Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
EWAN
I’m still shaking my head over the idea of me and Daniel being together when I pull up to the house late in the afternoon. I called ahead to let Josh know I was coming, and he’s waiting for me. He gets into the car and reaches for the seat belt.
“Thanks for this,” he says as I turn the car down the driveway. “It saves me getting an Uber and potentially having to deal with another grandma ghost.”
I side-eye him. He’s looking at the road ahead, but there’s a tiny, exasperated smile on his lips as he remembers whatever the grandma ghost thing was.
His hand rises to scratch his neck, and the dark metallic green color on his nails grabs my attention again.
I noticed it yesterday, then again this morning, but seeing it still makes me hot for reasons I don’t understand.
Stop lying to yourself.
Okay, so maybe I can’t help picturing Josh’s hand wrapped around my cock, those colorful nails gleaming against my skin as he works me over. Seems I have a fetish for… nail polish?
I swallow hard and turn my attention back to the road.
“No problem at all,” I say in belated response to his thanks.
“Especially since I was coming anyway. But if you ever need a lift into town, just let me know.” Even if we hadn’t sorted out the weirdness between us, I would have said that.
Because as great as Mannix Estate is, it would suck to be trapped there.
If seeing ghosts has made something as ordinary as learning to drive difficult, I honestly can’t imagine how tough he had it with everything else.
Sneaking another sideways glance, I’m glad to see his smile is a little broader. He looks relaxed and happy. Granted, I’ve only met him a couple of times before today, but both those times he seemed tense.
I clear my throat. “Do you mind if I ask about the ghost thing?”
From the corner of my eye, I see him turn his head toward me. “The ghost thing?” He sounds amused. “Go ahead. It’s nice to be able to talk about it and not have people look at me like I’m nuts.”
“I’ll bet.” Man, that would suck. “Have you always been able to see them, or was there something that happened… or, like, did it come with puberty…?” I should have paid more attention to movies about this stuff.
He chuckles. “Nah, nothing like that. I’ve always been able to see them.
When I was little, my parents used to joke that I didn’t have one imaginary friend, I had a whole army of them.
They found it less funny when I got older and it didn’t stop, and then when I told them it was ghosts, not my imagination, they put me in therapy.
That didn’t change a lot. I stopped talking about it as much, but the ghosts would still pop up, and I’d get a start, or one of them would talk to me on the street and I’d answer before I realized it was a ghost, so my parents knew I was still seeing them.
They talked about having me medicated for hallucinations, but Mom read up on some of the side effects of those drugs and decided she didn’t want to do that.
” He’s silent for a second, and when I look over, his face is sad.
“We don’t have to talk about it.”
He sighs and musters a smile. “It’s fine.
I was just thinking I was pretty lucky. I only ever met one or two aggressive ghosts when I was a kid, so it wasn’t a negative thing, you know?
Just like having people constantly around.
They’d tell me stories and sing me to sleep—I was never afraid to sleep, because the ghosts would keep me company.
And then when I got older and decided I wanted privacy, I got online and read that ghosts won’t cross a salt line, so I convinced my mom to let me salt my bedroom.
It gave me a space where I could be alone.
When she saw how that worked, she salted the whole house.
School and other places were still hectic, but at least at home I had peace.
It could have been worse. I could have been haunted by aggressive ghosts constantly, or medicated, or even institutionalized.
As an adult, it’s easy to see how lucky I am, even if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. ”
I hold back my shudder. I’ve never thought about people who see ghosts, but he’s right. Our society isn’t designed to protect them. I wonder how many other mediums—is that the right word?—weren’t as lucky as Josh growing up.
“It’s funny,” he continues, his voice hardening, “that after everything with the ghosts, the reason I don’t see my parents anymore is because I’m gay.”
The words fall like a stone between us. “I’m so sorry,” I say instinctively.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard something like that—without the ghosts—but it still makes my chest ache.
I know how incredibly lucky I am to have parents who love and accept me for who I am, even more so after having met so many people whose families turned their backs.
“It could have been worse.” He shrugs. “I came out when I was fifteen, and they told me never to bring it up again. So I didn’t.
And when I turned eighteen, two weeks after I graduated from high school, they suggested it was time for me to leave.
It was all very calm and civilized… if you can call cutting ties with your only kid civilized. ”
“It’s not.” I clench my hands around the steering wheel.
“It’s not,” he agrees. “But that was when I realized how easy I’d had it with the ghosts.
I crashed with a friend for a while, but without the salt to keep the ghosts away, I wore out my welcome fast. I never had many friends, because they all thought I was twitchy and weird”—I cough to cover a laugh.
It’s not funny, damn it—“so I had to become independent very quickly. I wasn’t a kid for the ghosts to dote on anymore, and they were a lot more demanding with an adult.
I kept losing jobs because the ghosts would startle me, or my boss would catch me talking to ‘myself.’” He makes air quotes with his fingers.
“Chicago has a dense population, which means a lot of ghosts. I’ve been trying to get together enough money to move to a small town for years.
This job is…” He trails off. “It’s a miracle. ”
I guess it would be. “Have the ghosts been nice since you arrived? Our ghosts, I mean.” Not that I can do anything if they haven’t.
Maybe lecture them? Also, I wish someone had told me about the salt thing earlier.
It would work better to keep Carter out of my room than threats of exorcism.
I mentally add a lot of salt to my shopping list.
The smile is back in his voice when he says, “They’re great. Friendly and very respectful of my space. It’s only been one night, but they waited to be invited in, which is a good sign.”
“You’ll have to teach me that trick,” I mutter dryly.
“I’ll talk to them,” he promises. “Maisie doesn’t bother you, does she? I’ve heard about her search for a man.”
“She visited me the first night I moved in.” And dispelled any idea I might have had about women from the nineteenth century being prudish.
I’ve never blushed so hard in my life. “But I made it very clear that women aren’t my thing, and she’s left me alone since.
I think she still makes an appearance in Daniel’s room sometimes.
He convinced her he’s not relationship material and that anything else would make things awkward between them, but she likes to check if he’s changed his mind. ”
He groans. “I’m definitely going to need to talk to her. I feel sorry for her, but she can’t keep harassing people like this.” He pauses. “Speaking of Daniel…”
It’s my turn to groan. “He said you’d talked to him. Why? I thought you wanted to keep it quiet.” Dan laughed so hard when he told me, tears were streaming down his face.
“I did, but I was kind of an ass to Daniel last week, when I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, and I thought I should apologize. It all came out somehow. He’s very easy to talk to.”
“It’s his superpower,” I grouch. “People like him, and they tell him things.” Though why he wants to spend that much time with people is something I’ll never understand.
“That makes sense. I didn’t plan to do more than apologize, but he smiled and said it was fine and he hoped we could be friends, and suddenly the whole stupid story was just blurting out of my mouth.
” He sounds disgruntled. “Johnny was there, so the rest of the ghosts will know all about it by now.”
I wince. “They do like to gossip.” Which is how they all know my dick size and that I prefer to top.
Why Carter thought that was information worth sharing, I’ll never know.
I always just assumed that people in the nineteenth century were prudish about sex, but these ghosts have taught me otherwise.
Either that, or death has caused them to lose all respect for boundaries.
“Okay, you’ve heard my story. Now tell me yours. How’d you become a blacksmith? That’s not a common career path.”
“It’s really not,” I agree. “But the story’s not exciting.
My uncle runs a dressage school and riding stable.
I’ve always loved animals, spent as much time in the stables as I could, and my first part-time job as a teenager was there, cleaning tack and mucking out.
One time when I was about seventeen, the farrier was there at the same time as me, and we got talking.
When he saw how interested I was, he suggested I spend some time shadowing him, see if an apprenticeship was something I wanted to consider. ”
“Mmm,” Josh says. “A farrier? That’s like a blacksmith for horses, right?”