Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Perhaps he’d been too forward with Rosalin.
Alaric watched her from the corner of his eye as they walked down Main Street back to the cemetery. She was quiet, her teeth working her lip, her fingers tight on the handle of the bag of cinnamon rolls.
He opened his mouth once or twice to speak, shutting it quickly as he considered what he meant to say. He’d promised he’d be more intentional with her. Rosalin meant a great deal to him, he wasn’t about to ruin that with his impulsive thoughts.
Was it impulsive if he’d been thinking it for a long time?
The last five years of watching her had been one-sided. He felt he knew her so intimately, cared for her so deeply. But what was he to her? A ghost with a reputation far kinder than he deserved, dragged from a purgatory by accident. He’d disrupted her life, upset her family, and upended her peace.
She deserved a human man, one who was visible to more than just her family.
And yet he’d opened his mouth in the heat of the moment and claimed her like some vampire, like some werewolf. It was so primal, this need to make sure she understood exactly where she stood with him.
And now she was chewing a hole in her lip and holding the bag of cinnamon rolls like they might save her.
Rosalin locked the gates to the cemetery behind her.
The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, and a cool breeze pulled at the edge of her dress.
His gaze went to the hem, unbidden. The last time he’d been able to touch a woman, they were barely allowed to show an ankle.
There was still something scandalous to him about the flash of skin. He adjusted himself discreetly.
“I have upset you,” he said suddenly.
“What? No.” Rosalin jumped, almost as if she’d forgotten he was there.
Alaric put a hand on Rosalin’s arm to stop her. She was so warm and alive, her skin so soft. It was a marvel he had the control to keep his hands off her.
“It was not common for a man to speak his heart in my time,” he started, struggling for the words. “We claimed, we did not ask. I fear that I have done just that with you. Your aunt is right, you have a long life ahead of you. It is selfish for me to want to be a part of it.”
Rosalin’s eyes were so wide, Alaric feared he’d crossed the line at last. Suggestive taunts were one thing, but affection?
He’d watched enough movies in the theatre to see how this generation feared voicing it.
From the outside, it seemed so silly! He’d often yelled at the screen, begging the characters to just communicate.
Now here he was, fumbling with his words, worried that she’d reject him.
“Be a part of it?” Rosalin asked slowly.
“Well, yes. I enjoy your company. No, it is more than that—I enjoy your mind. I like when you laugh, and I want to be the one who makes you do it. I want to help you in the cemetery, I want to fall asleep with you. I want all the things mortals want, and I want them with you.
“But it is selfish. I would forever be your invisible companion, and I would keep you from your life. So forgive my words in the bakery, they were spoken without thinking of your wants or needs.”
Rosalin’s cheeks grew a darker shade of pink the more he spoke. He was embarrassing her, he should stop speaking. Thankfully, she spoke before he could ramble any more.
“The curse…I thought you wanted it broken, so you could move on?” she asked.
Ah, there it was. This was temporary, a fling. He’d seen that in the movies, too. Unrequited affection. Summer lo—
He stopped himself before he even thought the word.
“I do want it broken,” he said. “I just thought…”
Rosalin waited for him to finish. Her wide eyes darted across his face, taking in every inch of it.
She saw him so thoroughly, and not just because she’d tethered him.
Her endless patience, her kindness, her keen gaze and wit.
It bore right into him, understanding him in a way that no one had before.
In a way he’d never let anyone before.
“If we break the curse,” she said at last when he did not answer, “and we free you, do you want to stick around?”
“I don’t want to incon—”
“Oh, hush. My aunt has her own trauma, she doesn’t need to put that on me. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the town hates me,” she started.
“They don’t hate you.”
“No, it’s worse, they’re afraid of me. And not in a respect way, in a…bad way. You’re the first person that’s gotten this close to me, and I like it. I like it a lot. I just can’t bear the thought of keeping you from your peace, and I’d never ask that of you.”
Alaric cupped her chin, his thumb moving across her cheek where a lone tear slid down her face. Now she was crying and it was his fault. He really should have planned this better, had a speech, waited another few days. Anything other than this awkward confession.
“If I’d not met you, then yes, that’s what I would want.
But you’ve given me life after years of death, and I have found that I very much want to be around you.
Not just because you’re the only one I can speak to, but for your heart.
Even now, your worry is for my happiness, with no consideration for your own. ”
“So you wouldn’t be staying out of a sense of duty?” Rosalin asked, her voice quiet.
“Duty? Duty to what?”
“Because I brought you out of that purgatory. Because I may be able to set you free. You’re not sticking around because you think you owe me, right?”
“I am eternally grateful, but I do not feel as if I owe you,” he said.
“And if you stayed, what would you do?”
“Well,” he considered. “I should wish to court you.”
“Court me?”
“Dating, I suppose. I’d like to take you on dates. I understand the limitations, given that no one else can see me. But I’d like to spend time with you, for you to know me as I know you.”
Rosalin was quiet for a long moment, her gaze still eternally searching his. “And if dating doesn’t pan out? If either of us decides we want something else…then what?”
“I suppose it depends,” he admitted. He’d not thought beyond spending time with Rosalin.
It seemed like such an unfair ask, he hadn’t considered what else he might do—just that if she didn’t want him around, he’d cross to the other side.
What was the point of haunting Pumpkin Hollow for another three hundred years?
Wait for another necromancer to bleed on him?
“On what?”
“If I am still able to touch and move things,” he decided. “I’d rather like to haunt some place. Maybe play some tricks on the townsfolk. They’ve far too kind an opinion of me, I feel I must remedy it.”
“Be serious,” she said, though her lips turned up in the start of a smile.
“The unknown is…exciting,” he admitted. “For centuries, I’ve not been able to make my own plans. And now I have a choice, and if you’ll allow me, I’d like to choose you.”
“Oh.” The word was a soft puff of air.
“Do not answer so quickly,” Alaric said, suddenly nervous. It occurred to him that she might agree with her aunts, that she might reject him. She was too kind to be cruel about it, but it would sting, nonetheless.
“It’s…a lot,” Rosalin admitted.
“It is. Let’s take things one step at a time, then.”
“Right,” she agreed. “The curse.”
“Well, cinnamon rolls,” Alaric said, nodding to the bag in her hand. “Then the curse.”