“Main street and then we’ll do a bit of a wider circle. If a store looks interesting just let me know and we’ll stop.” I should’ve known he was being too well-mannered but I didn’t second-guess what he was doing until he’d leaned down and nibbled right under my ear. “And if we find some privacy, I’ll see what I can talk my naughty mate into.”
Too much…he’d be able to talk his surprisingly naughty mate into entirely too much.
“I think you’re the naughty mate.” Someone around us giggled as Braun straightened, and it took me a moment to find the nearly see-through ghost giggling from just around the corner. She was probably mid-twenties and wasn’t trying to hide how cute she thought we were.
I managed not to groan, but poking Braun and whispering for him to behave got more laughter from her.
He was incorrigible and waved as she blinked out of sight.
“At least I’m getting to know the locals.” His smirk had me shaking my head, but he was too cute as he took my hand to complain about. “Lead on.”
“So bossy.” Looking very pleased with himself, Braun started stroking his fingers against mine as he started us in the direction of the main street at a leisurely pace. “How long have you been able to see ghosts?”
I thought about the question as we turned left and started slowly making our way down a picturesque Southern town that had everything from cute stores to beautiful old buildings. I wanted to give him a logical answer, but all I could do was shrug and hope I was remembering things correctly.
“Always, as far as I know.” Braun’s confused frown had me automatically rambling. “My mother said I had imaginary friends as a child, but I don’t remember that. I just rememberseeing people that weren’t solid and that other people didn’t seem to be able to see.”
That’d been the least of my problems, though.
“There was a teenager that lived in our house when I was a kid. It was an old house and I think he’d passed in the early nineteen hundreds.” I hadn’t thought to wonder about that until years later after we’d moved several times. “He was the one who told me not to talk about seeing ghosts.”
I just wished he’d thought to explain other non-human people, but looking back, I wasn’t sure if he’d known about them.
“It’s not common to have full humans be able to see ghosts.” He left out the obviousor anything elsepart. It was nice but not necessary. “Did anyone in your family talk about strange things in your family history or have any weird stories they passed down?”
“My parents are the definition of boring human.” As long as my seeing things didn’t get brought up, they were really nice too. Just really human acting. “If either of my parents is more interesting than human, I’d guess it was my mother but there’s no logical reason for it.”
Braun made a soft thinking sound and nodded like the whole conversation was perfectly normal for an afternoon stroll. “What’s the illogical reason for it? A feeling?”
Being able to finally talk about it had me swallowing past a lump in my throat, but Braun was sweet and ignored it, just giving my head a quick peck as he waited. “Mostly, but every once in a while her head would jerk and she’d blink like she thought she saw something strange.”
He waved at an older woman across the street, when she gave us a big smile, but he kept his focus on me. “It sounds like something was passed down in your family. Genetics are funny, though. Even magical ones. So she might not have gotten enough of whatever it is to use it fully.”
Logic.
Finally someone who was logical.
“I’ve never been able to figure it out because the parts of the internet I could access weren’t helpful at all, and I didn’t know how to approach people.” Leaning into his shoulder, I tried to push back the lingering frustration I had over it. “I tried to ask a kid in elementary school what he was but my teacher overheard me and called me a racist.”
Braun’s groan and wince made me feel better. “Ancestors above, that was the wrong way to handle it even if you’d just been curious about his heritage.”
“After a few situations like that, I stopped asking but the damage was done. As a kid I didn’t understand I needed to lie to my parents and that just made the situation worse.” They’d thought I was suffering from something deeply troubling. “Over time I learned to keep my questions to myself and use other people’s reactions to decide how to behave. Where did they walk…did they notice the man at the coffee shop glowed sometimes…that kind of thing.”
“That must’ve been upsetting as a kid, but I have to say how proud I am of you.” Squeezing my hand, Braun slowed as we got to a shop that seemed to sell knickknacks and soaps.
“Thank you.” Nothing in the window was overly interesting, but focusing on it made talking easier. “You asked about weird family stories that might explain it, but the only thing I evermanaged to get from some other family members was that my great-great-grandmother claimed to have gotten pregnant by a ghost.” Families were strange and frustrating, but thankfully, my relatives got chatty after consuming just a bit too much spiked punch at a reunion. “Her relatives thought it was her way of coping with her boyfriend supposedly running off when she got pregnant, but I’m starting to question all of it.”
Not the sleeping with something she thought was a ghost part.
Romance novels had taught me that the people of Earth would sleep with anything that could flirt with them.
“What kinds of…people look like ghosts but can get someone pregnant? The internet wasn’t helpful with that either.” But the book recommendations I’d gotten had been interesting. “I might have the description wrong, though. What do you think?”
Good grief.
He had that look.
“Please don’t. You’re going to tell me something ridiculous.”
