends. People who believe me.
“I’ll be back with that smoothie. Uh, Alban, why don’t you come with me for a minute and remind me what’s in your health concoction?”
My bosses exit, and I see them having a conversation outside the big picture window in front of my desk.
I have friends, people who believe me, and the best bosses ever. Life is good—and when I think about it, even my worrying dreams aren’t that worrying. They’re good, too.
Lucius. It snaps into place in my brain like a whip crack. Lucius is the name of the lonely ghost in my dream—or in my apartment.
Either way, I’m not that upset about it.
“LUCIUS? IF YOU’RE HERE, give me a sign.”
It’s tempting, but I don’t. I’m going to wait until she sleeps and accept her standing invitation to enter the world of the living.
She won’t be scared that way. I don’t want to scare her.
I want to touch her. Taste her. There will be other people to torture later, I tell myself. This one is for a different sort of diversion.
It absolutely has nothing to do with the way she curled up in my arms last night, or the way her confused, sleepy eyes widened, then settled into calm acceptance when she realized I was lying next to her.
Nothing about the way something hurts in my chest when I touch her, a good ache, a sweet pain—a thing I never knew existed.
“You can come out. I’m not going to have you exorcised unless you’re scary or a jerk.
But you were probably just a dream or the effect of three glasses of wine and my anxiety meds.
” As Aggie talks, she undresses, unbuttoning a sleek, high-collared blouse, undoing her sumptuous brown waves that are held in place by two golden hairpins with dragon head ends, and shucking her black sheath skirt into the hamper.
I ache to come through the mirror right now and grab her, swirl her into my tentacles, and hold her fast, bending her, pushing myself into that sweet, tight heat I catch fleeting glimpses of.
But I wait.
Hours drag by so slowly, and it’s late before she comes back to her bedroom, hair unbound and a white satin gown on her body. Why does she dress like a king’s consort when she’s all alone?
I lie to myself and say it’s because she knows I’m watching.
“Well. Good night, Lucius. Maybe you’re not lonely anymore. But if you are, guess I’ll see you in my dreams.” Aggie yawns and slides into bed.
When her breathing evens out and her breasts rise and fall in long, gentle slopes, I slide in after her.
“I’M NOT LONELY ANYMORE.” That’s the first thing Lucius whispers in my dream.
“Good,” I mumble back, rolling into a broad, solid chest that feels so real.
“Why do you torture me? I’m supposed to torture you?” His voice is a ragged whisper in my hair as his arms tighten around me—and his legs wrap around mine.
Something is wrong down there, but dreams don’t have to make sense. I try to count legs and come up with way too many and just give it up.
“Torture? I’m not afraid of ghosts. You can’t hurt me.”
He laughs in a way that I don’t like, and his legs curl around mine, squeezing—but then they release.
“You look so beautiful. So sweet. I want you for myself.”
Well, dream-me doesn’t have a boyfriend. No version of me has a boyfriend. “Thank you,” I whisper, wondering why I’m so exhausted and feel so sleepy if I’m actually asleep.
I don’t get to wonder about that for long as Lucius’ gorgeous face presses to mine and our lips lock. Something hard yet flexible presses between my legs.
I DON’T PUSH INSIDE of her, not even to the bare, damp space between her legs.
I stay on the outside, thick phallic tentacle inviting her to rock her hips against me as we kiss.
I want to do more, but I can’t. This world leaves me weak, and her scent intoxicates me while the taste of her lips drowns me.
Can I die?
If I die like this, I won’t mind.
“We shouldn’t.”
I don’t answer her protest. I know she’s right. I just don’t care. “You torture me as you see fit, sweet Agatha,” I breathe out, lips still touching hers on every word. “Take me, don’t take me, I don’t care. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to.”
Her cry of frustration is soft and deep, like the depths of her, I imagine.
She kisses me. Rocks against me, rubbing herself harder and faster as I feel the wetness on her thighs transfer itself to my lower limbs.
And all I can do is lie here, breathless, captivated. Captured.