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I watch his throat push out before sinking back inside and I’m the reason.
Finally, one word spills from my mouth, it’s like the white noise when the transmission on the television was weak. “Why?”
His hair is darker when wet and contains finger trails that I want to hike through with my hands.
“My lips are chapped. Too much licking.”
Yeah. I’m sharing a space with a gorgeous baseball player that sees me only as a friend. I’m in a new place and need new friends, surely I can contain myself. But what if I want more?
“Yeah. I’ll go get it.”
When I reach my bathroom, I place my palms on the gray quartz countertop to steady my shaking body.
Too much licking.
* * *
“Where are we?”
“We’re going on a Ghost Tour.”
Tackett eyes me suspiciously with one eyebrow raised, and one eye squinting, showing only a sliver of the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. His ballcap is M. I. A. and his hair is styled so those finger trails are still there and as defined as his freaking abs.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Come on Towles, we need to walk fast, or we’ll miss the first house on the tour.” I grab his hand and drag him along for a few steps before we’re walking in sync.
We stand on the veranda of the ivory-colored brick colonial as the tour guide begins his spiel. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Tackett taking a glimpse of me and an insane tingling rushes through my system.
He leans over and whispers, “How did you find out about this tour? I‘ve been here two years and never heard of it.”
Shrugging my shoulders, I say, “I saw it on the morning news earlier in the week. I wanted to do something unique to celebrate.”
As we wind through the mansion, the guide tells us the story of Marcus.
“In 1893, Marcus was eleven. One day he skipped school and hid out behind the grain mill here in town until he knew his parents would be out of the house. His dad had already left for work, as he was the bank president, and his mom had social obligations early that morning. According to one of his friends, he planned to go fishing. They found his muddy, wet clothes and shoes in the bathroom, leading police to believe he had had fallen in the pond. Now this isn’t fact but what the parents believed was…he wanted to clean up so they wouldn’t know he skipped school. They found him in the bathtub. He must have fallen because he had a gash on his head. He drowned with the water running.”
Tackett slipped his hand into mine and gave me two little pumps. His lips pursed together as he shook his head.
“Throughout the last hundred and twenty years, residents of this house have reported hearing water running from this bathroom. However, whenever they would walk in to see, the water would be turned off, but the bathtub is still wet.”
The tour group gasped. Tackett was still holding my hand, and I leaned my head against his arm.
The rest of the houses are haunted but not in a tear-jerking way. One has a ghost that likes to play the piano even though the current owners don’t own one. One has a ghost that flickers the lights, and the last one has a ghost that plays in their gardens. The people that live in this house hired a Ghosthunter who shot a video of the gardens with an invisible force walking through it, and the bushes and flowers moved in a way consistent with a person touching the foliage as they passed through.
When the ghost tour ends, we grab sub sandwiches, full of veggies and protein, of course, but decide to eat them at home and watch some television before bed. Tackett starts a seven day road trip tomorrow.
“Thanks for tonight. It’s nice to have a reprieve from baseball and the hurricane.” His hand lands on my leg before he stands, and my mind starts wandering, thinking of all the what-ifs.
I click the remote, turning the television off. “I had an awesome time. Thanks for coming with me.”
He stops, glances back and says, “Me too.”
Thirty minutes pass, and I scream bloody murder. Tackett bursts through my door and I swear the hinges almost fall off.
“Where are you?”
