Page 52 of Grim Tidings

His smile flickers and then fades. “I didn’t open it until after she passed.” He shakes his head. “I waited too long. She should have been able to see me do it.”

I hesitate, then reach out and press my palm over the back of his hand. I don’t have much experience with comfort, but my heart is in my throat and I need to try. “I think she’d like that you’re doing the thing you love most. What a beautiful way to honor her memory.”

“She’d probably just be happy I proved her right.”

“Maybe a little bit of that, too.”

I have no idea if I’m saying the right things, but maybe that doesn’t matter so much. Maybe I just need to be here in the space next to him, listening.

Frank flips his hand in mine and squeezes back.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

Pressure burns across the bridge of my nose. I shake my head. “Please don’t thank me, I—”

The rest of my sentence is swallowed up by the bang of the front door. It swings open so fast the handle makes a dent against the wall, the arrangements stacked neatly in the bay window rattling on impact. Tater Tot lifts his head, growling, the sunflower still clenched between his teeth. He looks like some demonic character from the Hundred Acre Woods.

The door closes behind Gabriel with a snap, some leaves from the street blowing in with him. “Good to see you as always, Spud,” he tells the dog, then his eyes lift to mine. Three days and unfortunately the shock of seeing him hasn’t worn thin. I feel like I’m jumping into that river all over again.

His mouth twitches down, and a line forms between his brows. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Have you?”

He nods and steps closer, leaning up against the edge of the table I’m working on. My stomach does something diabolical. “Well, here I am.”

“Here you are,” he says, his voice low. Almost to himself. I force a smile and busy my hands with some of the thistle.

I haven’t been avoiding him. I’ve just been … occupying myself elsewhere. Wandering the streets with Tater Tot. Making arrangements with Frank. Carving lopsided pumpkins and sampling the various muffins at the bakery down the street. Trying to force my undead body into a sleep it doesn’t need, only to have vague dreams I don’t want of calloused hands and ink-stained skin. I wake up winded and wanting, twisted in my borrowed blankets.

It’s one of the trickier aspects of being immortal. How humanity clings to us in the quiet moments. I don’t need to sleep, but I crave it. The same way I crave cigarettes and slices of cake and the attention of the man standing across from me.

Dangerous. All of it.

“Would you like to do an arrangement as well?” Frank asks Gabriel as he pulls an empty vase from one of the top shelves. “It’s been a while since you put together something pretty.”

Gabriel’s rough voice in my ear, his hands firm at my hips. So fucking pretty. That’s what he said, his voice curved around it like a curse. Like the very idea of it pissed him off. Like he could barely stand it.

I’ve done my best not to think about it, but when he doesn’t bother to look at Frank and keeps staring at me instead—

My hands start to shake. Look away, I want to say. You’ll see too much. I trail my fingers restlessly across the tops of the baby’s breath, but I can’t feel the petals.

Beneath the workbench, Tater Tot nudges me with his nose.

“It’s a nice bouquet,” Gabriel offers. I only look at him briefly before my gaze darts away again. The sinking sensation hasn’t vanished. It’s only gotten worse. I’m caught in a vortex of my own making.

“Thanks,” I manage. My mouth feels too dry. “Frank fixed it.”

“He’s good at that.”

I glance around the shop. Gabriel is standing too close. The trembling in my hands has gotten worse. I could use a Frank-shaped buffer, but he’s nowhere to be found. “Where did he go?”

Gabriel rubs at the back of his neck, squinting at the open door that leads to a storage cellar. Frank has been creaking up and down those old stairs all afternoon, fetching various terra-cotta pots, brass watering cans, and mysterious bags of bulbs. He said he’s in his seasonal transition, and apparently that means more mums.

“I asked him if he had any yellow mums,” Gabriel says, apparently familiar with this routine. “Said I wanted to put them on the stoop of the bar.”

“Did you lie to an octogenarian so you could get me alone?”

“Technically, he’s only seventy-eight.”