“Um, I opened one of the bedroom doors upstairs and before I could go in a cold breeze passed through me and the door slammed in my face. I could hear angrier noises inside, like maybe the closet door was being open and shut repeatedly. We got the hell out of there.”
“There’s something in that room that he was protecting.” I thought it was very possible that the thing he protected was the very thing that kept his spirit anchored to Elijah’s Landing.
Aunt Minnie looked at me oddly for a minute “You still think you can set him free.” Maverick wasn’t the only one who knew my obsession as a child. There was no internet and google back then, but there were books about ghosts and hauntings in the library. “How do you know he doesn’t want to be here?”
“It’s just a feeling I’ve always had.”
“Well, let’s take a look,” Minnie said, surprising me.
When Maverick returned, he found the four of us crawling around our bedroom knocking on floors and walls. We were looking for hollow sounds indicating that there could be a hidden panel or loose floorboard hiding whatever it was that Elijah protected. I felt his presence strongly, but unlike the experience the boys had, I felt his excitement and knew we were onto something.
“What the hell is going on?” Maverick demanded.
He wasn’t convinced when we told him the story nor was he happy that I had gotten sweaty and dirty when he wanted me resting. He kindly sent the boys on home, but encouraged them to come back the next night for dinner. He could obviously see how happy they were to be hanging out with us. Minnie he pinned with a glare. “I thought I could trust you.”
“Then you’re an idiot,” was her response before she sailed out of the room in mock indignation. Once she got to the bottom of the steps she shouted, “I’ll be over with a sledgehammer tomorrow once the warden leaves for work.”
I flopped down on our bed laughing at the look on Maverick’s face. God, I needed that little excursion so bad. I had slowly been going out of my mind! Maverick crawled on the bed and straddled my body.
“I expected to come home and find you pouting so that I’d bring you up here and pound you into the mattress.” He smiled wryly to let me know he had caught onto my game. “Instead, I find you and your little band of troublemakers up here about to tear our bedroom apart. Why?” He planted his arms on the mattress by my head and hovered over me, making me feel caged in.
“Maverick,” I moaned when he began undulating his hips, rubbing his crotch against mine. I was only wearing a pair of thin shorts so it didn’t take much to spark my erection. I could feel Maverick’s hardness through his jeans and my mind completely forgot what he had asked me.
“Tell me what you were doing and then I’ll fuck you. Hard.” My eyes rolled back in my head as my brain started to short circuit. “Noah, why is Minnie bringing a sledgehammer?”Hammer. Pounding. I was nowhere close to forming an intelligent thought, let alone have a conversation with him.
“Fuck me first,” I finally groaned.
“No.” Maverick’s hips stilled and he moved to climb off of me.
“Okay. Okay.” The lust dimmed long enough for me to string the story together in a whiny, needy voice. “Now fuck me.”
“You really think there’s something inside this bedroom that keeps Elijah here?” I nodded. “Okay, we’ll move into another room temporarily while we take this one apart.”
“Really?”
“Anything for you, Noah.”
“You’re amazing!” I pulled him down on top of me for a long, searing kiss. We were both breathless when we finally broke apart. “Now fuck me like you promised.”
Later in the afternoon, a few of the guys on his crew came over to help move our bedroom furniture into the spare room across the hallway. They were all very friendly to me and introduced themselves to me. It was sweet, but almost comical as they all talked loud and very slow as if I had comprehension and hearing problems, not temporary memory loss.
One particular guy caught my eye. There was a bit of merriment in his eyes when he shook my hand. Like he was smiling at an inside joke, or maybe I was the joke. I kept my eyes on him the entire time like a hawk. It only seemed to make him smile more.Did we? Were we ever?No, I didn’t get that feeling at all. It was a different kind of emotion.
“I don’t like you, do I?” I finally asked him.
“Not at all.” His answer was followed by a smirk and a laugh.
“Derrick,” Mav said firmly. It sounded like a warning. Suspicion wormed its way into my brain and I narrowed my eyes at Mav before turning my gaze back to Derrick. His toothpaste-commercial smile was so big it looked like it would split his face in two.
“Why don’t I like you, Derrick?” My voice was low and threatening. The same horrible feelings of jealousy that I had felt when I saw Maverick with Jennifer resurfaced, but were ten times stronger with Derrick.
“Let’s take a walk, Noah.” Maverick’s calm voice pulled my focus back to him. He didn’t look guilty, but something was off here.
“I want Derrick to tell me why I don’t like him, Mav. Surely, that’s not asking too much. You’ve told me repeatedly that you have nothing to hide, so why not let me chat with Derrick.” Maverick threw his hands up in the air and left the room in frustration. I looked back at Derrick and dared him to answer me.
“You’re jealous of me and Maverick spending time together.” He said, although how he talked with that stupid smirk on his face was beyond me.
“Yeah, I got that, Sherlock, but why?” I was getting more and more irritated
