Rock N Soul (10 page)

He looked up and down the street. I shivered and then crossed my arms to conserve body heat. After a second, he nodded toward a coffeehouse nearby. “You’re cold. Let’s run down there and get you some coffee or something to warm you up.”

I felt a rush of gratitude, but his motives were suspicious. “What’s in it for you?”

“You just look cold, okay?” He seemed genuinely offended, so I decided to let it go.

I unfolded my arms and started walking toward the coffeehouse. “Okay. Thanks. I’ll even let you smell my coffee if you want.”

“Oh my God, that would be wonderful,” he practically moaned. “I’m going to miss coffee. And ice cream. And sushi. And bananas. And—”

“Jesus, shut up. You’re making me hungry and it’s not time for lunch yet.” I pushed open the door to the coffeehouse and let myself enjoy the warmth and the heavy scent of coffee and pastries.

Chris walked over to the pastry case, ghosting straight through a hipster couple to survey the selection. “Can you buy one of these blueberry scones?”

I maneuvered my way around the hipsters so I could be closer to Chris. I looked less crazy when I could speak softly. “Why?”

“So I can watch you eat it,” he said, his voice weirdly earnest.

“Because that’s not creepy. Not at all.”

“Ghostly pleasures, man,” he reminded me.

“Fine,” I muttered. “I’ll get you a scone and I’ll eat it for you.”

“Will you . . . Will you tell me how it tastes?” His eyes were big and pleading.

I swore under my breath. “Oh my God. You’re going to drive me insane.”

“Probably,” he said, cheerfully. “So . . . scone? Oh, and a caramel macchiato.”

I glared at Chris, then noticed the barista giving me a funny look. “Caramel macchiato,” I told him. “And a blueberry scone.”

Chris legitimately cheered, pumping his fist in the air and then doing the devil-horns rock-and-roll hand gesture with both hands.

“You’re a dork,” I whispered to him. “You think you’re this big sexy rock star, but you’re actually a huge dweeb.”

He just grinned at me and did the devil-horns thing again, this time sticking his tongue out. I rolled my eyes at him.

The barista called out my order, and I picked it up and retreated to a tiny table by the window. Chris followed me, making sure to leap straight through the body of every customer he encountered and grinning to himself. I settled down to eat my scone, and he sat on the chair across from me and focused his eyes on the scone with an intensity bordering on creepy.

“You’re going to watch me eat this,” I deadpanned.

“Yeah,” he said, not taking his eyes off the pastry. “I told you I was.”

“I thought you were joking.” I took a sip of my coffee and moaned happily as the warm liquid started raising my body temperature. Chris just kept staring at the pastry.

“Are you going to eat it?” he asked after a few seconds.

“Yes,” I told him, “but you’re going to have to stop staring at it like that. It’s weird.”

“I can’t,” he said. “I’m starving.”

I raised both eyebrows. “You’re hungry? But you’re a ghost.”

“I’m not . . . physically hungry. I think my body still thinks it’s alive because I’m feeling . . .” He paused for a second, tilting his head. “It’s hard to describe. It’s like when you’re bored-hungry, you know? You don’t
need
food but it’s all you can think about and you can’t get the idea of eating something out of your head.”

I lifted the scone. “I guess I can understand that.”

Chris’s eyes snapped back to the pastry. He licked his lips.

I put the scone up to my mouth and took a bite of it. Chris let out a borderline-sexual sigh and swallowed hard.

“Dude,” I said, putting the scone back on my plate. “Did you just go from six to midnight?”

“Shut your face,” he snapped. “I fucking love scones.”

“Wow. With the rare steak and the scones and the very specific grape needs. Who knew you were such a foodie?” I thought about asking if it was a junkie thing instead, but that seemed mean, so I just picked the scone up again and took another bite.

He waited until I was done chewing and then answered: “I don’t think that liking seedless grapes makes me a foodie.”

“It makes you picky as hell, though.” I grinned at him and took another bite, trying not to notice the way he watched my lips and throat while I chewed and swallowed.

That went on until I’d finished the scone, and he made me pick up even the smallest crumbs and eat those too. I’d polished off my coffee and had gotten up to leave when I saw a girl sitting at a table in the corner by herself, holding a deck of what appeared to be tarot cards. She drew several, then scowled at them as if they’d personally offended her.

I took a step closer.

“Dude,” Chris said. “Are you going to go hit on that chick?”

“Shut up,” I muttered, then walked over to her. “Hi. I’m Tyler.”

She looked up at me and did not seem impressed. “Can I help you?”

I glanced at the deck in front of her. The illustrations on them were beautiful, patterned like stained glass with gold foil leafing for highlights. The one I could see best was a picture of a woman holding on to the mane of a lion. It was labeled
Strength
.

“They’re tarot cards,” she said like she got this question a lot, even though I hadn’t actually asked it out loud.

“For telling the future, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. For telling the future. I’m busy. Can you maybe leave me alone?”

I leaned over to inspect the cards again. “What’s that one mean?” I pointed to a picture of a crumbling castle turret.

She followed my gesture and frowned deeply when she saw what card I was pointing to. “That’s the Tower.”

“Cool. What does it mean?”

“It means I’m fucked.” She gathered up the cards and put them back in the deck.

“Well, at least you know about it,” I said. “Whatever it is. So if you know it’s going to happen, you can change it, right?”

She shook her head. “That wasn’t the future. It was the present.”

“Oh.” I shifted on my feet. “That sucks, then.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, well, not much I can do about it at the moment. What do you want?”

“Can you tell my future?” I smiled at her.

“Oh my God,” Chris said. “You’re not as smooth as you think you are.”

I ignored him and kept smiling.

The girl gave me a once-over and then sighed. “Fine. But it’s not as much about your future as it is about helping you understand what’s going on now and what attitude you should have.” She shuffled the cards and fanned them out for me. “Pick one.”

I thought for a moment, moving my hand over the cards, and then pulled one out. I turned it over and peered at it. “The Knight of Cups.”

She nodded. “So there’s someone in your life who’s kind of an emo-narcissist?”

Chris laughed out loud. “I’m not sure there’s a more apt description of me than that. Although really I’d argue I’m more goth or moody than emo.”

I resisted the urge to shoot him a dirty look. Or just to shoot him. “Yeah, you could say that. He won’t leave me alone.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Boyfriend?”

“No,” I barked out. “God, no. I’d hang myself if he was my boyfriend.”

“Thanks,” Chris said dryly.

“You’re welcome,” I answered without thinking.

Her other eyebrow shot up to join the already-raised one. “Who are you talking to?”

I tried to appear super innocent. “Nobody. Sorry. I thought I heard my name.”

She kept eyeing me suspiciously, but she didn’t press me for more information. “Well,” she said after a moment of awkward silence, “that’s your major issue right now, then. Whoever he is must be making your life difficult. You need to focus on fixing that part of your life.”

Chris scoffed. “I don’t like the implication that I need to be fixed.”

“How can I fix it?” I asked her, pointedly ignoring him.

She shrugged. “The cards don’t tell you everything. Some stuff you have to figure out on your own.”

“Well, can you maybe do a more in-depth reading?” I prompted. “I really want to know what’s going on with everything.”

She glanced around the coffeehouse. “Not in here. I’m already getting stared at enough as it is.”

“Where, then?”

“In your bed,” Chris said. “That’s what you’re hoping for, isn’t it? You want to do a tarot reading off of her boobs.”

“I don’t know,” she answered, then paused for a second. “There’s a new age bookstore nearby. They have some tables for customers, and I wouldn’t get stared at in there.”

“Let’s go, then.” I stood and smiled. “I’m Tyler,” I said again.

She gave me an appraising look, then visibly relented, standing and half smiling. “Gemma.”

“All right,” she said, spreading the cards out facedown in a wide arc. “So think about your friend and pick two cards. To symbolize what you think the problem is.”

I eyed the cards. “Just . . . pick two cards?”

“Yeah,” she answered. “Hover your hand over them and wait until one feels right.”

“Okay. Sounds easy enough.” I did as she told me and held my hand over the cards.

Chris squatted down beside the table. “This girl already seems more legit than Madame Destiny.”

I pulled one card out and then hovered my hand again for a few seconds before picking another. “These two.”

“All right, then turn them over.” Gemma pushed her hair behind her ear.

I flipped the first card so that it was faceup. “The Devil,” I said, reading the title off the card.

Chris snorted. “I can see how you’d think that about me.”

My eyes darted over to him before I caught myself. Gemma must have noticed because she narrowed her own eyes slightly. I flipped the other card before she could say anything. “And the Moon.”

She studied the two cards for a moment. “So he’s an alcoholic? Or is it drugs?”

Chris stood up. “You’re shitting me. That’s got to be a coincidence.”

“Probably both,” I told her. “But definitely with the drugs. Hard ones.”

“So are you worried about him?” she asked.

I thought about that. “Not really. He’s already dead.”

Her eyes widened. “And he’s still your big problem?”

I decided to go for it. “He’s haunting me. He’s a ghost.”

Gemma snatched up the two cards, shoved them back in her deck, and stood. “I have to go.”

“No, I’m serious,” I pleaded. “I’m being haunted, and I need to figure out how to—”

“You don’t have to be an asshole and make fun of me.”

“I’m not,” I assured her. “I just thought . . . you were doing tarot and I’ve spent all morning going to fake-ass psychics and I thought maybe you could help.”

She crossed her arms, clutching the cards in one hand. “Uh-huh.”

“I can prove it,” I said. “I can talk to him. Hold up a card where I can’t see it, and he’ll tell me what card it is.”

“I’m not your fucking lapdog,” Chris snapped. “And I keep telling you I’m more than just my addictions.”

“Shut up, Chris,” I said, then looked at her again. “He doesn’t like me ordering him around. But he’ll do it.”

Gemma frowned but nodded curtly. “I want you to know that I don’t really believe you,” she said, then drew a card and held it where I couldn’t see it. “What’s the card?”

Chris scowled at me. “I don’t feel like it.”

I figured it couldn’t make her think I was any more crazy than she already did, so I turned my head and glared at him. “Just do it, you dick-weed.”

“Fine,” he said. “But only because I want to get away from you.” He stalked around behind her and leaned in to peer at the card.

“It says ‘The High Priestess.’ That’s pretty on the nose, don’t you think?” He pursed his lips and looked generally pouty.

“It’s the High Priestess,” I told Gemma.

She blinked at the card and her jaw tightened. “Again,” she said, picking a different card.

“The Three of Cups,” Chris muttered.

“The Three of Cups,” I repeated.

She drew another card.

“This is getting hella old,” Chris said. “But it’s the Five of Swords. And it’s upside-down.”

“Five of Swords,” I told her. “Upside-down.”

“Reversed,” she mumbled. “One more.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “That’s not even a card. It just has some contact info for where to order more decks from.”

“He says it’s a contact information card and not a real tarot card.”

Gemma turned around and looked behind her, then back at me, eyes wide and a little dazed.

“No mirrors or anything,” I said. “Just a ghost standing beside you telling me what he sees.”

She scanned the room behind her again, then moved slowly back to her chair and sat down. “For the record, I’m still not convinced there’s a ghost,” she said, giving me a stern glare. “But I’m intrigued enough to listen.”

I smiled at her only for Chris to scowl at me, which made me throw my hands up in exasperation. “What is your problem, dude?”

He crossed his arms and stared off into the distance. “Nothing. I just thought that maybe I’d get a few days before I had to witness your grotesque mating rituals.”

“Shut up,” I told him, then turned my eyes back to Gemma. “He’s very . . . self-centered. He doesn’t like it when I talk to anybody besides him.”