Raven's Rest (24 page)

“Welcome,” she said. “And you are?”

NEXT TO
me in bed, Trey stirred.

I rolled over so that I could look at his face. He was still asleep, his face calm and relaxed. No scratches. They’d faded to oblivion weeks ago. He looked so sweet lying there, not brooding or coming up with some sarcastic comment. I could see what he must have looked like as a child. There was so much innocence in that face.

He groaned, shifting position. Now his nose was buried in his pillow, his long hair falling over his eyes. Mumbling something unintelligible, he lazily brought up a hand to rub his chin.

After two weeks of living on my own, I caved and begged Trey to move in with me. I just couldn’t take the silence. To be fair, it hadn’t taken a lot of begging. One night he’d come over and I’d cooked him spaghetti. I had one glass of wine too many and got a little maudlin. He comforted me, cuddling with me on my brand-spanking-new couch.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t like living alone. Move in with me.”

I felt, in a sense, like I was letting myself down. Giving in. My independence over. My discovery of myself over.

On the other hand, I knew Trey was no Kevin and that our relationship would be far different. In the end, I just knew I wanted to have him around all the time.

Besides, he
really
needed to move out of his mother’s place.

He shrugged. “Sure.”

The nonchalant act he’d tried to put over failed when, right after dinner, he’d gone home to pack and had returned less than an hour later, laden with boxes.

“I’ll get the rest of the stuff tomorrow. Which drawers are going to be mine?”

He couldn’t fool me. Half of his boxes (at least) had already been packed, in readiness of me asking him to move in with me. I was just glad that a chest of drawers had been added to my list of things to buy.

Now I watched him as he woke. One eye opened slowly. He brushed the hair out of his eyes to get a better look at me. “Morning,” he said, his voice gruff.

“Morning,” I said, kissing him on the cheek.

“Were you watching me sleep?”

“Maybe.”

“Pervert.”

“You love the attention, and you know it.”

He lifted his head off the pillow just enough so that he could see the pack of cigarettes sitting on the nightstand. I knew he wanted to light one up, but when he moved in I’d insisted that he couldn’t smoke in the apartment. It had been our first and, so far, only argument. He obviously was aching for a nicotine fix, but he’d have to get up, put some clothes on, and go out in the chilly November air. So instead he turned so that his back was to the nightstand and kissed me on the lips. He gave me a little bite as he pulled away, maybe to show his annoyance at my “ridiculous” rule. I just smiled.

“Give them up,” I said, knowing he knew what I was referring to.

He smiled a little sadly and put his arm around me. “I’m not as strong as you are.”

That surprised me. “You think I’m strong?” To me, he was the one with all the strength. Any I had, as I saw it, came from my love for him.

Love. That surprised me as well. Scary, but it was true. I loved the long-haired, guitar playing, Man in Black Johnny Cash wannabe that was Trey Ramsey.

“Sure you are. All that stuff with ghosts and murders and digging up bodies? Most people would have freaked. Hell, I bet most guys would have run right back to Kevin, despite him being a controlling bastard—”

“He’s trying to be better. By the way, he called yesterday. He said we can go up to Rockford and pick up more of my stuff anytime we want. He even has some furniture we can have, as he’s getting some new stuff. We’ll have more than a couch to sit on.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’s suddenly a saint.” Trey wasn’t going forget losing that fight with Kevin anytime soon. “My point is, 90 percent of dudes would have run screaming the first time they saw Coleman’s ghost. You didn’t. You helped him.”

“And he helped me.” I saw Trey’s point, though. Maybe I had more strength than I gave myself credit for. A glance at the alarm clock, sitting next to Trey’s cigarettes, told me we didn’t have time to discuss it further. “We’d better be getting dressed. Jesenia will be here any moment.”

Trey rolled his eyes. “Let’s just ignore her when she knocks. We’ll have sex instead.”

I fixed him with a mock angry glare. “She’s a psychic. She’ll know we’re in here.”

“So? I—”

“And she’ll know what we’re doing.”

He thought about that a moment. “Okay. You win. I still think this little ceremony of hers is silly.”

“It’s for closure.”

“For whom? Coleman and Bryan? They’re gone, aren’t they? For us? I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to put the whole thing behind us. Turn the page, fresh chapter.” Trey continued talking as he slipped out of bed. He was naked, as he never slept with anything on. I admired his cute little butt as he struggled into some boxer shorts. God, he was lovely.

Me, I was in the pajama bottoms that I normally wore. I always slipped them on after our nearly nightly bout of lovemaking while Trey threw on just enough clothes to survive going out for his last cigarette of the day. These clothes would be hastily discarded, scattered about the room, when he climbed back into bed. Neatness, thy name is
not
Trey Ramsey.

“Oh, hey, did I tell you? Mom’s planning a vacation next month,” Trey continued as he dressed (all in black, naturally). “Yeah, and she says she’s thinking of leaving me in charge while she’s gone. Ain’t that a laugh? Me, in charge of people. God, I can only imagine what shape the cafe will be in by the time she gets back. She’s going to Italy, of all places. Anyway, she’s showing me how to do the books later, so I may have to leave right after Jesenia’s little shindig….”

He kept up the chatter, and I began only half listening. I already knew about Gloria Ramsey’s vacation plans, and more. A few days ago she’d revealed to me that she was slowly grooming Trey to take over as cafe manager on a permanent basis. She’d just stay on as the bookkeeper but was planning on working far fewer hours.

“I want to get back into gardening! I want to take trips!” she’d told me during a slow period. Trey wasn’t working that day. “Do you know how many hours I work here a week?” I had a good clue. A lot. “Now, if you’d asked me months ago if Trey could take over running this hell hole, I’d have laughed. But he’s changed a lot. I credit you with that, Michael. He’s not the lazy smartass he used to be. Now he’s a motivated smartass. I think he wants to show you he can succeed. Just keep him from painting the whole place black, will you?”

I had promised to keep her plans for Trey secret for now. She didn’t want to shock him into returning to his indolent ways.

As it turned out, we’d have had ample time for morning sex, as Jesenia was horribly late when she arrived. She flew into the room, a flustered vision in blue, speaking before the door was hardly even opened.

“I know I’m late, but I had to do some extra meditating to prepare for today.”

“By which she means she overslept,” Trey muttered so that only I could hear.

We bundled into my car, and we quickly made the trip to the Raven’s Rest. It was still odd seeing the inn now that I no longer stayed there. In a strange way, it still felt like home. I wondered if that was a residual feeling from Coleman Hollis.

Erin Hughes, Betty, and Lonnie Schultz were there on the porch, waiting for us. Everyone was wearing heavy coats since the temperature had steadily fallen for the last several days. Soon the lawn would be coated with snow, and reindeer and Santa decorations would replace the skeletons and witches that had overseen the lawn when I’d first arrived at Raven’s Rest.

The six of us quickly made our way over to the gazebo, the place where I’d last seen the spirits of Coleman and Bryan. We stood, roughly in a circle, waiting for Jesenia, who was rummaging in a big paper bag she’d brought with her.

“Do you feel anything?” Trey asked me quietly. “They still here?”

I shook my head and looked at Jesenia for confirmation. She’d pulled a little red book out of her bag, and she smiled at me. “I don’t feel them either. They’re gone, and they’re happy now. That damned box they buried Bryan in! The metal lining kept his spirit prisoner! Really, people should know better!”

I doubted if, while burying Bryan Finn, Darryl Hollis and Gary Thornton cared much whether or not they were keeping Bryan’s spirit separate from that of his lover.

Jesenia opened the tiny volume and read several prayers. I wondered what the book was, as they certainly weren’t Christian prayers, although they were lovely. When she’d finished, she turned to me. “If you would do the honors, Michael.”

I found the cross Trey had made in Jesenia’s paper bag. The bottom end had been fashioned into a stake to make it easy to stick it into the ground. Well, that was the theory, anyway. The ground was hard, though, and I had trouble with getting the cross deep enough that it would stay put. Finally, with Lonnie’s help, we got it far enough into the dirt that it wasn’t going to be uprooted by a strong wind.

We all looked at it in silence. Trey held my hand. Finally Erin Hughes said, “I hope they’ve finally found peace.”

“They have,” Jesenia assured us.

Trey nodded solemnly. “Good-bye, you two. It was an adventure.”

Written on the crossbeam were these words:

Coleman Hollis

Bryan Finn

Together Now Forever

Patrick Weasley, aka Weasel, is a fun-loving college student with a wealthy homophobic jerk stepfather and a best friend, Jake Winston, who’s just as gay as Weasel. When Jake’s aunt dies, many from the publishing world—including Jasper, Weasel’s weasel of a stepfather—gather at Winston Manor for the reading of the will, and Weasel is obligated to tag along.

Turns out all he has to do is three things: 1) swap the wills so Jake’s uncle inherits the house instead of the gardener, who’s also an old enemy of Weasel’s; 2) secure a publishing contract from author Cecily Talbot; and 3) hook Jake up with his deceased aunt’s male nurse. But what he ends up doing is 1) falling for Tony, one of the food servers; 2) accidentally affiancing himself to Cecily; and 3) fighting with Jake, who thinks he was making a play for the nurse.

To make matters worse, every time Weasel and Tony start to get intimate, Jasper is right around the corner. So when burglars come to steal a valuable piece of art, Weasel must 1) use all his ingenuity to keep the painting safe; 2) dis-engage himself from Cecily; 3) unite Jake with the nurse; and most importantly, 4) pursue Tony to an elusive happy ending.

When it’s meant to be, it’s useless to fight it.

Four years ago a drowning accident brutally ripped Jason out of artist Frank Hunter’s life. As he celebrates his forty-fifth birthday with his friends, Frank knows his dating life is over. A chance meeting with Donny Rodriquez, however, shakes Frank’s world to its core. Donny is twenty years Frank’s junior, but so full of life and vitality that Frank knows he has to paint the young man. Donny agrees, although he makes his romantic interest in Frank plain. Frank does his best to put Jason and the past behind him, but the memory of his late lover won’t let him go.

Yet Donny sparks something in Frank, and after several disastrous dates with men his own age, Frank ends up back with Donny. Donny soon learns that to win Frank’s heart, he must not only bridge the age gap but find a way to enable Frank to let go of the past.