Body & Soul полностью

“Did he break up with you?” Damn it, Sam. I liked him, thought he was good for my mom, who needed someone to make her laugh. “If this is because of what happened at the diner…” I'd had to quit the diner a couple of weeks ago, after a ghost just would not get the message that I was off duty as a ghost-talker when I was working as a busboy. Said ghost had decided to express his displeasure by sweeping a table clear of dishes… while the people were still eating, unfortunately.

Sam had been pretty cool about it, and no one had blamed me. The customers had been stunned at first and then eventually blamed it on the table legs being uneven. Yes, most people will find a way to explain the inexplicable so as not to acknowledge the existence of the supernatural. But clearly I couldn't continue to work there without risking exposure… or someone's injury by flying dinnerware.

“Will you let me finish?” my mom asked in exasperation.

“Okay, okay.” I held up my hands in surrender.

“He wants me to move in with him,” she said carefully, her attention focused on the mug in her hands.

“Oh. Uh…” I'd not been expecting that, and, as with other moments in my life where my next words would be essential… my mind was blank. “Shouldn't you, uh, at least be engaged first so that he…”

She looked up at me, amused. “So he's not taking advantage?”

My face burned. “Well, uh… yeah.”

She set her mug down and patted my shoulder with a laugh. “Thank you. I love you, too.”

As always, my mom seemed to understand where I was coming from even when I couldn't quite get the words right. I guess that's what made her my mom.

“And if Sam had his way,” she said, “that's exactly the way it would be.”

I tilted my head to one side, trying to follow what she was saying. “You mean he asked you to marry him?” I demanded. If so, this was the first I'd heard of it.

“Not so loud,” she reminded me with a frown. “And yes. Several times.”

I sat back in my chair, my words gone again. “And you said…”

She took a breath and let it out slowly, studying the mug in front of her. “It's complicated. I'm not sure I'm ready for that.”

“So, he's suggesting moving in as an alternative,” I said, finally getting it. “He's trying to work up to the getting-married part.”

“He didn't exactly position it that way,” she said wryly. “But I suspect that's his goal, yes.”

It took a second to imagine Sam with a place at our table here, a chair that would be his. Unless… maybe it wouldn't be him at our table, but us at his.

My stomach dropped a little at the thought. Moving into Sam's place? I couldn't picture it. I'd never even been there. It was an old fix-it-up farmhouse on the edge of town; I knew that much. Old and isolated; that could either be really good… or really bad for me.

Then a second thought struck, just as hard as the first. Maybe they weren't planning on my tagging along.

I was starting classes at Richmond Community College in a couple of weeks. Apartments were available near campus, but living so close to that many people — and the ghosts following them around — without a spirit guide seemed like a bad idea. At least my mom knew what was going on when she saw me seemingly talking to open air. Not that I wanted to live with her for the rest of my life, but it was going to take a little more time to figure out a workable solution, now that Alona was… unavailable.

I glanced involuntarily toward my bedroom. The temperature drop my mom had referenced likely meant a spectral visitor, or ten. I could hear vague whispers coming from the hall as they talked among themselves. At least they knew enough to know I wouldn't like finding them here and were trying to be discreet. Without a spirit guide to keep them in line, they'd been breaking all kinds of rules lately, like coming to my house and waiting for me in my freaking bedroom.

But I'd find a way to deal with it, if I had to. I wasn't going to hold my mom prisoner with my problems. She'd already been through that enough.

I cleared my throat. “So, uh, whose house?” I asked. “I mean, are you going there, or is he coming here? And when is—”

She shook her head. “I'm going to tell him no.”

“Because you're not ready or…”

She avoided my gaze.

I sighed. “Because of me.”

“You're my son,” she said fiercely, looking up at me. “And we take care of each other.”

I nodded, recognizing the words as similar to those she'd said in the hours following my father's funeral. It had been only the two of us for years now.

She straightened up. “Besides, you need me right now with Alona off flitting around somewhere, paying no attention to her duties.” Her mouth tightened in disapproval.