Page 19

“So you were bullied, then?” I asked. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Of course,” Bastian answered, shrugging as he took another bite. “I was the tall, skinny, weird, gay kid who lived with dead people.”

“But you didn’t grow up at the funeral parlor, did you?”

“No,” he answered, then took a gulp of tea then went on with, “My classmates didn’t know that, though. The funeral parlor was originally my great-grandfather’s house. Even though it was converted completely into a business, except for the apartment upstairs, in the nineteen sixties, a lot of people in town still thought we lived there.”

“I guess kids, being kids, would use that against you,” I said with a sigh and stuck a fork in my salad.

“Let’s just say that between the funeral parlor, the way I look, the fact that I was seriously not athletic, and coming out freshman year of high school, I was never going to win any popularity contests as a kid,” Bastian said.

“Did you have any friends at all?” I asked, heart hurting for him.

“Oh, sure,” he said. “A few. Aaron moved to Michigan for college, met a girl there, and never came back. Monica lives on the other side of Philly and we do meet up occasionally. I lost touch with Wendy, though.”

I smiled. “I’m relieved that you had some friends, at least.”

“What about you?” Bastian asked, picking up a piece of garlic bread. “What was it like for you growing up?” He bit into the bread. Between the questions and deliberately stuffing his face, I got the hint that it was my turn to be in the spotlight.

“I guess I had a normal childhood,” I said with a shrug, smiling as I thought about my family. “My parents immigrated from Italy when I was five. I have bits and flashes of memories of Pavia, which is just outside of Milan, but that’s about it. I have way more memories of being a kid in New York City.”

“Oh, wow. You grew up in a big city like that?” Bastian seemed so much more comfortable listening to me than he’d been being the center of attention.

“It’s not as crazy as a lot of people think it is,” I explained. “You get used to your neighborhood the same way you do anyplace you live. I guess the only difference is that people live vertically in New York. It meant I was exposed to all sorts of things growing up, good and bad. There was art everywhere I looked, good shows to see on Broadway, not that we could really afford it, and so many restaurants.”

“Did you know you were gay when you were a kid?” Bastian asked, then looked like he wanted to take the question back.

I shrugged to let him know I didn’t mind being open with him about stuff like that. It was a shared experience, after all.

“Sort of,” I answered. “I definitely knew by the time I hit my teens. Mamma says she knew all along, too. Papà didn’t like it, of course. He was your typical, macho Italian guy, although he has a heart of gold under all the bravado.”

“So he didn’t accept you?” The glitter of sympathy and hope, like we had yet another thing in common, danced in his eyes.

“He did eventually,” I explained. “Mamma and my brothers and sisters have worked on him a ton over the years.”

“My dad wasn’t thrilled with me being gay at first either,” Bastian said, relaxed again. “I think he takes it personally that I’m the last Sebastian Gorman in the family. That’s another thing I got teased about all the time, by the way. I’m Sebastian Michael Gorman the fourth.”

“The fourth!” I sat up straighter and laughed. “I’m in the presence of a dynasty!”

“Last of my kind,” he laughed along with me, looking sheepish.

“Not necessarily,” I said, then added totally without thinking, “We could always do surrogacy. Guys like us are having families all over the place these days, and a lot of them with their own genetic children.”

I didn’t catch what I’d said until Bastian stopped eating and just stared at me.

Then I clocked it.

“I mean, shit, sorry,” I gulped, heating like a turkey in an oven. “That just came out. I didn’t mean we were…that we might…that anything was going on.”

“No, of course not,” Bastian said, cheeks glowing, smile adorable and pleased.

I couldn’t bring myself to say a damn thing after that. I’d ruined the conversation completely, and I couldn’t think of a single topic that could resurrect it.

Except Bastian didn’t seem at all bothered by the silence. He ate the rest of his supper with a smile, kept smiling as he helped me clean up, then turned to me once that was done and said in a downright chipper voice, “Are you ready to hunt some ghosts now?”

“I ain’t afraid of no ghosts,” I blurted in reply, then felt more embarrassed than ever.

Bastian slipped into his ghost hunting persona, then nodded. “Let’s go, then.”