A week later.
The doorbell rang and I dashed for the door. Mike was coming home to eat with me and Mom for my birthday and he was bringing his best friend and roommate, Jackson. Which was the only reason he wasn’t just walking in.
I unlocked the door and beamed at my big brother, rushing into a firm hug, loving having him home. “How’s it feel turning sixteen?” Mike asked with a grin.
I returned his smile. “Feels pretty much the same, only now the other gamers won’t feel as bad when I kick their asses as they did when I was fourteen.” He laughed while ruffling my hair, then moved around me to greet Mom.
Andthere, standing in the doorway, was my biggest sexual fantasy come alive. Every time I touched myself it was to a man who looked just like him. Neck tattoo. Piercings. Blonde hair.L…leatherjacket. I felt my knees weaken. If Mike was giving me his best friend as a birthday present, then he would win the title of best big brother for the rest of his life.
He smiled and offered me his hand. “Hi, I’m Jackson.” I was too stunned to speak, so I just accepted his hand and shook it, hoping that would be enough. His grin only widened, making him even hotter. Was it only me who was affected by him like that? Just then, Mom jumped in and hugged him, stealing the sexiest man I’d ever seen and leading him into the house.
As I stood alone in the hallway, my hand feeling all kinds of pleasant tingles, I made a vow to myself. I would make Jackson mine.
Step one was to figure out his sexuality. If he wasn’t gay, I couldn’t do anything about that, but if hewas… now, I truly didn’t like losing, but losing Jackson would be the hardest loss of all time for me. I wasn’t ignorant. I knew a sixteen-year-old couldn’t pursue a twenty-one year old. But I could wait. As soon as I turned eighteen, I would make that manmine.
“And what about you?” Mom asked Jackson with her most charming smile. We were talking about Christmas, since that was when Mike would be home next. I’d hardly spoken since we’d begun eating. My eyes—that I was told numerous times were too big for my face—wouldn’t even dare blink in Jackson’s company. What if I missed something important? Like a hidden dimple, or him getting naked. Not that I wanted to see that with my mom and brother present, but I also wouldn’t complain about it.
“Oh, um.” For the first time since he’d walked in, Jackson seemed… uncomfortable.
“Jackson isn’t close with his family,” Mike spoke for him, giving our mom a pointed look.
She brushed it off, smiling at Jackson again, seemingly ignoring the weight of Mike’s stare. “You can spend Christmas here with us,”she offered, like it was the most natural thing in the world. I felt my heart beat faster. Please say yes,please…
“I would love that,” Jackson grinned, his earlier confidence back in place. I almost melted in my chair. Jackson would spend Christmas with us. I might actually die. “And I do have a little sister I still keep in touch with. My father liked to have fun, so one of his mistresses got pregnant and that’s how I got my baby sister. She’s fourteen but I don’t see her as often as I would like.”
“How come?” Mom asked.
“Well, her mother and my father ended things rather badly. So badly that my father doesn’t have a relationship with Ida, that’s my sister. But I always wanted siblings so I keep calling her and visit when I can.”
“You sound like a good brother,” Mom smiled. Jackson smiled back, and I fought against a whimper.
“He’s a handsome one,” Polly, our house ghost, said, looking just as pleased to have Jackson in our house as I was.
Mom waved her off. It was a thing we did whenever the guests didn’t know about our ghosts. Or the fact that we could see, and hear them. Mom and I were the only mediums alive in our family. Mygrandpa had the ability, too, and so had my aunt, but neither of them were with us anymore. We were born mediums, meaning we’d been able to see and hear ghosts since we were born. Some developed their abilities later on in life, and could end up just as gifted as us who were born with it. Mike never showed any signs of getting the ability, but Mom believed he’d get them in a few years like our aunt Janine did.
Jackson eyed Mom and her weird waving thing. “Was there a bug or something?” he asked, looking around the room.
“Nah, just the wind,” Mom said, smiling kindly. “Or ghosts, you never know.” That was Mom’s way of testing his reaction to hearing the wordghosts. Most of our guests would laugh or ignore the comment, but Jackson paled.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, speaking to him for the very first time.
He shook his head. “I um, I know you’re just kidding, but I... um. I had this thing happen when I was a child and… I-I can’t be here if your house is haunted.”
Mom and Mike gaped at him. Me? I was too busy imagining what he meant. What had happened to him? Had a ghost hurt him? And more importantly. Would me being a medium be a dealbreaker if he knew?
“Not haunted!” The thought of Jackson leaving had me blurting out the first thing that came to mind. “Mom just likes to call the wind ghosts, and since we live in an old house, it works.”
Jackson seemed to gain some color back in his tanned cheeks and let out a relieved breath. “I’m sorry. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it still affects me even years later.”
“Do you mind telling us? So that we don’t trigger it?” Mom’s voice was soft and understanding, and I appreciated it.
“Sure, I um. I’ve seen a therapist about it and he said I likely suffer from phasmophobia—a fear of ghosts. When I was around seven, my mom and dad went through a nasty divorce so they left me with my grandma for a year. She lived in the countryside and had this huge old three-story house. Many things happened there that I still can’t explain.”
“Did it help? Speaking to the therapist, I mean?” Mike asked.
Jackson nodded. “It did at the time, but after two years there wasn’t any more he could do, only teach me how to cope if I ever got triggered.”
“Is this the reason you have trouble sleeping?” Mike asked, then seemed to realize it might’ve been a secret and quickly blurted. “Sorry!”
