He reaches out and cradles it in both of his. As his big hands surround mine and a finger drags over my palm, I feel the air slip from my lungs. Gabe. I know it’s him before I look into his eyes.
“Mmmm,” he murmurs in put-on tone that doesn’t sound like him. He drags his finger over my palm, which wastes no time starting to sweat.
“Do things look good?” I breathe, trying to sound light-hearted.
Gabe’s eyes are hot on mine as he traces the middle line on my palm.
“They do.” His voice is a rumble I feel between my legs.
He draws my hand closer to him, and I feel chills spread over my skin. Gabe traces the outline of my thumb.
“You moved home,” he says, in that ultra-low, fake, ghost voice, his cool fingers caressing my wrist.
I nod slowly.
“To an old house, very old, with many spirits.”
My lips twitch.
“Also, there is someone else there. Someone…” He closes his eyes and rocks slightly. “Very attractive.” His eyes open. “But not very nice.”
My stomach sprouts a pair of wings and starts to flutter. “How’d you know?”
He nods at the table where our hands rest, at the crystal ball.
I bite my lip, which sort of wants to smile. “You’re right, Ghost Medium. My downstairs neighbor is a total fucking asshole.” I lean closer. “Huge dick,” I whisper. “And I do mean that in both ways.”
I can see Gabe’s eyes go squinty with his hidden smile—or, more likely, smirk. I can feel him trying not to laugh. His finger, paused in its perusal of my palm, starts tracing again. “Has this bad neighbor caused…unhappiness?” he asks, making me want to laugh at his ridiculous voice—even as my pulse races at the soft stroke of his finger on my palm.
“You know, honestly…” I bite my lower lip for effect. “I think he may be under the impression that I care more than I do. Like, he’s Fate’s VIP, this neighbor, but to me, maybe he’s just…a boring neighbor.”
I can’t hide my smirk, and he can’t hide the way his eyes crinkle. “Is that right?” he asks in his normal voice. He coughs. “Is that right,” he repeats in ghost-tone.
“Kind of a been-there, done-that sort of thing, you know what I mean?”
I can see his jaw drop, even through the sheet. He drops my hand, then grabs the crystal ball and tugs it closer. He holds up a finger. “One of my ghostly brethren has a message for us…”
“Is that right?”
He nods, running his palm around the crystal ball, which shoots out yellow sparks.
Gabe shuts his eyes. All at once, he flips them open and leans forward. “Your neighbor is a wizard, Marley.”
I scoff, stifling the howl I want to let loose. “Is he?”
“It seems so.”
“I can see how he might be under that delusion,” I say. “He’s a little kooky, by profession, in fact—but I’m not so sure your source is right on this…”
“Oh yes, he is definitely right. And the minds of wizards, they are very readable to ghosts…”
“Are they now?”
He nods. “So I have insight I can offer you.”
“Well, I’d love to hear this, then, Ghost Medium.” I lean forward.
Gabe leans closer too, his gaze burning my own. “Your neighbor is, in fact, an asshole. Since you moved in, he has been a dick most of the time.” He grabs my hand again as my face flushes red hot. “So this is my message: It has nothing to do with you. Only with him.”
I swallow, so thrown off, I have to take a second to gather my thoughts, lest I blurt something out. I look down at my hand, still palm-up on the table, and feel a veil of surreality shimmer over both of us. After a deep breath, I glance back up. “So why’s he being that way? What’s the matter?”
His eyes shut, and he gives a quick shake of his head. “Sometimes an asshole is an asshole.”
“That sounds nebulous. And possibly excusatory. Surely that’s not true. And anyway, sometimes this person does nice things. I think he’s capable. In fact, lately, my neighbor hasn’t been so bad.”
He takes my hand again, and rubs along one of the lines. “That’s good to know. I’m glad to hear no hauntings will be needed,” he says in his low ghost-voice.
“No. I think no hauntings will be needed.”
“Very good.”
“This is a good disguise for Mr. Famous,” I whisper, with a small quirk of my lips.
What he’s doing with my hand… He’s tracing in between my fingers.
“Yeah,” he says, and the word sounds thick and heavy. Tired. And just like Gabe. He’s dropped his faux voice as he says, “Trying to stay in the shadows. For now, at least.”
My eyes shut as he strokes the base of my palm. I pull them open and find his hot on my face. “Does everybody get this kind of séance and palm reading,” I whisper.
He blinks, then lets go of my hand. Without another word, he stands and waves me toward the door. “Goodbye for now.”
“Goodbye,” I snort. I wait till Kat and I are well beyond ear shot to growl, “Your future looks grim, Kitty.”
“I tried to tell you,” she hisses.
“You failed.”
2
Gabe
I watch Marley in the dunk tank, smirking underneath my sheet as she gets pies hurled at her in the name of charity. Almost two hours later, I hear her trudge up the stairs to her apartment. Shortly after that, she starts her shower.
Marley in the steamy shower, whipped cream sliding down her body…
Fuck.
I’m not jerking off again today, so I pull on my sneakers and hit the pavement. There’s another day of festival tomorrow, so the booths that crowd the medians are battened down. To my left, down toward Main Street, I can see fluorescent lights illuminating rides, the blinking, neon colors spinning with the Ferris Wheel. I hear voices, smell popcorn and funnel cake.
Best to run the other way.
As I find my pace, I think of New York. It’s not often I allow myself to wander there, but maybe it’s the smell of sweets, the distant sound of carousel tunes.
“I want the panda, Daddy!”
“Are you sure you want to ride a panda? Pandas in the wild aren’t very fast.”
“But we’re not in the wild. We’re at the boardwalk!”
Funny how I used to laugh at runners. Those who ran at night, on snowy days, in early morning. Who the fuck would do that? Why? Now I know how good it feels to run—to run away.
The air is brittle, biting, harsh. I let myself enjoy it. I run past a small boy on his father’s shoulders, talking loudly as he waves a glow stick. For a second, I want to run home and lock myself inside the under-the-stairs closet. Instead I let my mind go somewhere else forbidden: Marley’s breasts under her V-necked shirt as she breathed mere feet in front of me today. She smelled like something smooth and sweet, and when she smirked, it made me want to kiss her in the corner of her mouth. Those thoughts just cut me open, though, so I direct my mind another way.
Jesus, what I wouldn’t give right now to smack that ass and watch it bounce.