“Yes, and if you clarify it one more time, I’ll start doubting whether or not you’re happy about it.”
I yanked him down by the collar and slammed our mouths together. I pulled back quickly, though, when I remembered I’d been asleep for days and didn’t even want to know what sort of morning breath situation that created.
“I’m happy about it,” I whispered. “I just… Did all of it really happen? Did we really come back?”
Resting a hand on my chest, he brushed his fingers over the ghost of a gunshot wound. “The very first time I saw you through the window, you were bright—like the sunset. You were scowling,” he said with a tear-soaked laugh, “but so full of color and life. You yanked me out of that gray world I was in for so long. And then you closed the window.”
He paused with a hand gently pressed over my heart. “When you opened it back up, all I could think was I didn’t want to belost in the dark anymore. I wanted to follow you out, follow you anywhere. I didn’t want you to shut me inside again.”
Charlie leaned down and brushed a wet kiss on my forehead. “I told you, I think we were always meant to meet, Reece. I had no idea I was using your energy to gain strength—all I knew was with every day that passed, I wanted tolivemore and more. Not for some ambiguous future, but for you.Withyou. I don’t know how we did it. I don’t know how we’re alive. All I know is if there was anyone in the world who could stubbornly will it to be so, it’s you.”
I knocked my forehead into his. “I’ve hoped for the impossible for so long, it’s just hard to let myself believe it. I feel like you’re going to disappear again, or I’m going to wake up and this has all been a dream.”
He cupped my face between his hands. “Believe it. I’m really here, Reece. We’re here, together. For as long as you still want me.”
I hugged him again. “I’ll always want you,” I growled.
“Good,” he said, voice turned playful. “It would be terrible to find out you were only attracted to me because you have some weird ghost thing. I’m fully flesh and blood now, baby.”
A laugh rumbled up from my chest. “First, you say I snore,which I don’t,and now, I have a ghost fetish? What else are you going to falsely accuse me of? Smelly farts?”
“Well, I can confirm that one.”
I quickly looked toward the door, again so caught up in Charlie I hadn’t realized someone else had entered the room.
Bobby stood there, shuffling from foot to foot, holding a bag ofReese’s Pieces.
He tentatively offered up the candy, as if unsure of whether or not I’d accept. “I,uh,” he cleared his throat. “I brought you these. I knew flowers would irritate you.What the fuck am I meant to do with a fern? This needs to be planted in at least afifteen-inch pot. It’s a chore, not a gift,”he said, imitating my voice. “So, ya know. Something to snack on.”
I stared at the bag of candy. My parents had called meReese’s Piecessince I was a child, because of the obvious shared name, but also because I’d have eaten them by the fistful if they’d let me.
And while he hadn’t used the nickname in many, many years, there was a time growing up that Bobby called meReese’s Pieces,too.
The dark circles under his eyes were much deeper than they were the last time we spoke, and there was a cautious brokenness in the way he carried himself I’d never seen before. He looked like he’d aged ten years in just a few days.
“Bobby,” I said gruffly. “I’m so sorry.”
He dropped the bag onto the side table and strode forward, leaning down to hug me just like Charlie had. “I didn’t know,” he said, voice choked with tears. “I swear, I didn’t know. I’m so,sosorry, Reece.”
I shook my head, gripping him tight in return. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
He pulled away. Over his shoulder, Charlie gave me a soft smile and joined Tate in the hallway.
“I understand if you’d prefer I go,” Bobby said, avoiding eye contact. “I mainly just wanted to check in and see how you’re doing. I get it, if it’s too hard to talk to me right now.”
I shook my head hard enough to make it throb again. “No. Stay. I want you here. You’re my best friend. He can’t—he can’t have that, too. He can’t take that away.”
Bobby finally looked at me, a swirling mix of grief, betrayal, and devastation in his eyes I understood all too well. “I really didn’t know,” he repeated quietly. “He’s been weird and distant lately, but I thought it was the divorce. Or work. I honestly never questioned his absences. He argued with Mom a lot over who gotthe cars, the house, the land, everything. Lawyers were involved. It was exhausting.”
He shook his head. “When he’d ask to borrow the truck to get away, I didn’t think twice. Not until you said you’d seen it out on the park road. I didn’t understand why he’d take a personal vehicle out there when he has his work truck for that. But then the FBI showed up, and shit hit the fan so fast.”
“You can say that,” I replied darkly. “How are you, though?” The image of Leonard’s lifeless body falling backwards into the water flashed through my mind. “I mean, with… Everything?”
Bobby looked at his feet, stoic. “I don’t think I’ll be okay for a long while,” he said gruffly. “I don’t know what to do with any of it. How am I supposed to grieve my dad and be glad he was killed before he could do the same to my best friend? How are Jade and I meant to raise Molly in a town that mourns people her grandfather murdered? How do I separate who he was to me from the monster he was to everyone else?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I haven’t really thought about any of it, either. Or what comes next. It’s easier not to.”
Bobby nodded. “Probably going to be messy, once we do.”
