"You don't even know me," I whispered. I moved toward the stack of books, needing something to do with my hands. "You met me in a bar. We had one night. That isn't a life."
Julian spoke then, without looking up from his page. "What he's not saying is that he hasn't slept properly since your nighttogether. He paces. He watches the door. He's been driving me absolutely insane for a week, and frankly, I'd like my quiet apartment back."
There was a flicker of humor in the corner of his mouth. He was extending an opening with one hand while keeping his guard in place with the other. He wasn't rejecting the chaos I brought. He was just tired of the waiting.
"You're offering me honesty," I said. "And I'm standing here with a closet full of things I haven't told you." My pulse was loud in my ears.
Julian closed his book and slid off the counter, walking toward me until he was inches away. He reached out, his fingers hovering near my wrist. "Then tell us when you're ready. But don't leave because you think you don't deserve to be here."
Rowan was behind me now. I was caught between them, and the part of me that wanted to collapse into it was winning.
"Make a choice," Rowan said, close enough that I could feel his breath on my temple. "Stay and have a drink. Talk to us. Or walk out that door and keep pretending that you're just a visitor passing through."
I looked at the door, then back at Julian's face. The apartment was still. No ghosts. No phantom scents. Just two men offering me something I was terrified of: a version of the future that didn't require me to be a martyr for the past.
"Not tonight," I said. It wasn't a no. We both knew it.
Julian nodded. He stepped back. Rowan didn't move for a long second, then stepped aside, clearing the path to the door.
"The door isn't locked," Rowan said. He walked back to the table and sat down. He didn't watch me leave.
I walked out. The air was colder in the hallway. I made it to the sidewalk and stood there, breathing in the fog, and I knew I was going to come back. Not tonight. But soon.
I called Liliana from the sidewalk. She answered on the first ring and the first thing out of my mouth was about the men I was slowly falling for. I told her about Rowan's bluntness, Julian's music, Theo's camera. I told her about the apartment, the way they looked at me like I was a person and not a tragedy.
When I finished, she was quiet for a long time. Then she said, "Oleander. Dominic has been dead for seven months."
"I know that."
"Do you? Because you moved into his secret apartment in his secret town, and now you're falling for three men at once while you're surrounded by his ghosts. None of that sounds like a person who knows their husband is dead. It sounds like someone trying to stay married to a corpse."
I didn't have an argument for that. She was right. If I was haunted, I wasn't alone. If I was haunted, I didn't have to decide what my life looked like without him.
"Go home, Oleander," she said. "Just be careful. Those men might be real, but the town isn't on your side."
I hung up and started the walk back. Halfway home, I heard footsteps behind me. They matched my pace exactly. When I sped up, they sped up. I spun around at the corner and the street was empty. Just fog and the wind through the broken steeple.
I ran the rest of the way.
Inside the apartment, Dominic's cologne was waiting for me. I locked every bolt and sat on the edge of the bed in the dark. The door Rowan had opened was still there. So was the cage Dominic had built. I was somewhere between the two, and for the first time, I knew which direction I was leaning.
sixteen
THEO
The light in Hollow Vale arrived with an agenda that afternoon. It was late, that bruised hour when the sun dipped low enough to catch the grit in the air, turning the suspended dust into a million microscopic flecks of gold. I watched Oleander through the viewfinder of my Leica, my finger hovering over the shutter, waiting for the moment he stopped looking like a man ready to bolt into the fog.
We were standing in the shadow of an old Victorian on the edge of the East Side, a house that was leaning so far into its own rot that the porch steps had detached from the earth. Oleander was framed by a trellis of dead wisteria, his dark hair catchingthe backlit glow, looking like he'd forgotten how to occupy the space his body took up.
"Let me shoot you," I said. The words were out before I could filter them.
Oleander flinched, his shoulders hiking toward his ears. "No. I don't... I'm not really the type for that, Theo." He looked down at his hands, his fingers twisting the silver earring in his left ear, a nervous habit I'd catalogued three days ago.
"You don't have to look at them," I said, stepping closer. "You don't even have to look at me. Just exist."
He let out a breath that sounded like a surrender, his posture sagging against the peeling white paint of the trellis. "Fine. But if I look like a ghost, it's your fault."
"In this town, looking like a ghost is just good camouflage," I murmured. I moved in, my hand reaching out to tilt his chin up. My skin touched his, just a brush of my thumb against the underside of his jaw, and a spark of heat climbed up my arm. He was warm, unexpectedly so, given how cold the air was turning.
