Chapter 12 #2
I stressed over whether I’d simply slept on my arm wrong and caused my hand to fall asleep, or whether the fleeting numbness was a sign of something more serious.
Sometimes I searched for a word for too long, wound up stumbling through a conversation, and dreaded that it wasn’t just exhaustion or distraction.
I’d lost all interest in my career, even though this past Spring semester marked significant milestones I’d worked my ass off to achieve. My two master's students successfully defended their theses and graduated, and my tenure application was approved.
And I’d felt nothing.
My neurologist had warned me the stress from an MS diagnosis could impact my life in unexpected and significant ways, but with catching it so early and their swift action to begin treatment, I hadn’t expected to still feel like so much was taken from me.
So, whether it was stress, a lingering effect of the flare-up, steroids, or because depression was often co-morbid with MS, I wasn’t sure, but I hadn’t had a sex drive in months.
Until now, apparently, at the sight of Charlie, happy and relaxed in my bed, with just a hint of skin peeking out. I felt a bit like a teenager all over again, desperately trying to hide an involuntary boner.
“So, Top Gun was your favorite movie?” I asked, readying the leftovers to take down to the fridge. I tried to think of anything that would make my half-chub go down.
Like health insurance, maybe.
Ahh, yes, works like a charm. Finally, something it’s good for.
Charlie shrugged. “At the time, yeah. It’s why Frankie got me this jacket. It’s cold in Idaho, she’d said.” He laughed. “I told her it wasn’t cold in the summer. And now look,” he gestured to the sleet-crusted windows. “Guess she was right.”
His gaze grew distant, lost in his memories again, but the soft smile on his face told me they weren’t sad, this time.
I left him to it and finished up the dishes before gathering everything we needed to store in the outbuilding. “I’m going to take this down and use the restroom. I won’t be long,” I said quietly, afraid to interrupt his introspection.
He blinked up at me before a serious look came over his face. “I’m coming with you. You shouldn’t go alone.”
Reaching for the shoulder holster Dad lent me, I looped one arm through and then the other, clipping it in place before holstering the gun he’d also lent me.
“I wanted to be armed with something more powerful than bear spray, after what happened. This keeps my hands free,” I said.
I felt safer knowing I could protect myself if the killer came back, but I didn’t want to freak Charlie out.
He stared at the gun for a beat. “Good,” was all he said before he stood and grabbed a stack of Tupperware. “Let’s go.”
Our trip out of the tower was uneventful, but cold. Flurries of snow danced and shifted along the ground as violent gusts of wind bit at my nose and cheeks. My fingertips were chilled and aching by the time we hustled back up the stairs and into the warmth of the cabin.
“Fuck, it’s cold,” I said, holding my hands over the fire to warm them.
“I remember we had a snowstorm in June, too. It melted quickly, though. Sounds like this one might hang on for a few days longer.”
“Mmhm.”
Charlie settled back on the bed. I glanced over to find him watching me, staring at the holster still around my shoulders.
I pulled out the gun, ejected the clip, and ensured there wasn’t a round in the chamber before padding over, tucking it into my nightstand drawer. “It’s only for if they come back.”
“I know,” he said, still watching me.
“Does it bother you?”
His eyes tracked the holster as I shrugged it off, a dusting of pink across his cheeks. “No.”
I was already in joggers and a cozy long-sleeve Henley, so I threw another log on the fire before joining Charlie back on the bed. Together, we breathed for a while into the quiet, listening to the ice and sleet pelt against the windows.
My eyes fell on the wrapped box sitting on my desk. I reached for it and handed it to him. “This is for you, too.”
His eyebrows darted up. “Another?”
“It’s not big, but I thought you could use them.”
Tearing into the paper, he read the description on the box out loud. “Hand warmers?”
I bit my cheek, suddenly self-conscious of how small a gift it was. “Yeah. All you have to do is take the wrapper off, and they’ll warm up.” I shrugged. “Just in case your hands get cold.”
Charlie was quiet for a moment. “Thank you, Reece,” he whispered. “For these. For the lights, too, and dinner. It’s all so thoughtful. And…” he wiped his eyes. “And for coming back.”
My arms ached to wrap him in another hug. “Happy thirtieth birthday, Charlie.”
His grip tightened around the box of hand warmers. “Are you leaving again, after this?” he asked without looking at me.
Fuck. That wasn’t at all what I intended the gifts to mean. I just wanted to give him things he could use without help. I took the box and wrapping and set them on the nightstand before angling my body to face him. “I’m staying for the season, Charlie. I’m not leaving anytime soon.”
His eyes darted up in surprise. Pretty crier.
I stared at his soft, pouty mouth. “I have enough groceries for at least another three weeks, depending on how many hot dogs Randy eats,” I grumbled to get my mind off the way those big, brown, doe eyes shot straight to my cock.
He shook his head, like he didn’t believe it. “I don’t want what happened to me to happen to you, too,” he whispered.
“Are you ready to talk about it?” I asked gently.
He wiped his nose. “No, but I think I should. Now that I remember a little more, I think I need to. I just don’t want to get worked up and disappear again.” His voice trembled a little, but he remained solid next to me.
I shook out one of the blankets and threw it over his lap before scooching in next to him. “Then let’s do what we can to keep you here. Get comfortable. Whenever you want to stop, we’ll stop. And tell me how else I can help.”
Charlie’s brow creased. He leaned forward, and slowly, hesitantly, holding his breath as if he wasn’t sure what would happen, slipped the jacket from his shoulders.
Together, we watched him drop it on the floor next to the bed.
“Wow,” I said. I shouldn’t be surprised; he’d eaten nearly an entire meal tonight, but seeing him remove his jacket, the one he’d appeared in and worn for weeks now, was jarring.
“Yeah, wow,” he breathed. “I didn’t know I could do that. I thought I was stuck in those clothes forever, like some weird action figure.”
“What happens to it when you disappear?”
He shrugged. “We could find out?”
I nodded, and before my eyes, Charlie blinked away, taking the jacket with him.
I hated the seconds he was gone. Every time he left, I couldn’t shake the quiet, slithering voice that said he wouldn’t come back this time.
One, two, three…
Blink. There he was again, standing next to the fire.
“It went with you,” I said, gesturing to the jacket as if he wasn’t wearing the proof of that fact.
“It did. How odd.”
“Can you take it off again?”
He grinned at me, sly and coy. “Already? I just got here; the least you could do is offer me a nightcap first.”
I rolled my eyes and pretended his light-hearted teasing didn’t make my heart skip. “C’mon, enough experimenting for the evening.”
“Your mixed signals are giving me whiplash.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Not impossible. You just haven’t tried hard enough yet.”
I groaned and threw my head back in defeat. “You win. I’m shit at banter.”
Charlie winked at me. “Practice makes perfect.” But he did finally take off the jacket again and draped it over the back of his chair, before delicately toeing off his boots, as if afraid he wouldn’t have feet inside.
“Cool,” he breathed, wiggling his socked toes against the hardwood floor.
My mouth went dry at my first look at him without the extra layers.
His T-shirt sat higher on his hip bones than the jacket did.
Irrationally, I wanted to press my thumb into the just-visible divot above his waistband.
More svelte than I’d realized, he was toned like a long-distance runner rather than my let’s make it through winter build.
His forearm brushed against mine when he sat back down next to me, tucking the blanket around his legs, and I could actually feel his wood-stove-warmed body through the thin material of my shirt without the thick leather in the way.
Goosebumps danced along my skin.
“Comfortable?” I asked when he’d settled in, dutifully ignoring the slight crack in my voice.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” I panicked a bit in the ensuing quiet. Did he expect me to prompt him? How does one ask a ghost to talk about the way they traumatically died?
I reached over and took his hand so he’d have something to hold onto, in case he started to disappear again. “You don’t have to say anything, but I’ll listen if you’re ready.”
All of our carefree teasing gone, Charlie squeezed back and didn’t let go.
“I don’t remember how I died, but I remember what happened right before,” he began quietly.
“I was asleep. Something woke me up…” his eyebrows creased, as if remembering.
“It was just like a few nights ago, when we saw the light in the woods. There was someone outside the lookout, in the trees, and I went down to check who it could be. I thought maybe it was one of the missing hikers.”
Icy chills skittered up my spine. “What happened?” I whispered.
“I called out to them, but they didn’t answer.
I kept walking toward that light, though.
I thought they were lost, or hurt, or couldn’t hear me.
I didn’t realize how far into the woods I’d gone until it suddenly shut off, and I couldn’t se—anything.
” His breathing sped up, near hyperventilating.
“I couldn’t see, Reece. I wa—ost. I ne—ed to find my—back—tower. I heard—”
On instinct, my arm went around his shoulders and pulled him into me. “It’s okay. Hey, it’s okay. Take a deep breath. We can take a break.”
He clung to me, cheeks wet again with tears. “Don’t let me leave,” he begged. “I can’t be alone again. Not now.”
My heart cracked open at the brokenness in his voice. How long had he gone with only those awful memories for company? “You’re not leaving. You’re staying right here. Ground yourself, Charlie. You’re here. You’re real. They can’t hurt you anymore. I won’t let anyone hurt you again.”
After a few deep breaths, Charlie relaxed in my arms, but he didn’t release his grip. “I only wanted to help,” he breathed into my shoulder. “I didn’t hurt anyone. I have no idea why the police said it was me, or what they found to make them think so.”
I wanted to shred into every single person who’d allowed that farce of a narrative to spread, and scream that it wasn’t true. This beautiful, warm-hearted man had been painted a villain for far too long. “I know. I know you didn’t.”
He wiped at his nose. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore tonight. I can’t really remember anything else, anyway, and I’d rather stay here, if that’s okay.”
I pulled him in closer. “Of course it’s okay. It’s been a long few days. Let’s sleep on it, you’ll feel better tomorrow.”
Frankly, I didn’t want to know how his story ended. If he remembered who’d been responsible, he would’ve said so. But without that, what difference did it make?
Charlie would still be dead at the end of it.
I shuffled around so I was lying with my head on my pillow, and pulled Charlie down so he lay next to me, pressed up against each other.
“Is this okay?” I whispered.
“Yes,” he breathed.
It was intimate; more so than I’d been with anyone in a very long time, even before Josh and I broke up.
I wasn’t sure exactly when we’d crossed the line from platonic into something that brushed up against more, or when I’d allowed myself to admit I wanted to hold him like this, rather, but there was none of the awkwardness that usually came along with it.
It felt like Charlie was always meant to be tucked right next to me, curled into my warmth while the wind lashed sleet and snow against the windowpanes.
“Reece?” His words tickled the soft skin of my neck.
“Hmm?”
“Do you think that’s why I’m still here? Because I haven’t… fully faced it yet? What happened?”
Reflexively, my arm tightened around his shoulders. “I’m not sure. Truthfully, I don’t even understand how you’re here at all, let alone what might be keeping you. Is that what it feels like? That there’s still something you have to do?”
He was quiet for a long while. So much so, I’d contented myself that he wasn’t ready to answer, but then he said, “For so long, it felt like I couldn’t leave this lookout. It felt like I was trapped. Now, though, I wonder.”
“What do you wonder?” I whispered into the space between us.
“I wonder if I was only waiting.”
I couldn’t vocalize the burning ache that bloomed in my chest at his words, but I could hold him close, and I could keep him warm.
So I did. All night long. Because there was a part of me, one I was too afraid to even silently acknowledge, that wondered if I’d been waiting, too.