Chapter 9 #2
I missed Scooter. When Crystal really pissed me off, I would retaliate by putting a bowtie on Scooter, letting him in through the window of Crystal’s room, and tell her that her mate was looking for her.
Sometimes, when I go back to Onancock, I forget her mate’s name and call him Scoot for shits and giggles. She hates it, and isn’t that my job as a little sister?
“So Gus thinks of me as his cousin? Is that right?” When Ash nods, I ask, “What about Honey?”
“She’s Mother. And, before you ask, he knows that Honey isn’t his bio mother, but Gus… things are very simple for him. She takes care of him and has since he was a joey. She’s Mother.”
Holy shit, that’s the most adorable fucking thing I’ve ever heard.
And I get to be his cousin?
I glance down at Gus, suddenly stunned that a feral opossum has apparently decided I’m part of his clan before shooting my eyebrows up as I turn my attention back to Ash. “What are you? To Gus, I mean.”
Ash drifts closer to me, leaving the outline of the open doorframe to appear through his translucent form. “Brother,” he tells me before crouching low to scratch the space between Gus’s ears. “Love you, too, little buddy.”
My heart feels like it’s squeezing to hear Ash say those words to Gus.
It’s not that he’s speaking to Honey’s sidekick, either, or that he isn’t saying them to me.
I drawn the line at being jealous of a wild, boy opossum, but if there’s one thing I got used to living in a raccoon clan, it’s that the males don’t show emotions as easily as Ashton Morgan seems to be able to.
And I hate what it says about me that my immediate reaction is to clear my throat roughly before the moment can become way too emotionally sincere for Roxy Kane’s comfort. “That’s nice and all, but what are you two actually doing at my door?”
It’s Gus’s turn to make a clicking sound again.
I look at Ash.
His expression turns sheepish. Rising up from his crouch, he nervously tugs on the hem of his sweater. “Gus says that we should stay in here with you tonight.”
My heart skips a beat. My suspicious side rears its ugly head. “Did that idea come from Gus or from you?”
Ash hesitates for a split second before admitting: “Me.”
I’ve had males try to do whatever they could to get me to agree to let them into my bed. Somehow, I don’t get the idea that that’s what Ash is doing.
Huffing out a breath that, as a ghost, he doesn’t need, Ash turns and glances down the hallway, toward the spare room… toward his body.
“It’s so weird,” he murmurs. “Looking at myself dead like that.”
The quiet vulnerability in his voice cuts straight through me.
And why wouldn’t it? Despite his upbeat attitude and his fondness for Gus, plus how he keeps almost casually flirting with me, there’s no denying that Ash is trapped in this awful ghostly state.
I think I’d lose my fucking mind if I had to watch my body from outside of it, but Ash seems to be handling it pretty well.
He still is, only now… now he’s letting down his guard around me.
Maybe it’s time I do the same for him.
“That’s cool with me. You staying in here, I mean.” I nudge Gus with my big toe. “You, too, little cousin.”
Gus noses my ankle before scampering up my bedpost, curling like a true cat at the foot of the bed.
Ash, on the other paw, drifts over to the corner near my window. “Thanks, Roxy. You won’t even know I’m here.”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “Are you going to sit in the corner and watch me sleep?”
His pale cheeks go pink. “What? No! I—”
I flash a grin so that he knows I was only teasing again. “I said you can stay in here with me. It’ll be way weirder if you hang out in the corner. Come on, Ash. Hop in. I don’t know if you can exactly sleep… not like this… but you might as well take a load off your ghostly feet.”
He hovers closer to the edge of the bed. “I’ve been able to rest. It’s like I’m conserving my energy so that I don’t…”
His voice trails off, and it’s a pang in the chest as I fill in the blanks. He doesn’t want to fade away.
I don’t want that, either.
I hop into bed, patting the space next to me. “Come on in, Ash. You can rest next to Gus and me.”
And maybe, with my mate right there, my raccoon might finally shut the fuck up and let me get a little shut-eye.
It’s interesting, watching the way that Ash moves. In his ghostly form, it’s not as easy as you’d think to climb into bed. He kind of hovers a few feet off the ground, then reclines in the air before lowering himself down to the comforter.
An inch or two separates his back from the mattress. Grabbing his hand, I boldly tug him down until he’s cuddled up next to me.
“There. That better?”
With our hands connected, I sense his solid body against mine—and the way he stutters out an, “Actually… yes,” tells me he feels me, too.
Good. “Now rest. We have an early day at the bakery ahead of us tomorrow.”
I was smart. I called an order in to the grocery store and asked for plenty of milk and eggs and butter to be delivered to Dough You Believe in Magic by seven in the morning.
That way if there’s a weird glitch and the fridge goes out again, we’ll still have plenty of ingredients to make some magic-free treats.
Who knows, maybe I’m feeling confident enough to do a little bread-baking tomorrow.
“And the cursebreaker should be in town by the end of the week. I just have to make it until then.”
That, too. “Exactly. Before you know it, you could be back in your body, sleeping soundly in your new apartment over the bakery.”
And nowhere within my reach unless I confess…
No. Not yet. Maybe if the witch from out of town fixes Ash, I’ll tell him and give him the chance to decide whether he wants to claim me in return or—if he has any sense, and I’m pretty sure my librarian has way more than I do—he’ll reject me.
Until he makes that decision, I can pretend he really is mine.
And maybe it’s better this way. As a ghost, without his instincts and his nose leading him down the wrong path, he can get to know the real Roxy.
He won’t be blinded by the mating bond, and if he does decide to accept me as his mate, I’ll know that he means it.
That he wants me as much as I’ve always wanted him.
I don’t take my hand back. As though Ash has forgotten that he’s holding onto me, he keeps his hand tucked in mine. He closes his eyes after a few minutes, pale lashes landing against his cheeks, and I find myself staring at him instead of trying to go to sleep myself.
Mate.
Mine.
I could tell him. I think it might even be a welcome discovery for Ash. After all, he’s been searching for his mate… and here I am. I’m right here, baby, and I’ve gotten to know him enough that, if we can’t fix this, it’ll hurt him more to know that he was fading away and leaving me behind.
No. I’ll tell him once he’s alive again. Until then, I’ll enjoy these stolen moments while I can.
Does he really not know, I wonder? The mate bond between us exists like a faint echo beneath everything now, subtle but constant.
Ash doesn’t seem to notice it at all. He also doesn’t question why he constantly hovers toward me instinctively or why touching me seems to steady him despite the jolt every time our skin connects.
He doesn’t know, I decide. And I’ve spent twelve years acting as though the gorgeous opossum I met one day in Virginia couldn’t possibly be mine. Maybe I can keep pretending a little longer.
Ash is still. I do my best to relax. The entire room falls quiet except for Gus’s snuffling breaths coming from the foot of the bed.
I close my eyes—and that’s when I hear Ash’s gentle voice breaking up the quiet.
“Roxy?”
“Hm?”
“How come you’re the only one who can see me? What do you think Olivia meant about you having a claim to my soul?”
I’m not ready to explain. I… I’m not.
“Gus can, too,” I remind him. “It’s not just me.”
“I know. He’s special, though. But you…”
I squeeze Ash’s fingers. “That your way of telling me I’m not special, Ash?”
If it was anyone else, I would’ve tacked on a flippant nickname, especially considering my purposefully teasing tone.
Handsome. Hon. Deputy Lick-My-Balls. But Ash…
he told me he liked the way I said his name and, Alpha damn it, I can’t bring myself to use anything but his name almost every fucking time.
“You’re better than special. You’re the most interesting female I’ve ever met,” whispers Ash.
Interesting? “I’m just a raccoon.”
And your mate.
The words are on the tip of my tongue. By the time I get the nerve to say ‘fuck it’ and spit them out, another soft, snoring sound fills the room—and these are not from Gus.
I stare at the ceiling for a long moment before snickering to myself as I finally drift off to sleep, still holding tightly to Ash’s hand.
Oh, yeah. Because of course my phantom librarian mate snores.
I fucking love it… just like I think I might love him.