Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The storm wailed its last breath a few days later, leaving behind dirt-crusted, melting ice and a skating rink on the deck.
“I fucking hate scraping snow,” I growled, unlacing my boots and kicking them off by the door. “Especially when it’s nothing but a sheet of ice. I get all worked up and sweaty, hot as hell under my coat, but my hands freeze.”
Charlie glared at me. “Then why did you go do it by yourself?”
“I had to clear a path to the stairs.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ve already saved you from falling off that deck once; it was rude to make me do it again.”
“I didn’t fall. I slipped, that’s all.”
“Which would’ve led to falling had I not shown up right when I did. You should’ve waited for me, I told you I’d be back this morning.”
I raised an eyebrow, sliding into my Crocs. “I had to take a shit. What else was I supposed to do? Squat over the wash basin?”
He spewed the warm tea he’d just gulped down, some of it coming out of his nose. “You’re an animal,” he choked out, coughing.
I winked at him, sauntering closer. “You like it.”
“I should’ve pushed you over instead of saving you,” he grumbled, crossing his arms.
Ok, so maybe it wasn’t smart to antagonize the guy who’d stopped me from sliding into the railing a second time that summer, but he was so cute when teased, I couldn’t help myself.
“You’d miss me too much. And my mustache,” I said lowly, leaning down into his space just a touch more than strictly necessary.
My flirting skills may have been rusty, but it hadn’t taken much to warm up. I couldn’t really help myself where Charlie was concerned, which should’ve bothered me more than it did.
Honestly, I didn’t care. I just wanted to see… There it is.
He blushed.
It looked so real, so alive, I wanted to press my thumb into the color and feel the heat bloom across his cheek.
He’d nearly swallowed his tongue when he reappeared a few nights ago to find that I’d shaved, and had barely been able to stop looking at me since. His eyes were a near-constant, welcome weight wherever I went.
“I’d still prefer Randy,” he sniffed, staring at the V of sweat at the collar of my shirt. “What’s for lunch?”
I snorted, grinning. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Let me warm up my hands, and then I’ll figure that out, grouchy pants.”
He sucked in a breath and leaned into the contact when I brushed past on my way to the kettle of hot water.
The last few days were tension-filled torture. I’d already admitted to myself I wanted him, and if it was just a physical thing, I probably would’ve made a move by now and asked if he felt the same.
Judging by his heated glances when he thought I wasn’t looking, he did.
It wasn’t just about releasing pent-up tension, though. There was so much more to what I felt every time he reappeared after being away for a few hours at a time, and it was terrifying.
Realistically, though, I wasn’t even sure if we could be together.
Setting aside the giant gaping canyon of, well, “How do you have a relationship with a dead person?”, what were the logistics of intimacy with a ghost? Did he feel desire? Pleasure? Would his body respond as it would’ve when he was alive? Could he orgasm? Would he ejaculate?
He could eat and cry, so there was some sort of bodily function situation going on. Everything else, though, was a mystery.
I’d already stopped myself from looking it up. I didn’t need “Can ghosts have sex?” haunting my digital footprint.
I’d searched whether they could come back to life, though.
Nearly light-headed with an emotion I couldn’t place and out of my mind, I scoured the internet for credible information on whether anyone else had befriended a ghost, fallen in—nope—deep companionship, and figured out a way to bring them back.
As if a Stack Exchange thread existed for the minor inconvenience of death.
“Hi, I received an error message when I tried to bring my dead friend back to life. Any help solving the issue?”
It was ludicrous.
Millions, no, billions of people throughout history had lost husbands, wives, children, siblings, parents, friends, pets, and wished they could bring them back. Some would’ve given everything, even for a chance to speak with them, one last time. Why did I think our situation would be any different?
I’d slammed my laptop shut, tossing it aside.
Because Charlie is different, I thought. Because he shouldn’t even be here the way he is now. Why can’t I bend the rules just a little more?
Still, I couldn’t shake the questions, weaving in and out of my periphery in a near-constant tangle.
Would Charlie want to come back if he could? How would it work? Where would he want to go? Who would he want to spend his time with?
I poured a bit of the hot water from the kettle into a bowl, lost in thought. Bringing the temperature down just enough to be comfortable with a splash of cool water, I submerged my hands, sloshing them around.
“Why do you do that?” Charlie asked, padding up behind me.
He’d changed into a pair of thick wool socks, joggers he’d cinched around his waist, and a shirt that was way too big for him. He clearly enjoyed changing out of the clothes he always appeared in, and I wasn’t ready to admit how much I loved seeing him in mine.
“When my hands get cold, they slow down, and it’s harder to move them like normal. The fastest way to warm them up is hot water.”
He cocked his head. “What do you mean, slow?”
I hadn’t told Charlie about my MS. Mostly because it’d never come up, but also because it made me feel ungrateful to complain to a dead person about a disease I wasn’t dying from, and would hopefully remain in remission for a very long time.
Even if it didn’t, moaning about being alive to someone who wasn’t felt in poor taste. He’d asked, though, and it wasn’t like it was a secret.
“I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis back in January. It seems to be under control for now, but ever since then, I get terrible migraines if I don’t sleep enough or get too stressed about things.
And it takes my hands longer to do things when they get really cold.
The doctor said it’s probably just stuff associated with MS that I’ll live with,” I said, indicating where my hands sloshed around in the warm water. They already felt better.
“Oh…” he said. Grief marred his face. He leaned hard into my shoulder, mirroring the way I might’ve comforted him if our positions were reversed. “My uncle had MS. Reece, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not like it was before,” I said quickly, staring down at the bowl in front of me while I slipped into the usual pattern of conversation.
“The progress that’s been made in the last ten—hell, even five—years is remarkable.
I’m on a strong treatment plan. It’s not what you’re probably picturing.
I’m lucky they found it so quickly; it should help slow down the progression. Maybe. Hopefully.”
I kept rambling, feeling his eyes on my face. “I mean, I could go years without anything bad happening again. And even if it does, there are options.”
Quiet yawned between us, the woosh of water running through my fingers the only sound besides our breathing.
“Look at me?” he whispered.
By now, I recognized I’d do just about anything he asked.
“I’m glad for all of that,” he whispered when my eyes met his. “That there are options and treatments and doctors and all of it. And I hope it works for you as best it can. But I’m still so sorry.”
I nodded. The genuine sorrow on his face was difficult to look at. “Thank you.”
Almost. I almost left it, but the words were right there on the tip of my tongue, and instead of swallowing them back like usual, my shoulders dropped, and I let them out.
“I hate talking about it,” I said with a huge sigh. I already felt lighter.
Charlie nodded, understanding. Always understanding.
“I resent that I have to,” I continued, emotions I’d struggled to put words to suddenly clawing to be set free.
“And I resent that it’s my burden to fucking process now.
To tell people about. I didn’t ask for this.
I can’t look back at a past action and assess how to do it differently in the future for a better outcome.
I can’t change it, so why do I have to make it mine?
To let it consume every thought I have of the future? It taints everything, and I hate it.”
Tears streamed down Charlie’s face, and I realized I was crying too.
I gritted my teeth and continued. “I hate burdening others with it, but sometimes, when my migraines get too bad, I literally can’t do things.
And then I think I’d actually prefer to have a gaping wound in the back of my head instead, so I at least wouldn’t have to explain why I feel like shit or can’t do my job or feel like I hate everything. ”
Charlie’s arms wrapped around me in a hug, squeezing tightly.
For a moment, I tensed, stepping away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t complain to you about it. It’s not—”
“Please complain to me about it,” he interrupted, breathing into the crook of my neck. “I want to hear it. I want you to let go.”
Without my permission, my own arms came up to hug him back, holding just as tightly. A sound I’d never heard myself make wrenched from my chest, like re-breaking a botched and badly-healed fracture—raw and angry and vulnerable and hurt, but necessary to set the bone.