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I closed down my document and took myself and that suddenly hollowed-out heart of mine to bed. Where I promised myself I would put all thoughts of Silas and his cynical takes on love and his shiver-inducing kisses to the back of my mind.

Then I went and dreamed of him.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

[ “SOMETIMES AFFECTION DOESN’T arrive dramatically. Sometimes it just gently settles into the empty spaces of your life.”

— Ghosted & Confused - Episode 13]

Silas

I could sense her all around the station.

The newly scribbled sticky notes stuck to surfaces. The mail neatly organized on the front desk. There was a wet floor sign and caution tape around an inexplicable waterfall that seemed to drift down from a picture frame and pool on the floor, but never be quite rude enough to spread.

I could smell her cinnamon sugar up and down the hallways. I could hear the soft hum of her voice.

But she was nowhere to be seen.

I shouldn’t have been looking.

She clearly regretted what happened at the office party. It wasn’t my place to seek her out to try to change her mind.

That didn’t mean the desire to do that wasn’t there. That there wasn’t some primal, animalistic voice in the back of my mind growling her name.

That said, I had many lifetimes learning to overcome my baser instincts. I could fight this one as well.

No matter how badly it told me to stride back down the hall, push open her door, slide the lock, then get lost in her soft body and sweet sighs for the next several hours.

“Everything alright in there?” Jack asked when we went to a commercial for all-inclusive spas that covered hoof trimming and mane braiding.

“Of course everything is alright.”

Except that I couldn’t fight the hurricane of thoughts that kept swirling around my mind. The eye being Maggie.

“You seem a bit more… sharp than usual.”

“I’m always sharp.” Cutting, at times.

“You compared a woman’s boyfriend to a mold infestation.”

“She claimed he was growing on her.” I shrugged. “What else was I supposed to say?”

Jack shook his head and sat back down, counting down on his fingers from five, then pointing to me.

The rest of my show was a blur, every one of my thoughts focused on getting out of the station sometime before Maggie.

To walk her home safely, yes.

But also so she couldn’t avoid me forever.

As it was, though, just as we hung up with the next caller, every light went out in the studio, glass exploding across desks, getting caught in hair, crunching underfoot.

It took hours to get flashlights and lanterns on, then clean up the mess and try to figure out how it happened in the first place.

It was late, bordering on early, when I finally moved outside, ready to wait as long as it took for Maggie to emerge.

But she was only a minute or so behind me, slinging her bag over her shoulder and tripping over a dropped tiger’s eye gemstone on the ground.