She’s gone when I wake up, and I hate it. My cellphone’s obnoxious ringtone is blasting out at full volume. Rae’s face greets me when I check the caller ID. God knows when she assigned that photo to herself in my contacts, but she’s wearing the same blissed out face she wears when I’m fucking her, her head angled to one side, lips slightly parted, hair fanned out around her head against a pillow. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was fucking herself with a vibrator when she took the shot. I answer the call, because I know Rae. If I don’t answer now, she’ll be blowing up my phone every five minutes for the rest of the day until I do.
“What’s up?” I ask into the receiver, palming my dick. I’m not hard, but my cock is throbbing like a bastard. Last night was crazy. I haven’t fucked anyone with that kind of intensity in a very, very long time. I fully expect Coralie to be experiencing trouble walking, wherever she may be.
“Hey, handsome. Just thought I’d check in, see when you were coming home? I think I left my underwear at your place the other night.”
“You always leave your underwear at my place.”
“I know. But this is my good stuff. I want it back.”
I groan, rubbing my eyes. The clock on my bedside table says it’s one o’clock in the afternoon; the sun was coming up when Coralie and I ended our adventure earlier. I definitely don’t feel like I’ve had enough sleep. “Rae…I don’t know what to tell you. You can get the doorman to let you in if you really want them back. Otherwise, I’ll be home in a week or so.” I can practically hear her sulking on the other end of the phone.
“But where’s the fun in being let in. If the doorman lets me in, you won’t be there to fuck me.”
“Get the doorman to fuck you. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to oblige.”
“Hmm.” Rae pauses, like she’s considering this as an option. She probably is. “All right, then, Cross. I’ll see you when you get home.” She hangs up, the line going silent. I take a second to mull over calling her back and telling her not to fucking the doorman in my bed, at least, but then I decide against it and get up.
I pad downstairs in my boxers and my heart near explodes out of my chest when I see a figure sitting at the dining room table. At first I think it’s Coralie. It’s not, though. It’s Friday, of all people, sitting at the table, eating Capt’n Crunch out of a bowl I don’t recognize. She must have brought it from home. “Jesus Christ, Friday. You scared the living shit out of me. Did you bring your own cereal over here?”
The old woman doesn’t lift her head to look at me. She spoons another mountain of cereal into her mouth, frowning deeply as she stares straight ahead out of the window on the other side of the room. “You and that girl got a lot of ghosts hoverin’ over you, Callan Cross. You know that?”
Friday’s always been a little out there. Even when we were kids, she would say the strangest things about spirits and what she termed ‘hauntings.’ If someone drank too much or beat their animals, or failed a test, it was because they were the victim of a haunting. It was entertaining as a kid to listen to her speak, but now I realize it was just a way of forgiving someone their flaws. Perhaps wrongly in some cases.
“What are you talking about, Friday?” I shuffle past her over to the window, where the curtains are partially drawn, allowing only a narrow pillar of golden light to slice through the otherwise dim room. “I don’t believe in ghosts. They’re not real.”
“Sure they are, child.” Friday speaks around her food. “They just as real as you an’ me. Just less...” She stops chewing and looks up at the ceiling, her body still, as if she’s listening for something. After a couple of seconds, she shrugs and carries on eating. “Can’t remember what I was saying now. Never mind.”
I stand with my hands on my hips, watching her as she spoons more food past her lips. “Not that I don’t love house guests, Friday, but is there something I can help you with?”
She arches an eyebrow at me, giving me a once over from head to toe. “Well. You could start by puttin’ some pants on. There’s a thought.”
It’s hilarious that she thinks letting herself into the house is okay—god knows why I even bother locking the damn door anymore, everyone seems to know where the spare key is—but the fact that she then wants me to put on pants is almost too much to bear. “Friday—”