I frowned. “It wasn’t a hallucination, if that’s what you’re saying.”
“Loud voice,” Abbi mumbled around a mouth full of food.
“I’m not loud—”
Lu’s hand dropped on my shoulder, and she squeezed the tight muscles there. The sound I made, something along the lines of a rubber tire being punctured, made her smile.
“Maybe a little loud,” she said. “Just…rest a minute. I’ll keep watch.”
“I don’t need to rest.”
She hummed, and her hand moved to the back of my neck. She kneaded tight muscles and I closed my eyes and hung my head. I didn’t care what sounds I was making.
“The thing about being alive?” Her voice was barely louder than the breeze through the trees, the snore of traffic somewhere at the edge of the world. “Is you have to caretake your body. Food. Water. Sleep.” She leaned in, lips so close her breath stirred my hair when she whispered: “Desire.”
I full-body shuddered in pure pleasure.
“Rest,” she breathed.
I mumbled something that might have been a protest, but I didn’t wait to see if it landed.
Sitting there, my arms crossed over my chest, head leaned forward, and Lu’s hand on my back, I drifted.
Lorde growled and snarled a warningwoof.
Lu’s fingers gripped my shoulder a little tighter. A warning.
I heard Lorde’s claws as she stood.
“Gauge?” the man said, his voice thin from surprise. “Lula? Are you Lula Gauge?”
Lorde growled again, deep in her chest. She wasn’t attacking. Not yet.
I lifted my head and got a look at the speaker.
White man. Suit jacket and slacks, sunglasses. He was average height, plain unremarkable features, his sandy hair parted on the side and combed back with something that made it stiff.
He held a takeout coffee cup with a brown sleeve in one hand, and a trombone in the other. The trombone was dull, plain, but the mouthpiece was a beautiful scrollworked brass that shone.
“And you are?” I asked.
That was when he seemed to notice me. His eyes went wide. “Brogan?” The word pulled out of him like he’d lost all his breath.
“Do I know you?” I stood. Lu had her hand on Lorde’s head, keeping our very faithful dog from launching at the—whatever or whoever he was.
I’d been a spirit, invisible to this world for almost a hundred years. Anyone who could recognize me on sight had to be supernatural in some way. It wasn’t like any of our friends or contemporaries were still alive.
“We were…” He swallowed, and lifted his hand to remove his sunglasses, but forgot he held a brass instrument and clonked himself on the cheek. “Shit. Brogan.” He tried the other hand and managed to get the glasses off without spilling his drink.
His eyes were the color of cardboard and set just a little too close together, which gave him a pinched, mean look.
“Matthew,” he said. “Matthew Davis. How are you… How are you alive? Look at you.” He had to swallow again and tears glittered at the bottom of his eyes.
“Matthew Davis.” Lu stood but didn’t offer him her hand. “I don’t recall that name.”
“You do,” he insisted, “you do. We were young together. Back before…” He clamped his mouth shut and took a step back. “No. You shouldn’t be here.”
“In Kansas?” I asked.
