Rush (32 page)

“What would you like?”

“Flowers.” Sharon smiled. “Lots of
flowers.”

“Okay. We’ll have flowers here for you
by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Thank you.” Her smile turned
flirtatious. “You’re cute, you know.”

He blushed. “Um...thanks.”

“I haven’t kissed a guy in forty years.”

What the hell? She couldn’t find a
ghostly boyfriend somewhere? Why did she have to go after mine? Except he wasn’t
mine anymore. I’d thrown him away.

Max dropped his head. “Look, Sharon, you’re
very pretty, but...”

“Please? Just a little kiss?”

He glanced at me. I had no right to tell
him not to do it, so I tried to keep my jealousy off my face. Max turned back
to Sharon.

“Okay. Just a little one.”

She beamed at him. “Cool.”

He muttered something that sounded like “yeah,
right.”

Sharon walked over to him and bent down.
Max lifted his head. I couldn’t watch. It pissed me off to even think of him
kissing someone else, let alone to watch it happen. Luckily, they didn’t make
that lip-smacking noise that sometimes goes along with a kiss. If they had, I
might have smacked Sharon in her ghostly jaw.

She sighed dreamily. “Thanks. I really
like you. I’ll never forget you, Max.”

His face got redder and redder. “I—uh—”

That was kind of cute, actually. He was
so tongue-tied. Self-possessed Max didn’t know what to say.

“Get in touch with Carter as soon as you
can,” Sharon said.

Max’s face resumed its normal color. “Do
we need to perform the ritual here or can I do it somewhere else?”

“You should be able to do it anywhere,”
she said. “It would be better at the place where he died, but I guess that isn’t
possible. Right?”

“It’s in Montana and my dad won’t talk
to me,” Max said.

“So it doesn’t really matter what place
you pick. Just reach out to him.” She looked at me. “Sorry I hurt you. I didn’t
mean to hit you so hard.”

I gave her a stiff nod. “Apology
accepted.”

“Okay. ‘Bye for now.” And she vanished.

“Wow. Oh, wow,” Ivy said. “I can’t
believe I just saw that.”

“When are you going to talk to Carter?”
I asked Max.

“I don’t know. Tonight, I guess, if I
can get some supplies together that quickly.”

“Can I watch that one too?” Ivy said.

“No,” Max and I said simultaneously.

Her face fell.

“It’s too personal,” I said. “Max will
want privacy. It’s not you, Ivy.”

“Okay,” she said in a small voice.

“Caroline’s right,” Max said. “Carter
was my little brother. I don’t think I can handle having anyone I don’t know
really well there.”

“Okay. I get it.” She backed toward my
door. “Well, I’d better go. Thanks for letting me come into your room and
everything.”

“No problem,” I said. “I’ll see you
later.”

She left and I started picking up the
stuff Sharon had tossed around. The coffee mug was a lost cause, but I picked
up as many of the pieces as I could find. I needed to borrow the hall vacuum
cleaner to get the rest of it.

“I’d like you to come with me,” Max said
quietly. “When I reach out to Carter.”

I stopped in the act of picking up a
piece of mug. “I don’t know.”

“Please.”

I sighed. He had come right away to help
me, after I’d turned him away in a truly insulting manner. I owed him one.
Maybe more than one, now that I thought about it.

“Okay,” I said.

He gave me a smile so faint I wasn’t
sure I really saw it. “Thank you.”

“Can we have dinner first? I’m starving.
I was about to get food when Retro-girl—I mean, Sharon—started lobbing coffee
mugs and textbooks at me.”

He nodded. “Sure. What would you like?”

“Pizza?”

“Primo’s okay?”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

We took his car. It was the height of
dinnertime on Saturday and Primo’s was packed with mostly students. I felt so
strange standing next to Max and waiting to be seated. It was just like we were
together again, except different. Because everything had changed and there was
this invisible wall between us, a barrier that kept me from reaching out and
touching him the way I wanted to.

Max said something to me, but I couldn’t
hear him over the roar of voices. “What?” I yelled.

He bent near me and I tingled all over. “We
might be up really late tonight.”

“That’s okay.”

The hostess came to seat us. She gave us
a window booth. Max slid in on one side and after a moment’s hesitation, I slid
in after him. He looked at me with surprise on his face.

“It’s too loud to sit across from each
other,” I said.

He nodded. “Okay.”

She handed us our menus and left. I
already knew what I wanted, so I didn’t bother to open mine.

“Thank you for helping me today,” I said
as he scanned his menu.

He gave me a sidelong glance. “You’re
welcome.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d be willing.”

“Why not?”

“After the way I kicked you out of the
dorm? I wouldn’t blame you if you never talked to me again.”

Max’s mouth flattened. “I didn’t blame
you. What I did to you was wrong. It’s my fault we broke up.”

“Well, I—I felt bad about it afterward.
Actually, I felt bad about it at the time.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He kept his nose
in the menu, studying it as if it held the secret of eternal youth or
something.

He didn’t want to discuss this at the
moment. Okay. I could take a hint. I took a sip of my water. This wasn’t the
best location for an intimate discussion anyway.

“I miss you,” he said in a voice so low
I almost didn’t catch it.

I swallowed. “I miss you, too.”

Max set his menu on the table and looked
at me. His eyes were desolate. “I’m so sorry I hurt you. I wish I could take it
back.”

“It’s over.”

He bent his head. “I know. But I want
you to understand that the revenge thing, that was only in the beginning. When
I didn’t know you. As I started to see what kind of person you were, I dropped
the idea of revenge.” He looked straight at me. “When we made love, it was
real. All of it was real.”

Tears were threatening me again. How I
wanted to believe him. I nodded without speaking, afraid my voice would break
if I tried to talk.

He folded my hand in his. “I still love
you. I’ll always love you, no matter what happens.”

Slowly, my fingers curled around his. “I
love you, too.”

His eyes widened. “You do?”

“I’ve been so miserable without you.”

He lifted my hand to his lips. “Come back
to me, Caro. Please. I’ll make it up to you a thousand times, just come back.”

Any second now, I was going to cry. “I—”

My denial died before I could verbalize
it. The words refused to leave my throat. I closed my eyes and pinched my lips
together to keep from crying.

Max took my upper arms and gently urged
me against him, and I let him do it. I let him fold his arms around me and kiss
the top of my head.

“Don’t cry, baby,” he murmured.

I didn’t want to give in. No, that’s not
true. I believed that I shouldn’t give in. But his body felt so hard and hot
against mine, he smelled like pure sex, and resting my face against the
familiar soft knit of his navy-blue Henley felt like coming home. I put my arms
around his waist and clung to him.

“Say you’ll come back,” he murmured.

I lifted my head and looked into his
eyes. “Yes.”

For a moment, he just stared at me as if
he couldn’t quite believe his ears. Then he took my face in his hands and
kissed me in a hot and leisurely union of mouths. Lust overtook me with so much
force I moaned against his lips.

He pulled back to cover my face with
kisses. “I love you. I need you. If we hadn’t already ordered, I’d take you
home right now and make love to you.”

“I love you, too. But I’m also starving.
I don’t know if I can summon the dead on an empty stomach.”

He laughed. “All right. We’ll eat first.”
His lips traced a path from my chin to my ear. “I’m so glad. So glad you said
yes.”

When the waitress brought our pizza, we
were in the middle of another scorching kiss. She set the food on the table
without comment, but I saw her glance over her shoulder at us and smile when
she got halfway across the restaurant. Great. We were providing a floor show.

“No-one is paying attention to us,” Max
said. “They’re too busy with their own drama.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” I said, surprised
to find it was true. “I’m proud to be with you.”

His eyes took on a soft glow. “Thank
you. I’m proud to be with you, too.”

We leaned against each other in silence,
eating and just basking in each other’s presence. I was so happy to be with him
again that part of me wanted to laugh out loud with joy. But another part was
already thinking about what we had to do later that evening. I was trying to
picture how it would work, what would happen. How a ghostly preschooler was
going to communicate with us in any meaningful way. Wouldn’t he just want us to
play with him?

“Max, wasn’t Carter only three when he
died?” I said, glancing at him in apprehension. I knew he hated talking about
his brother.

“Yeah.” He took a bite of pizza and I
wondered if he did it for the reason I sometimes took big bites of food during
a conversation I found uncomfortable—so he wouldn’t have to talk while he
chewed.

“I don’t understand how he’s going to
have anything meaningful to tell us. I mean, he’s just a little kid, right? A
ghostly preschooler.”

Max swallowed. “People change when they
cross over. Sometimes, not always. It’s possible that Carter is more mature on
the other side than you think. Spirits are eternal and all that.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

He put his slice of pizza back on the
plate and pushed it across the table. “I’m really not hungry right now.”

I shouldn’t have said anything. Damn it,
now I’d made him nervous again and he needed to eat. He looked so thin and pale
it worried me.

“He doesn’t blame you,” I said.

He slanted a look at me. “Of course he
does.”

“No. He doesn’t. He doesn’t blame you
because it wasn’t your fault.”

Max’s breath gusted out of him. “Caroline,
I appreciate what you’re doing, but you don’t understand. I fired the shot. It
was my fault.”

I took him by the arm. “You were a ten
year old boy. You didn’t know there were bullets in the gun.”

He shook his head, refusing to look at
me.

“You need to eat. You look awful.”

“Gee, thanks.”

I kissed his jaw. “I’m only worried
about your health.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to wrap up
the rest of this and take it home.”

I blinked. “Okay. Sure.”

I flung my arm in the air and waved it
wildly until I attracted the waitress. Max sat and stared moodily at his plate
during this exchange. I hoped he wasn’t going to back out of contacting Carter,
because it seemed like something he needed to do. Not only because of whatever
message it was that Carter wanted to convey, but for the sake of his own peace
of mind.

Carter would forgive him. He’d probably
already forgiven him, but Max didn’t believe that and probably never would
until he heard it from Carter himself. He would carry the crushing weight of
his guilt and shame around for the rest of his life unless he faced his
brother.

I slipped my hand into his. “I’ll be
there with you, no matter what happens.”

He said nothing, but his hand tightened
around mine.

Chapter 28

Max

I felt hollowed out and empty as I
parked my car in the driveway of my house. Beside me, Caroline was quiet. The
sun had set. My street was dark, the streetlights blocked by the dense canopies
of the big-leaf maples whose bare branches arched over the pavement all along
its length.

Caroline and I walked quietly to the
front door. Her presence gave me strength to keep moving forward in spite of
the dread that had overtaken me in the restaurant. The last goddamn thing I
wanted in the whole world was to look into Carter’s innocent blue eyes and see
hatred reflected back at me. But it was overdue. I owed him much more than an
apology; unfortunately, that was all I had to offer.

We put the pizza box on my little
kitchen table and Caroline sat down to finish her dinner. I couldn’t put a bite
in my mouth. The thought of food made me want to puke right now. But I sat with
her and stared at the black window glass while she ate her food.

I needed some mugwort to help open the
way between this world and the spirit world. I probably still had a little in
my herb stash, but I wasn’t sure what was in there after the move. It had been
a while since I’d done any work with the dead, other than talking to Fred, that
is.

I shot a covert glance at Caroline. She
seemed so calm, so easy, sitting here with me and eating pizza as if I’d never
killed anyone. It always amazed me that she’d have anything to do with me,
knowing the terrible thing I’d done. What exactly had Trent told her about that
night? He might have lied or exaggerated.

No, make that he definitely lied and
exaggerated. She deserved to hear the truth from me, even if it hurt to talk
about it.

“I took the gun from a drawer in my dad’s
desk,” I said, still gazing out at the darkness beyond the window. “His office.
He usually kept the door locked, but that night it was open for some reason.”

“And you tried the door?”

“It...I think it was open. Just partly,
a crack. Enough to tell me I could get in there and look at stuff I wasn’t
supposed to touch.”

She made an encouraging sound.

My apartment felt so cold we both still
wore our jackets. I hadn’t turned the heat on since she’d left me, and the only
heat I got was what arose from the apartment downstairs.

“My dad’s office was always cold,” I
said. “He liked to leave the window open all the time, even in the winter.”

“Was it winter when you went in there?”
Her voice was soft, unobtrusive.

“Yeah,” I said. “There was snow all over
the ground.”

Carter had died in January. I hadn’t
even observed his death day this year; I’d been too wrapped up in my love
affair with Caroline to remember. That was the first time that had happened.

“I took the gun up to my room because I
knew I wasn’t supposed to have it. I wanted to hide while I played with it. But
I didn’t shut my door. I don’t know why.” I looked at Caroline. She was
watching me with no expression on her face. “Why wouldn’t I shut my door if I
wanted to hide?”

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “You
were only ten. Maybe you forgot.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” I swallowed past what
felt like a rock lodged in my throat. “I was pointing the gun, pretending I was
aiming it at some bad guys, and Carter ran into my room and I swung around and
the—the gun—it just went off.”

“What kind of gun was it?”

I didn’t understand how she could sound
so calm.

“I don’t know. A handgun. A pistol. It
seemed huge to me, but my hands were small back then. And it was so loud. So
fucking loud. I couldn’t really hear for a while after it went off. I could
see, though. I could see him, and the blood—there was so much blood—all over
him—” My voice failed.

I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t look
at the window, either, because I could see my reflection in it and I didn’t
want to look at myself. And because it reminded me of that other night, when I
pointed a gun at a dark window and then accidentally shot my little brother.

I bent my head and covered my face with
my hands. In the resulting darkness, I could see Carter’s little body sprawled
across my bedroom floor, blood soaking my carpet. His eyes were open. They
looked so surprised.

My edges were dissolving. My body
started to shake and I didn’t know why. I was losing it. Losing control, losing
composure, losing sanity. I could feel it crumbling away, like a suit of armor
I’d always worn without knowing it. The thing turned to dust and I only
understood that I’d had it at all when it crumbled and blew away.

He’d been so small. So damn small. Dead
before I could throw down the fucking gun and run to him and put my arms around
him and try to hold him.

“He was so small,” I said. “And broken.
There was blood all over the place. It made the carpet wet and it got on my
clothes and my hands because I tried to pick him up. He fell down and I ran to
him and he was already dead. I killed my little brother.” My voice broke. “I’m
so sorry, Carter.”

Caroline’s hand found its way to my
back. She began to stroke me and she didn’t say anything and I didn’t—really
didn’t—want to break down and cry. I didn’t want her to see me like that.

I took a shaky breath, trying to hold
onto my last thread of composure.