Spirit (10 page)

But I must say, even the presence of a four-year-old and the prospect of a ghost on the property was not enough to permanently turn my eye from Sam. A hundred times a day I found myself glancing his way when he was busy doing something else. Little things about him continually set my heart to pumping faster. The line of Sam’s jaw, crisply delineated against the front of his shirt. The way his fingers gripped a glass of milk. The feel of the hair on his leg against the palm of my hand as I helped him reach the high limbs of the orange tree out back, fearlessly climbing higher than I had the nerve to go. And how I had longed to press my lips to the tender skin at the back of his knee that day, and probably would have, too, but for the fact that Timmy was standing on the lawn cheering Sam higher.

It was also on that day, with Sam back on the ground and the elusive orange triumphantly in his hand, that Timmy had tugged at the hem of Sam’s shorts and asked, “Are you and Uncle Jason boyfriends?”

Sam and I laughed. Then, avoiding my eye, Sam leaned down and whispered to the boy, “Not yet, but we’ll tell you when we are.”

“Don’t forget,” Timmy warned.

And Sam tweaked his nose. “You’ll be the first to know. I promise.”

The rest of my day was lost in a haze of confusion, wondering what the hell Sam had meant by all that.

Whatever business Sam was in town for, it certainly didn’t take up much of his time. Most of his mysterious business dealings entailed hushed cell phone conversations in his bedroom behind a securely closed door. I forced myself not to pry or ask questions or try to listen in, figuring it was none of my business. But I couldn’t ignore the fact that I was beginning to dread the day he would announce he had accomplished what he came to San Diego to accomplish and now it was time to head back to Tucson.

I’m not a fool. Well, not a
complete
one. I knew I was getting a crush on the guy. And I knew that one day, if he stuck around long enough, I would lose my battle to keep my hands to myself and lay them on Sam instead. How he would accept that, I wasn’t sure.

Thumper still remained at Timmy’s side through every minute of every day. At least, she tried to. It was clear from the start her energy level and Timmy’s energy level simply didn’t jive. Thumper did her best to keep up with the boy, but occasionally, she would simply plop herself down wherever she happened to be and conk out for an hour or so. Timmy had taken to carrying a handkerchief around in his back pocket, and when Thumper keeled over for a quick snooze, Timmy would yank out the handkerchief and carefully drape it over her like a tiny blanket. After tucking it under her chin and smoothing out the wrinkles, Timmy would tiptoe off so as not to wake her, then resume his normal rambunctious activities.

So basically, their synergy was a little skewed, Timmy running on
full
all the time, Thumper usually on
empty,
or close to it. After all, they were on the opposite ends of the age spectrum, Timmy just getting started in life, Thumper about to close the book on hers. Still, they loved each other, and it was a touching relationship to watch. Obviously, Timmy was just what Thumper needed to snap her out of the doldrums of old age. If I had known, I would have bought her a four-year-old ages ago.

And bought one for myself as well. For much to my amazement, I found I loved having the kid around. He made me furious, horrified, impatient, and exasperated. But he also made me smile. More than I’d smiled in years. He brought a new level of life into the old house. And he brought innocence. Everything to Timmy was a wonder. And after a while, through watching him, they were a wonder to me too.

Sam and I laughed a lot those first few days the three of us were together. Timmy kept us on our toes, the ghost gave us something to stew about, and we had each other, Sam and I, to bring a little sexual tension into our lives.

Oh, yes. The sexual tension was there, all right. Sometimes even Timmy could feel it.

Once, out of the blue, the kid said to me, “You know you want to kiss him. Why don’t you just do it already? I won’t tell.”

Sam overheard Timmy’s words, but he didn’t let on. He also pretended not to see me turn twenty shades of red and break into an embarrassed sweat.

Later that day, while Timmy and Thumper napped on the sofa, Sam came up to me as I sat at my desk in the sunroom working. He laid a hand on my shoulder.

“I like you, Jason,” he said.

And with my heart in my throat, I turned and said, “I like you too.”

“Good,” he answered and walked away. I watched him go, muted by uncertainty. Should I follow, call him back, scream for him to stop? In the end I did none of those things. I simply watched him walk away.

A few minutes later, Timmy awoke and started tearing through the house like the Tasmanian Devil in one of those old Looney Tunes cartoons. If there were things I wanted to say to Sam, they were lost in the kid’s noisy slipstream. Not that I had the courage to say them anyway.

Or who knows? Maybe I did. Maybe later. When the kid was asleep, maybe then I would find my courage—assuming our invisible housemate didn’t pop up first to scare the libido out of me.

I
T
WOULD
be dark soon. Timmy was already in his pajamas, but that hadn’t slowed him down much. He was sitting on the closed commode lid, swinging his legs, sucking on a Popsicle, and watching me clean up. Since it was a grape Popsicle, his right hand and the lower half of his face were a brilliant shade of cobalt blue. He’d probably need another bath by the time he got down to the stick. Lord, kids are a lot of work.

Thumper was snoring at the base of the commode, just under Timmy’s swinging feet. The kid had worn her out, but still, Thumper wouldn’t leave his side. It was funny, but I never remembered her showing that much devotion to me.

Timmy didn’t know it, but I had plans to put the moves on Sam as soon as the little brat was conked out for the night. By “little brat” I mean Timmy, not Sam. By the way, Sam didn’t know I was going to put the moves on him either. At least, I hoped he didn’t. I was nervous enough without my intended prey watching me like a hawk, studying my powers of seduction, and later maybe offering up a written critique of the whole damned embarrassing process and turning it into a college thesis or something.

Just out of the shower, I stood at the sink with a towel around my waist. I was applying concealer to a zit on my neck. I’ve never made plans in my life to put the moves on somebody when a zit didn’t pop up somewhere. Thank Christ for Cover Girl.

“Is that lipstick?” Timmy asked.

I was grumpy. I hate zits. “Concealer.”

Timmy. “What you sealing?”

Me. “I’m not sealing. I’m hiding.”

“What you hiding?”

“A zit.”

“What’s a zit?”

I turned and glowered at him. “A zit’s an annoying little thing that pops up out of nowhere right when you really don’t want it to. Like you.”

“So I’m a zit?”

He didn’t seem too offended by the prospect, so I let him have it between the eyes. “Yes. You’re a zit. A big pimply one. The kind that hurts. The kind that when you squeeze it hard enough a big glob of cream cheese flies out.”

Timmy took a moment to consider that while he inadvertently smeared Popsicle juice in his ear. “Jack says you’re a butthole.”

“Jack’s a hemorrhoid.”

“Is that like a zit?”

“Yes. Only browner. And when you squeeze it you don’t get cream cheese, you get fudge.”

“I’m confused.”

“So am I,” I said. I set the concealer aside, fluffed my hair, made a Brad Pitt face, which never works out for me, and asked, “So how do I look?”

“Good enough to eat.” Timmy said. Then he thought that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard so he started howling with laughter. Four-year-olds! He had no sooner started laughing than he clutched his head and screamed, “Oww! Oww! Oww!” all the while making a “brain freeze” face because he had bitten off a really big chunk of Popsicle while he was laughing and the nerves in his teeth had gone into supersensitive hyperdrive. Poor kid. I hate that too.

As soon as he stopped screaming and squeezing his head, I asked, “You ready for bed?”

“No. I gotta poop.”

“Oh, good grief. Well, poop, then.”
It’ll probably be blue,
I thought.

“You mean now? With you standing there watching?”

“I’ll leave.”

“Okay. Here. Take my Popsicle stick with you.”

“You want me to throw it away?”

“No. I want it back.”

“There’s nothing on it. It’s an empty stick.”

“It’s still got juice in it.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

He stuck his little fists on his hips and glared at me.

I rolled my eyes so far up into my head I could see the roots of my hair dangling down on the inside of my skull.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll guard it with my life. Maybe I’ll even take out an insurance policy on it. Just poop already.”

“Not ’til you get out.”

“I’m going, I’m going.” God, that kid was a pain in the ass.

I scooped Thumper off the floor, tucked her under my arm like a football, slammed the bathroom door behind me, and headed for my room to dress. Sam’s bedroom door was closed, and I could hear him muttering into the phone, probably concerning that business he was taking care of for his father. I stopped for a second and leaned in to listen. Then I realized what I was doing and mentally slapped myself and kept walking. The last thing I needed was for Sam to step into the hall and catch me trying to eavesdrop on his telephone conversation. That would most assuredly put a crimp in my plans for the evening.

I laid Thumper on my bed while I dressed, and I swear she never woke up once. I actually stood frozen for a moment, head cocked to the side, naked as a jaybird, towel in hand, watching her to make sure she was still breathing.

When I was convinced she was yet among the living, I threw on a pair of sexy new lounging shorts I’d bought a while back and a T-shirt that didn’t look too beat up and headed down to the kitchen for a beer. I’ve never seen a seduction yet that didn’t go more smoothly with a little alcohol to help grease it along.

I was halfway through my first beer, sitting at the kitchen table, wishing Sam would come downstairs, when Timmy rejoined me. Thumper was dragging along at his heels once again. She looked like she could barely stay awake, but still, she was determined to keep an eye on her charge. She had so many breeds coursing through her veins, her blood was little more than jambalaya. Who knew a mutt like that could be so conscientious?

“Did you clean yourself?” I asked, because I thought I should.

Timmy groaned and covered his eyes, mortified by my callous insensitivity. “Yes.”

“Did you wash up
after
you cleaned yourself?”

He groaned again. “Yes.”

“Then why is your hand still blue?”

“I only washed the other one. That’s my toilet paper hand. That’s the one I used. This is my Popsicle hand. What’s the point of washing
it
?”

“How could you possibly wash one hand and not the other?”

“You writing a book?”

That was such an outrageous response for a four-year-old that I burst out laughing. “Do you want your stick back?”

“What stick?”

Good. He’d forgotten about it. “Never mind.” I glanced at the doorway behind him. “Did you see Sam?”

“He’s in the other bathroom taking a shower. You combed your hair.”

“Thanks for noticing. Yes.”

“I’ve never seen it combed before.”

“Shut up.”

I did my uncle-y duties and wet a cloth in the sink. Then while Timmy was squirming around like a worm on a hook and doing a desperate little tap dance, trying to get away from me, I washed the blue Popsicle juice off his hand and face. Then I washed the other hand for good measure. I thought about washing another one of his body parts, the one that doesn’t get a whole lot of sunshine, then decided to trust the kid that he’d done the job properly. I was pretty sure it took a closer relative than an uncle to tackle
that
job anyway.

“There,” I said, drying him off with a dishtowel. “Much better. Now you can go to bed.”

If looks could kill, I’d be dead and Timmy would be in jail for murder. Then his hateful glare turned blatantly shifty. Timmy would suck at poker. His face was an open book, all too easily read.

“What day is this?” he asked, apropos of nothing, faking a whistle, and scanning the ceiling like he was looking for pigeons.

“Thursday,” I said.

He tried to snap his fingers as if he’d just remembered something, but of course, he was too young to make his snapper work. He didn’t let it stop him from lying through his baby teeth however. “Mommy lets me stay up all night on Thursdays. I forgot to tell you. No kidding. She really does.”

“Jesus, kid, how stupid do you think I am? Just go to bed.”

Timmy glowered, pouted, and grumped. Then he got that shifty look again.

“You just wanna be alone with Uncle Sam. You’re gonna kiss him.”

The kid was way too smart for his own good. I plunked my beer bottle down on the table, scooped him up in one arm and Thumper in the other, and hauled them both through the house and up the stairs. By the time we got to the second floor, Timmy was giggling and Thumper was wagging her tail because Timmy was giggling.