Shadows Fall (21 page)

Titus’s breath caught, his fingernails dug into Charlie’s skin where he gripped his arms. Charlie thought maybe he was thinking the same thing—that he wished they were alone. However, Charlie didn’t want to bring all of this discontent into his lover’s house.

Drawing back, he looked into the man’s eyes again. He took a deep breath and put some distance between them, only just. A line formed between Titus’s dark brows, though he was sort of smiling.

“What’s wrong, Charlie?”

“Nothing, I… it’s just… this case is driving me a little crazy, I think. Do you think we could just… walk for a little while?”

“Sure, whatever you need.” Titus smiled and kissed him gently on the cheek before taking his hand. “This okay?”

Charlie looked down at their joined hands, and he couldn’t seem to deny himself that small comfort for the sake of some hypothetical assholes that might have a problem with it. “Yeah. More than okay.”

They started off on College Street and then turned onto Fifth, wandering aimlessly as the weekend crowd rushed around them. Charlie pointed out a group of tourists being led by a man wearing a black tailcoat and top hat and carrying a lantern. The small crowd seemed to be hanging on his every word.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s one of the city ghost tours,” Charlie said with a grin. “I’ve always wanted to go on one but never got around to it.”

“Really? I had no idea Charlotte had those. I thought that was reserved for older cities like New Orleans and Savannah.”

Charlie shrugged. “Apparently Charlotte has more paranormal history than you’d think.”

With his head cocked, Titus surveyed the little cluster of people around the guide in period garb. “I’d pay for that tour,” he said with a laugh. “He’s hot.”

Making a face, Charlie dropped Titus’s hand in favor of wrapping his arm around his slender waist. He couldn’t help the low rumbling sound he made in his chest when the unwelcome surge of jealously coursed through his veins. Titus just leaned into him and laughed, sounding delighted.

His smile died quickly though, and his eyes darted across the street as if he recognized someone. All at once, it occurred to Charlie who he was with and where they were. He stopped walking and pulled Titus over to an empty wall of a building, turning him to face him. “Titus, I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have made you come out here… why didn’t you say something?”

Titus looked very puzzled for half a second before understanding dawned. His eyes widened and he took Charlie’s face in his hands, heedless of the people around them. “You dear, sweet man. Jesus Christ, I totally forgot to tell you. I’m on a new… um, treatment for my issues. It’s been helping a lot. I can go places that aren’t very… uh… crowded or closed in, I guess.”

“Without your headphones, huh?”

“Yeah,” Titus said with a grin. His happiness and relief at being able to be outside was palpable.

“That’s wonderful,” Charlie said and meant it. He gripped Titus’s wrists to lower his hands so he could clasp them in his own. That was when he noticed it—some kind of drawing on Titus’s arm. “What’s this? A tattoo? I just saw you yesterday!” he said with a laugh.

Charlie would swear Titus blushed. He turned and started walking again, so that Charlie had no choice but to follow.

“Um, yeah. Hester did it. It’s called a
sapaśaṭāzho
. Kind of a family thing.”

Charlie attempted to study the symbol closer, but it was difficult while they were walking. Titus seemed embarrassed about it, but Charlie had no problem with tattoos; they were kind of hot. “It’s beautiful.”

Titus shrugged. “It was really important to her to do it for me.”

“So does that mean you’re reconciling with them?”

“With who?”

“Your family. Hester.”

Titus shook his head, causing his ruffled hair to flop over his forehead before he pushed it out of his eyes. “With Hester, well, anything’s possible I guess. It would be up to her, since having a relationship would be going against the decision of the
Kris
—the Romany court—to declare me outcast. As far as my
kumpania
, reconciliation would require them to change hundreds of years of beliefs… and that’s
if
anybody was trying to do so, which they aren’t.

“It’s not something I ever expect or am hoping for. I don’t blame them for their beliefs any more than I’d blame a Buddhist or an Atheist for not following the same religion as me. What was it your father said? ‘It is what it is.’ I just had to choose not to let their beliefs define my life.”

“Wow,” Charlie breathed. He wasn’t sure he would’ve been capable of such an evolved point of view—but that was Titus. He almost seemed to exist on a different wavelength than the rest of the world. Charlie had never met anyone whose mind worked the way Titus’s did. He kind of loved it.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, just being in the space together, which was a new and exciting experience for both of them, apparently. Titus would steal quick glances and give Charlie shy smiles whenever he was caught. It was incredibly endearing.

They’d just crossed Church Street when his smile died. Titus froze, looking to his right, his eyes having taken on a dazed quality, his pupils completely dilated. “I think I know where they’re headed,” he said in a quiet monotone.

“Where who’s headed?”

“The ghost tour.” He jerked his chin in the direction he was staring.

Charlie followed his line of sight to a grassy, treed area on their right that took up an entire city block—Old Settlers’ Cemetery. He’d cut through it, driven and walked past it countless times, so much that he barely looked at it. Now that he did, he got a sense of something ancient, undisturbed, and more than a little eerie. The ghost-walkers would eat that shit up.

“Guess so. Shall we keep walking?”

“Sure. Let’s go this way,” Titus said, gesturing to the break in the wrought-iron fence that was the entrance to the graveyard.

“Really? You sure?” It wasn’t that he didn’t want to walk there. The cemetery was immaculately kept, and had many concrete walking paths that people strolled along throughout the day. It was the way Titus’s voice was almost disembodied, the way his eyes were unfocused and yet, somehow, laser-focused on the grassy knoll at the center of the yard, that gave Charlie pause.

“Yeah, let’s go. I haven’t been in here before.” Titus took off at a brisk clip, leaping up the concrete steps that led to the interior of the cemetery.

Charlie found it hard to believe that someone could live in Uptown Charlotte and never have been to the landmark. It was like Central Park, a huge grassy oasis in the middle of a bustling city that just happened to be a graveyard. Living on the same block as Settler’s, Charlie saw it every day and walked in it often. It always gave him a lovely sense of peace.

Once they’d started out on one of the worn brick paths through the green, Titus slowed his frantic pace and hung back to stroll side by side with Charlie. He seemed to have calmed, so Charlie’s mind unwittingly drifted back to his case, more specifically the victims. When they came upon an ancient-looking crypt-style grave marker, Charlie stopped abruptly. Titus looked over at him questioningly.

He sat down in a single-seat bench next to the path, and Titus took the bench next to him. They stared out over the civil-war-era gravestones to the gothic church that peeked out between the trees, and the lit-up skyscraper behind it. It was surreal to be in such a peaceful place, out of time within the hectic city. Here, they were surrounded by death, but by a kind of tranquility within death. It was such a stark contrast with the death Charlie had been surrounded by lately.

“Titus, what do you think happens when we die?”

Titus’s head whipped around, and his skin seemed to pale in the moonlight. Then he shook his head and scrunched his brows together like he was giving it due thought. “How do you mean? Like theologically… biologically…?”

Charlie shook his head because that wasn’t what he was getting at. He wasn’t sure
what
he was getting at. He just knew that Talika Ross, Brandon Meyers, and the others had been haunting him. “I mean, like, metaphysically. I’ve seen so much death… you think I’d figure some of these things out, but—well, what
happens
?

“Is there really such a thing as a soul or a
chi
or a
chakra
that somehow floats away and does something else after the physical existence ends? Or is the human brain just some elaborate biological circuit, and once the power source is gone, it’s just empty hardware?”

Charlie leaned over and rested his elbows on his thighs, then laid his head in his hands. “I’m not a religious person, but I find it hard to believe that when a person dies, they just… cease to be.”

Titus had stayed very still during his mini freak-out, but he spoke abruptly after Charlie’s last statement. “No, they don’t. I’m sure of that. There’s more, so much more. I can’t say what it is—whether it’s good or bad, heaven or hell, whatever—but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we don’t just end. You can take that to the fucking bank, Charlie.”

Charlie searched his face, and Titus met his eyes with a level stare, before his eyes drifted to the right, again like he’d seen someone he recognized.

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.” Titus gave a small laugh and a crooked smile. “Call it gypsy intuition or Romany magic or whatever. I just know, so if that’s what’s been tormenting you so much with this case, you can let that part go.”

Charlie started to speak, to question Titus further, because he had no idea where the sudden worldliness, the unexpected clarity about the universe, was coming from, but he was cut off by a booming clap of thunder. Apparently, they’d failed to notice the angry clouds that had rolled in and obscured the moon and stars. Rain began to sprinkle on them lightly, but the constant grumble in the distance was a portent of more to come.

“Shit, we’re going to be soaked by the time we make it back to my place… or wherever we had planned to go,” Titus said sheepishly.

Charlie wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, or to let a perfect opportunity go by. He pointed to the northwest corner of the cemetery block. “No worries, I live right there.”

“You live in the Churchill building?” Titus asked, surprised.

The Churchill building was one of two very old buildings, converted into condos and apartments, that lined one side of the cemetery along Poplar Street. “Sure do. If you don’t mind hanging out in a tiny bachelor pad, we can run over there to get out of the rain.

It was hard to say in the dim light, but Charlie could have sworn Titus’s eyes darkened and his breath quickened.

“Sounds like a plan,” Titus said. “Lead the way.”

As the skies opened up and rain began to pour from the bellies of those beastly-looking clouds, Charlie and Titus darted across the green hill of the cemetery with a course set for Charlie’s ancient brick apartment building.

Chapter Fifteen

By the time Charlie ushered Titus into his small condo, they were both soaked to the skin. While Titus observed his meager living space, Charlie observed Titus. His wet T-shirt clung to his lean torso, emphasizing his six-pack and small, pebbled nipples. His camo cargo shorts were completely saturated from the rain and drooped awkwardly on his hipbones—yet somehow he still made it sexy.

Titus had started shivering as soon as the blast of AC had gusted over his wet body. Toeing off his shoes, he stretched out his arms and looked down at himself. “Uh, I don’t want to mess up your furniture. Got any sweats or anything?”

Charlie reached over to the control panel beside the door and set the temperature a little higher so the air would cut off. “You’re freezing. Why don’t you hop in the shower real quick to warm up, and I’ll leave some clothes outside the door.”

He held up his hands in surrender as Titus quirked a brow at him. “I promise, no nefarious purposes whatsoever. I’ll be over here in my bedroom getting dried off myself.”

Titus grinned then bit his lip, as if maybe he’d been hoping for some nefarious purposes. Charlie had a mind to oblige him, once the guy warmed up a bit. He directed Titus to the bathroom off the main hall—the only one he had—and waited until he heard the water start before disappearing into his bedroom.

Quickly discarding his wet clothing and tossing them in the hamper, Charlie toweled himself off and got dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of athletic pants. He didn’t have much that would fit Titus; he pulled out a pair of cut-off sweats and an old T-shirt that had shrunk in the wash. It would have to do. He folded up the clothes and set them on the dresser, instead of outside the bathroom door as promised—nefarious purposes, after all.

His grim thoughts of death from earlier had disappeared. They’d been replaced by thoughts of Titus—his smooth, hairless golden skin, his piercing blue eyes that seemed to see too much, his lean, compact body. Charlie couldn’t wait to get his hands on him. He also couldn’t wait to let loose that side of him, to snap that thread that was always worn so thin. With Titus, he didn’t always have to be the calm, level-headed cop, at least not in the bedroom.

Charlie’s lips curled into a smile when he heard the shower cut off. He cut off all the lights in his bedroom and pressed his back against the wall to the right of the door and waited. He recognized the sound of the bathroom door opening and closing—probably Titus checking and realizing the clothes were not where he said they’d be. “Guess you’ll have to come get them, hot stuff,” Charlie murmured to the empty room.