“I do now, but Ori’s right. Most of my life, I was trying to deal with this alone.” I breathed in and out, the slow breaths I’d been practicing, and they both stayed quiet until I could center myself. “You really think there’s more to what I can do?”
“I do. It may be too early to say, but to me, it seems like your ability isn’t speaking to the dead so much as it is finding the lost,” they said. “I can’t begin to guess the extent of it, but as your friend, I’ll help you test it as much as you’re willing, if you’ll let me. And you have a community that would gladly lend what knowledge we can, if you’ll let us.”
Could I do this? Did Iwantto do this? Until now, my power had always been something to be avoided, to lock up in the back of my mind. As I’d told Ori, it was something I suffered through, something I endured until I could go back to pretending I was normal. If what they said was true and I started expanding my ability, there would be no more pretending. There would be no going back.
“I need time. This is too much right now. It’s all just… I can’t…”
“I get it, Alex. Believe me, I get it. There’s no hurry. Take your time and think about it as long as you need. I’ll support you either way.”
“You know I will, too,” Donovan murmured in my ear and despite the turmoil in my head, I took comfort in the support they were both showing me.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Ori, I’ll let you know if anything else happens with Rian.”
“Lil and I would both appreciate that,” they said with a gentle smile. “If you decide you want to look into your abilities, I’ll be here, but know that I won’t judge you if you decide not to. It’s your life and I’m your friend, no matter what.”
A tangled mess of emotions followed Donovan and me out of Esoteric Oddities. My head ached, overfilled with too much information.
“Do you want to go home?” Donovan asked quietly. He still held my hand, a steady anchor in the storm.
“I should get back to work. You probably should, too. I think we took up your whole lunch break.”
“I don’t mind. I’m glad I could be here with you.” He stopped on the sidewalk and faced me, his free hand coming up to my cheek. “If you need anything, I’ll be right down the street, okay? And whenever you’re ready to talk, I’ll be here.”
Turning into his touch, I brushed a soft kiss to his palm. “Thank you.”
“I love you, Alex.”
“I love you, too.” More than I could ever express with words, I loved this man. I carried that love with me back to A Likely Story, holding it close while I worked and pushing everything Ori had said to the back of my mind. I’d deal with all of that later and, for the first time, I wouldn’t have to deal with it alone.
I could get used to this feeling.
Chapter 14
Donovan
Mostdays,Ienjoyedmy job. Being a detective in the sleepy town of Lowery’s Crossing was a far cry from the chaos of Chicago. Instead of an endless stack of cases ranging from violent assaults to homicides, each more soul-crushing than the last, now I spent my days dealing with neighborly disputes, petty thefts, and the rare domestic abuse case. No town could be perfect, but Lowery’s Crossing was the closest thing I’d found. How many detectives could say they left work at five o’clock nearly every day and almost never got called out in the middle of the night? I’d struggled at first to adjust, old habits keeping me on edge, and there were some days that were downright boring, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Today, the inaction grated on me. Despite the calendar saying it was early April, winter still clung to the mountains, its icy grip keeping everyone indoors. Snow still coated the ground and the local weather station was already warning of a possible winter storm in the next day or two, one last hurrah from Mother Nature before we could move on to spring. The few incidents that had been called in were being handled by the officers, leaving Will and me with nothing to do but finish reports.
“Is this what going crazy feels like?” Will whined, his eyes glued to the ancient clock mounted on the wall over our office door. “Because I think this is what going crazy feels like.”
“We can get through two more hours. Let’s just get this report finished and see where that leaves us.” Our most recent case had been a fight between two neighbors with a longstanding grudge that finally lead to punches being thrown, but no real injuries, so the paperwork was simple. We’d just been dragging it out as long as possible in a vain attempt to fill the day.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad nothing bad has happened to anyone in town, but I’d give anything to have justoneinteresting case right now.”
“You take that back right this second,” I warned. “Don’t you dare jinx us like that.”
“Come on, Donovan. It’s Lowery’s Crossing. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“You’re an asshole and I reserve the right to say ‘I told you so’ when we’re knee-deep in shit later.”
“I never pegged you for the superstitious type,” he teased, leaning back in his chair.
“It’s kind of hard not to be when dating a psychic,” I pointed out.
I hadn’t told anyone about what Alex’s friend Ori had revealed to us a few weeks ago, but the knowledge sat in the back of my mind, taunting my curious nature. The idea of a paranormal community fascinated me, and I wanted to learn more, but I would never betray the trust Ori had reluctantly given me. Since that day, Alex hadn’t brought it up again, but I knew it was on his mind. I couldn’t count how many times I’d found him staring off into space, eyes unfocused, as he turned over everything in his head.
All things considered, I couldn’t blame him for taking his time. His ability to see ghosts had ripped his life apart so many times that the idea of doing itmoreclearly terrified him. Even knowing he finally had a rock-solid support system, he couldn’t make almost twenty years of trauma just disappear.
