A hiss of water came from down the hall, then the creak of the tub. Perfect. Cosmo slipped inside and locked the door behind him. The living room was sparse aside from the couch and the potted plants; several milk crates of items still sat in acorner. On the drafting table were new sketches of Cosmo – some of his hands, and a full body one of him in the outfit he’d worn on their cemetery date.
A voice came from the bathroom, off-key lyrics to something very familiar. Was Micah singing… Soft Cell?
Cosmo put a hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut. How adorable. He knew exactly what to write with the marker now. Except he’d planned on writing it on the bathroom mirror, and that would be impossible with condensation fogging the glass. And much too awkward with Micah inside in the shower.
After creeping down the hall, he peered into the bedroom. Micah looked like the exact kind of man to own a bed with a cozy quilt, and Cosmo was not disappointed. An oval mirror sat above the dresser, and he stopped before it.
The water shut off in the bathroom. Shit. Micah must be the type to believe in three-minute showers.
Cosmo leaned past books, a bottle of cologne, and Micah’s wire-framed glasses, and scrawled on the mirror:
THEY SAY I’M DYING AND I DO IT SO WELL
He capped the marker and hurried from the room. The bathroom door opened behind him, and he dared a glance back as he turned the corner into the living room. Micah stood in the hall, a sheen of water on his back and his delicious bare ass exposed. Cosmo let out a squeak, then slapped his hand over his mouth and flattened against the wall.
Instead of the footsteps receding toward the bedroom, they grew closer. Cosmo would have to reveal himself soon, but the message on the mirror was supposed to soften the blow and help Micah prepare. He probably couldn’t see much without his glasses, and Cosmo lurking in the living room as a blurry figure while Micah was stark naked was going to be the opposite of helpful.
Cosmo tucked himself into a dark corner behind the drafting table and held his breath. Micah’s frowning face was just visible around the side of the table. He was different without glasses, his scars much more obvious. Coupled with his slicked hair, he looked like a sexy villain from an espionage film. Which was a lazy stereotype, and Cosmo felt bad for even thinking it.
Micah turned from the room. A door creaked down the hall. Cosmo counted the seconds, waiting for Micah to see the mirror and say something to the effect of,I know you’re here.
When Cosmo counted to seventy, he pried himself from the corner and stretched his aching legs. Maybe Micah’s eyesight was worse than Cosmo thought, and he’d gotten dressed without noticing the message.
Cosmo slipped through the hall and peered into the bedroom. Micah stood before the mirror in his briefs and glasses, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists on an open dresser drawer. Breath rushed in and out of his heaving chest. He stared, unblinking, at the message on the mirror, and the terror in his reflection made Cosmo’s heart crumble.
This was a horrible idea. Maybe he could leave before he made it–
Micah’s gaze snapped to Cosmo’s reflection in the mirror. He whimpered, his throat working, eyes pleading for help, but Cosmo didn’t know how to help this.
What had their last “ghostly” interaction been? Micah had been sleeping in bed when Cosmo came in to gather the last of his belongings upon moving out. He’d sat on the bed next to Micah and they’d joked that the only spirits they had were their own.
Be my ghost.
Cosmo slapped off the light switch and walked into the room. He whispered, “Hello, handsome.”
Micah was a dark silhouette at the dresser, his frantic breathing filling the space between them. Cosmo ran his fingers down Micah’s arm, and Micah made a small noise. Prying his hand loose from the dresser was easier than Cosmo expected.
“I don’t want to be chained to an empty grave on Cherry Lane. I want to stay here, with you.”
Tension blazed from Micah like the heat of a cremation furnace. Cosmo tried to tug him toward the bed.
Micah’s feet held firm. His lips parted like a dying fish. “Leave.”
“What?”
“Leave.” His silhouetted expression begged for it. He looked like an animal being taken to slaughter, and Cosmo wished he could step back in time and refuse to follow through on this plan.
He dropped Micah’s hand and strode from the room. He walked outside, closed the door, and gripped the cold balcony railing until the metal dug into the flesh of his palms, trying to imagine what Micah must be feeling.
Earlier in the day, he’d gone to Fieldstone’s to look at the shoes. The department store already had Christmas decor out, which was completely vulgar because it wasn’t even Halloween yet, but that didn’t stop Cosmo from looking at the glass ornaments and jarred candles. He’d picked up the green one and brought it to his nose. He didn’t even think about it, even though he’d looked at the label. The sugar cookie one smelled like sugar cookies. The cinnamon one smelled like cinnamon. The pine one should have smelled like pine, like Christmas trees. But the aggressive scent of Royce’s aftershave constricted around him, and Cosmo dropped the candle. It shattered on the floor, and everyone turned his way. Instead of paying for it and helping to clean it up, he’d just walked out. He hadn’t even apologized.
Halfway to his car, in the middle of the parking lot, he’d broken down and called Mom. It was a wonder she could understand anything through his sobs. No doubt she would have murdered Royce had she been in town. Cosmo had forgotten, actually, that she’d left on a cruise with thewoman she’d been casually seeing, and wouldn’t be back for a week and half. He could have called Micah or Déjà – and perhaps they would have been the more obvious choices since they already knew about the situation with Royce – but in that moment, all Cosmo had wanted was his mother.
Glancing back at Micah’s door, he shook out a cigarette and lit it. What he felt when smelling that pine candle and unloading everything on Mom was surely only a fraction of what Micah was going through, and the thought made his heart ache. Cosmo wanted to pull him into the bed and wrap him in that cozy quilt. He wanted to stroke Micah’s hair until his tremors abated and his breathing slowed. Until everything was okay and it didn’t hurt anymore.
Leaving didn’t feel right, but Micah had told him to. The cherry on the end of his cigarette glowed and crackled as he took a drag. When he smoked it to the filter, he’d go.
Dead leaves shivered on the branches, and a cat trotted across the parking lot. Music thumped from one of the apartmentsbelow, and raucous laughter split through the chorus. Cosmo considered his cigarette, but it was going to keep burning down whether he smoked it or not. He took a quick puff and strained for any noise from within the apartment. Micah was probably shivering in the sheets. Or maybe he’d punched his fist through the bedroom mirror in frustration and was now cleaning up the mess.
