Infamous (27 page)

He grabbed for the back pocket of his jeans, where he kept his wallet, and he dumped its contents on the floor in his haste to find the condom that Jamie had made him put there, just a few days ago.

You never know
, the ghost had said.

But somehow he
had
known. And maybe Lutz was right and Jamie
could
time travel. Maybe he could tell A.J. that everything was going to turn out okay, that he wasn’t messing this up by being completely unable to refuse this moment’s immediate gratification.

And God, maybe it wasn’t too late to stop this, to slam on the brakes, only Alison saw what he was doing, saw that he had a condom, and was now helping him cover himself. In fact, she was doing all the work, which freed up his hands to touch her, to explore between her legs, where she was hot and wet and ready for him.

And she moved—off him for just a second—and when she was back, her panties were gone, and he didn’t think. He just pulled her hips forward and she slipped down on top of him as he slid all the way
—all
the way—home.

He heard himself groaning her name because, sweet God, it felt so ridiculously good. It was new—new lover, new body, new sensations. There were so many unknowns, and yet one brilliantly clear absolute that erased any uncertainty.

This felt right. It
was
right.

He was where he was supposed to be.

There was no turning back. There was only here and now.

And Alison.

She was running the show, which was both wonderful and a little odd, because he didn’t think he’d ever made love for the first time with the woman on top. And he knew damn well he’d never before had a first encounter like this, atop a kitchen chair. Which made him smile, because it was such a nice metaphor for their entire relationship. Where this woman was concerned, he couldn’t wait for anything.

She was no doubt thinking the same thing, because as she moved on top of him, she breathed into his ear. “This is the best shower I’ve ever had.”

“This is the best everything I’ve ever had, ever,” he told her in return, which made her both laugh and kiss him.

And the sound of her laughter made him feel such lightness, of soul and heart and even body. It was joy—this feeling—and he wanted it to never stop.

But God, then he had to hold her down, hold himself tightly inside of her, or he was going to finish too soon, and he wanted …

He wanted to make her feel all that he was feeling.

But she didn’t want to be held down like that, didn’t want to not move and of course, he couldn’t really keep her from moving altogether, he could only restrict her movement, make her make it smaller. But she also moved harder. And faster.

“Oh, God, A.J.,” she breathed. “Oh, my God …”

And he was history. He came with a rush of pleasure so intense that colors pinwheeled and spun behind his closed eyelids. He released her, but she didn’t change her rhythm, and he realized that she, too, was coming, around him, on top of him.

She was beautiful with her head thrown back, arms stretched out, hands pressed against his chest, nipples taut, stomach tight, legs spread to receive him.

But God, now what?

The reality of what he’d just done crashed down around him, and the lightness vanished as absolutely as Jamie did when he popped away. And he found himself actually considering Lutz’s suggestion. If he wasn’t going to tell Alison about Hor al-Hammar, why bother telling her anything about Jamie?

Of course maybe what his mother thought would happen by A.J. calling Lutz, had happened, instead, here tonight. Maybe Jamie was finally gone.

But somehow A.J. knew that wasn’t the case. Somehow he felt Jamie, out there. Still, it was entirely possible that the
ghost would stay away for a while, out of sheer disapproval. Although
he
was one to throw stones. The woman
he’d
been unable to resist had been married to someone else.

Alison shifted slightly on his lap as she came back to earth. She took a deep breath, exhaled hard, and opened her eyes to find him gazing up at her.

She was instantly embarrassed, scrunching up her face and bringing one arm up and across her breasts. “Oh, God,” she said. “It’s hard enough in a bed, when you can kind of burrow into the pillows. Who was the genius who had the brilliant idea to get it on for the first time on a kitchen chair?”

A.J. laughed. “I think we have to share responsibility for this. I was trying to get my boots off, but then … I stopped trying.”

She glanced back over her shoulder at his jeans that were still down around his knees. “Classy,” she said. “I’m classy all the way.”

He pulled her down for a long, sweet kiss. “You’re beautiful,” he told her when he let her go. “And that was amazing. I’ve got somewhere close to a thousand things I want to make sure I get to say to you before I fall unconscious, which is going to happen pretty soon. You up for a shower and then … a talk?”

Alison laughed. “The new man actually wants to
talk?
What is wrong with this picture? Ah, wait a minute. You’re too perfect,
that’s
what it is.” She kissed him again. “I would love to shower, then talk.”

She had no clue, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her, that their talk was going to send her reeling. Because as persuasive as Lutz had been, A.J. knew he had to tell her about Jamie. And he had to do it now.

While the excuse—
I couldn’t stop myself from letting you jump me, you’re just so hot
—was still an honest excuse, if he let himself have an entire night, which would be really easy to do—God give him strength—or even a week of nights, doing so would negate any potential positive power that came from his honest admission:
I was planning to tell you, I meant to tell you, I should have told you
.…

He had to do it now, but showers first.

Separate showers.

Except Alison was looking at him as if she had a vastly different agenda.

“Why don’t you shower,” he said, motioning to the sandbox’s worth of dirt on the floor, “while I clean up in here?”

“Oh, my God, A.J.…” She leaped off him, which was startling. And weird.

He’d been alive for forty-two years. How could one short sexual encounter and several brief minutes of a post-sex, still-enjoined conversation make him believe—and he was totally convinced of the fact—that his penis belonged inside of this one particular woman? That
that
was its rightful place in the world, right there, although he had to smile at the idea of him walking around, for the entire rest of his life, with Alison’s legs locked around his waist.

But then he stopped smiling, because when the hell did he start thinking things like
the entire rest of his life?

He quickly pulled his shorts up, his jeans, too, ready to handle the mess on the floor, but then he realized that that wasn’t what Alison was upset about.

She’d caught sight of his shoulders, which, if the way his back had felt against that chair was a clue, were no doubt looking a little angry. He glanced down. Yup.

“Mild sunburn,” he said.

“Yeah, right,” she said, “and even if I announce a hundred different times that I’m the pope, that doesn’t mean I should pack my bags and move to Rome.”

She was so indignant. And naked. A.J. couldn’t not smile. And pull her back onto his lap for another kiss.

I went back to Alaska, to talk to Rose.

Well, okay, to talk
at
Rose, since she couldn’t see or hear me. But I thought it might help.

I also thought, since I’d been having such recent interference with my jumps, that I might end up not in Alaska, but sitting next to the tall man with the ponytail who’d shot and killed Wayne.

But no.

I wound up in Rose’s private study, in her doctor’s office. And I remembered that this was one of the many nights wherein she kept evening hours. Which was a plain-as-day example of her generosity and kindness to the community, since most folks worked days, and couldn’t afford health insurance, let alone the missed time that they’d need for a daytime doctor’s visit.

She was sitting behind her desk, typing something into a computer. And I realized, as I looked over her shoulder, that she was making notes into a patient’s file.

She had a stethoscope looped casually around her neck, but other than that, she didn’t particularly look like a doctor.

I cruised around, looking at all of her framed certifications and degrees. Her desk was big and made of oak. It took up most of the room. There was a big shelf behind it, filled with books of all shapes and sizes. Over by the window was a file cabinet, and in front of the desk were a couple of chairs—the kind you sit in when the doctor is about to tell you that your
lover and best friend in the entire world has six months left to live.

I avoided the chairs and went around to Rose’s side of the desk. It was remarkably uncluttered—or maybe not remarkably. Rose always had been efficient and neat. It made sense that she should continue to be that way.

There was only one picture sitting there—a picture of me and Adam and Bev and A.J., taken back when the kids were small. Age must’ve been about five, and he grinned toothlessly at the camera, his arms wrapped around my neck. I was barely recognizable with all my wrinkles, but I did, however, have all
my
teeth, and I, too, was grinning like the devil was inside of me. Adam, his hair only laced with gray, was holding little Bev, and the two of them looked like they were fit to burst from laughing.

It was a good picture, despite the fact that I looked like some old mummy dug up from ancient Egypt. I suppose I’d keep it on my desk, too, if I had one.

There were only a few other photographs in the room.

Bev’s bridal portrait.

Bev and her husband, Charlie, holding their firstborn daughter, Kaeli, the three of them looking impossibly young; another picture with Kaeli’s little sister, Morgan, in Bev’s arms.

A.J. That one must’ve been after he’d opened up Adam’s wood shop again, after he’d come out of rehab. He still looked pale and skinny. His face looked almost fragile, like if you pushed him too hard he might break.

I wondered why Rose chose to keep that picture on her wall, when A.J. looks so much healthier and stronger these days. Surely she had a better picture now. But who could know? Maybe she didn’t want to forget where he’d been.

The last picture in the room was on the bookshelf, apart from the others.

It was Ryan. It wasn’t the stiff picture that the army had taken, with him in his military uniform. Rather, it was an old snapshot. He must’ve been about nineteen, maybe twenty, and he was laughing into the camera’s lens, as love danced in his eyes.

It broke my heart seeing that picture there.

The boy had died when Rose was twenty-three. It hurt to think that she’d been alone for all those years since.

“You had men calling on you all the time,” I said to her. “But when I was alive, you never even went out on a date with a single one of ’em. Why the hell not, Rose?”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t hear me, of course.

“You’re still a beautiful woman,” I pointed out. “Do you really think that Ryan likes thinking you’re down here all alone like this? It’s not too late, girl. Get off your butt and find yourself a little companionship, damnit.”

She just clacked away on that computer keyboard.

“Ah, hell,” I said. If I was going to talk to Rose, I’d have to do it through A.J. And that would go over real well. I could just hear myself saying,
Come on, kid, let’s go have a sit-down with your mother about her lack of a sex life
.

Which reminded me of why I was here—because A.J. was making the mistake of his life down there in Jubilation by his brand-new
lack
of a lack of a sex life.

And okay, my emotions were mixed about the whole thing. On one level, I was overjoyed to see the kid so head over heels and out of control. That was one of the things that struck me the hardest about him, when I’d first returned. Everything he did was so careful, so cautious, so deliberate. Like, he was afraid that all it would take was one slip and he’d sail over the edge and past the point of no return.

But when he was with Alison?

The kid came alive with every fiber of his being. He listened with his lungs and his knees. He looked at her with his stomach. He sat with her, with an awareness that extended to his toenails.

“You should see him with her,” I told Rose, who ignored me. “And you should see the way she looks at him, too. It’s what you want your kids to find.” I sighed. “I just don’t know what advice to give him. Part of me’s afraid he’s not even trying, because he’s already written himself off. You know? Like he doesn’t believe he’s worthy. Damaged goods. Kind of the way I felt after I ran away—too much of a coward to bring
Wells’s killer to justice. It took me having something to believe in—having something worthwhile, to be willing to die for … That’s what turned my ass around. But everyone’s gotta take their own path, right? Still, I wonder …”

She didn’t answer, but the intercom on her desk buzzed.

“Dr. Gallagher, Amy Stone finally arrived,” a woman’s voice said.

Dr. Gallagher. It still sent chills of pride down my spine.

Rose leaned forward and pushed the intercom button. “Bring her into the examining room, Ariana,” she said. “I’ll be right there.”

She pushed her chair away from her desk, but instead of heading toward the door the way I expected her to, she walked toward the file cabinet. Directly toward me.

I tried to move out of her way, but I couldn’t move fast enough. She passed through me, and stopped, startled. She’d just gotten one hell of a buzz.

I quickly moved to the other side of the room.

She looked around her, frowning slightly.

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s right. It’s me. Jamie. I’m in here with you, Rose.”

But even concentrating the way she was, she still couldn’t hear me or see me.

She shook her head, as if she’d figured she must’ve imagined that patch of electrically charged air that she’d just walked through. She got what she needed from the file cabinet and went out the door.