Ghoul Friend Read online

  “I’m not making you do anything,” CeCe chided, reaching out to smooth Ezra’s wayward ‘do. “Except possibly use a bit of leave-in conditioner because this,” she waved one finger over his head, “is painful to look at. Just a little schmear, size of a dime, rub it in after you wash your hair.” Ezra rolled his eyes, darting a glance at Harrison to see if he was listening to CeCe criticize his wild hair. Harrison was politely pretending to check his phone but from my angle, I could see there was nothing on the screen. CeCe turned her attention to Julian, giving Ezra a break. “And you,” she said, jabbing at him with one well-manicured finger, “I can’t believe you’re okay with another long drive. You shouldn’t even be out of the hospital yet!”

  “I’m fine,” Julian sighed. “Seriously, Cec, we’ve been through this four times since last night. My wounds are healing, I have an entire pharmacy in my bag, and I’m a big boy now and can sit all by myself in the car without a booster seat.”

  “Asshole. You know what I’m talking about though.” She took a step towards him and, for a moment, it was like the rest of us didn’t exist. They were in their twin-bubble, something I’d once teased Julian about after we’d returned from Bettina and I walked in on him and CeCe having some sort of silent, staring conversation. He’d gravely assured me it was a real thing, and it was one of the few woo-sounding things he did believe in since he’d lived it. I kept that tucked away to bring up next time the subject of my abilities and his dogged refusal to open his damn mind up came back around.

  “I’m fine,” he said quietly. “I promise.”

  She glanced at Ezra, then me, before focusing on Julian again. “I don’t understand how any of that happened but—”

  “Delusions are powerful things,” Julian said. “The brain is a weird, wild place,”

  “We’re going to be late if we don’t get a move on,” Harrison announced, tucking his phone back into his pocket and breaking the fragile weirdness. “Ezra, are you ready?” Julian gave the departing duo a wide, almost real smile. “Got your ticket? Your ID?”

  “Yes, Dad,” Ezra muttered, rolling his eyes. “Oz—”

  “Call me when you land,” I said. “And whenever else you want. You know I’ll answer no matter what.”

  His jaw worked, chewing on the words he was holding back, then he finally nodded. “I’ll let you know when we get to the clinic.”

  The doctor CeCe had contacted to give Ezra an evaluation was at a chic, private facility in the mountains outside of Denver, some place known for its celebrity clientele and discretion. Harrison was booked into a nearby Airbnb and due to work on some of the contractual bits for some upcoming episodes and also help CeCe prepare for Jacob’s hearing, which was happening in a few months.

  “You going to be okay, Harrison?” I asked as the man himself strode over from the ticket kiosk, his own freshly printed boarding pass in hand. “You sure you have enough paperwork to deal with?”

  His smile was thin and tired. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. The trial is not going to require much prep at this point as I’m merely advising my client and not part of the litigation team. And the contracts for the show are fairly standard. I just need to go over them to ensure the location liaisons are meeting the legal requirements and…” he trailed off, darting a glance at Ezra. “Well. It’ll keep me occupied, I’m sure.”

  They had just under an hour until their flight was departing, so we bade hasty goodbyes, staying until they disappeared through security, and we could no longer see them. Bergstrom Airport wasn’t a bustling hub like some others, but it was busy enough to feel overwhelming, so we didn’t linger over our own goodbyes with one another. CeCe insisted on taking her own car to Denver and, while we’d be caravanning, she wouldn’t be riding with us in the new rental we’d gotten to replace the one that broke down in Budding. “See you in Lubbock tonight?”

  “I still say we could power through to New Mexico,” Julian grumbled.

  “I’m not driving eleven hours straight, Jules, not even for the promise of excellent tamales.” She booped him on the nose, blew me a kiss, then climbed into Harrison’s SUV that he’d driven up from Houston and she promised to treat like it was her own baby.

  Given the way she screeched out of the parking garage, I worried for any potential offspring she might one day have.

  “I thought she was going to follow us,” I muttered, getting into the tidy sedan’s passenger side as Julian got himself situated behind the wheel.

  “She’s always hated following me, ever since we were born.”

  I snorted. “Makes me glad I’m an only child.”

  “You’re not really, though, are you?” he asked, navigating us carefully down the aisle of the parking garage. “Ezra’s your brother, in a sense.”

  I nodded, suddenly too close to tears to talk. Instead, I turned on the stereo and connected my phone’s Bluetooth. “Hope you don’t mind a bit of Kylie,” I announced.

  “And if I did?”

  “Too bad. Bags I control of the music.”

  We made good enough time on the drive to Denver to stop in Albuquerque and see the museum and the Petroglyph Monument. CeCe met up with an artist friend and went to dinner that evening, leaving Julian and me to our own devices.

  Our devices turned out to be takeout pizza in the hotel room while we watched mindless sitcoms, slowly scooting closer and closer together like we were teenagers on our first actual date, anxious and eager at the same time. Finally, Julian tossed down his slice of pizza and wiped his hands on one of the cheap take away napkins before turning to me, getting up on one knee on the room’s sofa and staring at me in earnest. “We can’t fuck,” he said flatly.

  “Er.”

  “Wait, I’m doing this wrong.” He leaned over, pressing his forehead to mine. “Until I get a panel done, we can’t have unprotected sex. Human bites…” he trailed off, shuddering, I think without realizing it. “Well. I also started thinking… I want to try to, to…”

  “Meet in the middle?” I suggested with a soft smile. “I don’t want to change you, Julian. I—” I caught myself, course-corrected. “I care about you. I enjoy being with you. I don’t fantasize about some you that’s just like me.”

  “So, you never wonder what it would be like if I believed?” he asked quietly, nervously. “You don’t wonder what it’d be like if I wasn’t a… what was that phrase Ezra used? A pompous arse?”

  I snickered at the way he said the word. “Arse. Say it like that. Arse. Not aaarrrrrse.”

  “That’s how I said it!” He dipped his head and nipped at my neck, just below my ear. “Ass.”

  “Now you’re just saying it wrong on purpose,” I teased, breathless as he kissed the spot he’d just bitten. I tilted my chin up, giving him access to my throat, my collarbone. He hummed against me, and I melted—that’s the only word for it. Just melted into him as he pressed me back against the couch. “What about—”

  “There’s other ways to cum,” he muttered, slipping his hands under my shirt.

  We hadn’t been together long enough to be seamless in our lovemaking—or to even call it lovemaking out loud because how awkward would that be at this point—but we’d learned a few tricks about one another. I knew Julian loved it when I paid a lot of attention to his balls with my tongue, and I loved it when he did that thing to my nipples, the one that made it feel like fire was in my veins and every nerve in my body sat up and begged for more. He flicked the edge of his thumbnails over the tight nubs and I groaned, wiggling to wrap my legs around his thighs. He shivered against me as our erections ground together, first by accident then more purposefully as we found our position and thrust to make a rhythm that worked. He had been about to say maybe we should hold off on the physical part of our relationship—I knew he was, sure as I knew my middle name. But right then, with his long, lean body atop mine, his half-words and murmurs of my name against my throat, the way his stubble abraded my skin and made me feel absolutely wanton as he thrust and rubbe
d against me, I couldn’t bring myself to stop us.

  Julian bit down on my shoulder, a spark of pain that made the pleasure so much sweeter when he flicked my nipples again. I gasped, arching my hips into his, my balls tightening and lifting sooner than I’d expected. “Oh, Julian,” I gasped. “It’s—I’m close!”

  “Do it,” he hissed. “I can’t wait. Do it.” He growled against me, going still as a warm wetness spread against my covered cock. It was enough to set me off, leaving me wet and sticky and tingling in my one clean pair of sleep pants.

  But neither of us moved. We laid on the shitty hotel sofa until our legs tingled with the need to move, then we headed for the shower in unspoken agreement. Hours later, we’d finally finished the cold pizza, turned off the television, and lay in the dark. Neither of us were asleep, but we were both pretending to be. Julian’s fingers were laced with mine and my head was on his chest, our breathing too fast and shallow to be anything but awake.

  “When we get to Denver,” he said after a long while, “I want to check on Enoch.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “Gerald emailed CeCe apparently. Mrs. Carstairs invited him to stay with them. I think she feels bad…” he trailed off. “Well. He emailed through the production company, so it took a bit to get to CeCe but I’m glad he did it. I was worried.”

  “About Gerald?”

  He made a noncommittal noiMse. He was worried—and I was, too—about what had happened. About what it meant. Though while he was wondering if Ezra had a neurological issue, if we had all been poisoned (if I had to hear him say ‘ergotism’ one more time, I swear to God), I was wondering about how Albright did it. How common it was for ghosts to do that. Or if they had to be special somehow—maybe angrier, or maybe… Maybe like me. Enoch had mentioned Albright had been rumored to have some sort of ability. Did people like me, like Enoch, did we become ghosts like Albright?

  About what it meant for Ezra.

  About Ezra.

  The sound of the door to the room next door opening and closing, the soft lilt of CeCe’s voice and the low rumble of someone else’s made Julian sigh. “I’m turning on the T.V.,” he said. “I don’t want to hear this.” The telly came on and Julian flipped through several channels before pausing. “Huh. They found a body in that fancy-ass golf course neighborhood near where Jacob grew up. That’s so weird. Saint Pierre’s such a small town, it’s never on the news and when it is, it’s for something awful like that.”

  I made a noncommittal noise and curled onto my side. Julian didn’t know about the murdered man Jacob had seen when he was a boy, and I doubted I’d ever tell him. That seemed like a lifetime ago now, even though it wasn’t even half a year. Julian had moved on to another show, something with a canned laugh track and very seventies background music, and drifted off after a few minutes of zany, Technicolor hijinks.

  I closed my eyes and shifted closer, willing sleep to come. I didn’t know what any of it meant, but I knew, knew in my bones, I was changing. My abilities were changing, just not in the way I’d feared. Even from beyond the grave, I thought, Grandmere was a controlling biddy. I felt a wash of shame—for years I thought I was at the top of my game. Hell, I’d been lauded for my abilities, and I’ll admit that it did get to my head a bit (hello, I have my own telly show). But people like Enoch existed. People with abilities beyond what I imagined could exist. Who else was there, who were the ‘others’ Enoch talked about?

  Were they hiding on purpose?

  Would they talk to me? And did anyone else even know about them?

  When we got to Denver, I had some calls to make back home.

  Comin Soon

  Medium at Large #3: Old Ghosts

  Not all ghosts are dead.

  A Grey Lady on the stairs.

  A long-missing skier in the walls.

  A medium losing his cool.

  And an ex boyfriend in the bedroom.

  Things are going fine. Just...fine.

  It was supposed to be an easy investigation: a classic ghost story, an old house with lots of loose floorboards and hissing pipes, surrounded by dense forest... Every strange noise and weird shadow accounted for and explainable.

  Except for the sound of Oscar being accused of misleading his audience, of being a con artist.

  And the Julian's ex showing up at the investigation as the new owner of the ski resort, haunted by the Gray Lady of the Rockies.

  Julian should have known better than to believe it was going to be an easy investigation.

  * * *

  The scariest hauntings aren't the dead. They're the ghosts we keep inside.

  Oscar has it under control.

  Really.

  The Gray Lady of the Rockies is supposed to be a simple investigation, something they all need after the last few months, but when the first night in the Chateau de Neige turns up an extra dead body in the old family cemetery, and two extra live ones in the ski lodge's dining room, Oscar's grasp on the situation feels like it might be slipping.

  His abilities are still in a state of flux—one day they're just fine, the next the volume is cranked to eleven with no warning and no in between.

  And really, Oscar was sure he could handle it so long as the ghosts would stop being so damn critical.

  Also Available via Most Digital Retailers:

  Bedeviled

  The Devil May Care

  The Devil You Know

  The Devil in the Details

  Science of Magic

  Data Sets

  Fuzzy Logic

  * * *

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  About the Author

  Meredith (they/them/theirs) says they're a queer writing cryptid and writes queer-centered romances in various subgenres including paranormal, speculative fiction/alternate universe, contemporary, and historical.They firmly believe in happily ever afters and that there is no reason anyone should wear socks with open toe shoes.