Spirit (11 page)

As I opened Timmy’s bedroom door, Sam stepped from the bathroom a little farther down the hall with a towel wrapped around his waist. He was all sparkly clean from the shower. There was a delightful bulge in the front of his towel that swayed quite fetchingly as he walked. Jeez, I wondered what
that
was.

“You’re in trouble,” Timmy told him with a snicker.

And much to my amazement, Sam blushed. His eyes met mine, and he smiled.

“I don’t mind a little trouble now and then,” he said.

Boy, did I like the way he said those words.

I had Timmy and Thumper tucked into bed so fast neither of them quite knew what had happened. I was back downstairs polishing off my beer when Sam strode into the kitchen to join me. He was wearing his same yellow boxers with the roosters all over them. That’s when I realized those were probably his sleeping shorts. And how sexy was that? He was also wearing a muscle shirt that was so wrinkled it looked like it had been chewed on by a goat. Hell, on Sam even
that
was sexy.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

“Of course not.” I grabbed a beer from the fridge and handed it to him. Again, we sat at the kitchen table, slurping our brews and winding down from the day. Even men in their prime, like Sam and I, were grateful for a little relaxation after a day of chasing a four-year-old around. It’s hard work. It really is.

“No ghost again today,” Sam said, sighing happily with his first sip of beer.

“Yeah,” I answered. “Maybe our butchliness scared him off.”

Sam smiled while shaking his head. “I still think he’s here.”

“So do I.”

Sam rolled the beer bottle across his forehead. It was another hot evening. “Timmy never has mentioned what happened the other night. It’s like he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m not even sure he remembers,” I said.

“Well, until he opens up on the subject, I guess we can never be sure. I sure would like to know what he was thinking when he was standing in front of that basement door while the hound of hell was howling on the other side.”

We both turned to stare past the stove and the refrigerator to where we could see the service porch and the door on the opposite wall of it that led to the basement. When it didn’t burst open, or blow up, or set itself on fire, or levitate up to the ceiling after ripping itself off its hinges, we turned back to consider each other instead.

We sipped at our beers as a comfortable silence fell over the kitchen. It reinforced my contention that my kitchen was the homiest room in the house. Even Sam seemed to think so.

And speaking of Sam, I have no idea what he was actually thinking, but
my
mind was positively teeming with sexual imaginings. Some stunning pictures were flashing through my head. Me naked. Sam naked. One body part bumping another body part. Juices flowing. Lips smacking. Sam’s rooster shorts hanging on a floor lamp, where I’d thrown them.

I quickly grabbed us two more beers because I knew if I waited another minute I’d have a full-fledged hard-on and then I’d never be able to walk to the fridge without looking like a horny slut.

Sam tilted his chair onto its back legs again and rocked it back and forth, lacing his fingers behind his head. He seemed to enjoy doing that. And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t much mind it either because it gave me a glorious view of his fuzzy armpits and luscious biceps.

I love fuzzy armpits and luscious biceps.

I was just building up my courage to reach across the kitchen table and run my fingers through the foliage in either one or both of those lovely armpits when the phone rang.

This might be a good time to mention that I hate Alexander Graham Bell.

At the sound of the ringing phone, a look of consternation flashed across Sam’s face, which I thought was odd. I reached over to snag my cell phone off the kitchen counter behind me, just as he said, “Don’t answer it.”

I scoffed, figuring he was kidding.

His chair legs crashed to the floor, and he reached across the table to sort of make a half-assed attempt to grab the phone out of my hand. It took me by surprise. “What the fu—”

“Please. Don’t answer it.”

There was a look of desperation on Sam’s face that stopped me cold.

Knowing he had my undivided attention, and probably knowing he was pissing me off as well, he tried one last time. “If it’s your sister, don’t tell her I’m here. Please. I’ll explain later.”

I blinked a few times, staring at him. Half in a fog and pretty much witless with confusion, I yanked away from his grasp, thumbed the receive button, and said, “Hello?”

And damned if it wasn’t Sally.

“How’s the brat?” she asked, almost yelling. I could hear the roar of traffic and a cacophony of car horns in the background. I imagined her standing smack in the middle of Times Square, dodging a bus.

“Uh, he’s good. Sleeping. You don’t want me to go get him, do you?” I was still giving Sam a suspicious look, like “what the hell is wrong with you?”

Sally laughed over the phone. “I recognize that note of panic in your voice thinking I might ask you to wake the kid up. Heck no, don’t wake him up! When that boy wants to sleep, let him! The world is a quieter place when he’s out like a light. So, everything’s okay?”

“Uh, well, yeah. Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?” I couldn’t take my eyes off Sam’s face. Now he had his finger up to his lips going, “Shhhhh.”

I covered the cell phone with the palm of my hand and hissed, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell her you’re here. But the minute she hangs up, I want you to explain to me why not.”

“Who’s there?” Sally asked. “Sounds like you’re hissing at somebody.”

I coughed up a fake laugh. “Just the dog. So—how’s your trip?” For some reason I couldn’t take my eyes off Sam’s face. He still looked nervous that I would rat him out. “Gee whiz, got any trust issues?”
I wanted to say. But I finally directed my comment to Sally instead. “Dickhead still with you?”

“No. I dumped him for a homeless New Yorker. Of course he’s still with me. When are you two going to start getting along?”

“Never.”

“That’s what I thought. Um, is Timmy giving you any trouble?”

“Constantly.”

“That’s what I thought too.”

Sam’s gorgeous eyeballs were burning holes through me. He was tensed, leaning forward, watching me like he still didn’t trust me to keep my mouth shut about his presence. It was starting to annoy the crap out of me. Except for the eyes, of course. God, they were sexy.

“Well, I won’t keep you,” Sally said. “We just got out of the theater, and now we’re off to grab a bite to eat. Just wanted to check in.”

“What did you see?”

“
Kinky Boots.
”

“Oh,” I droned. “There’s drag queens in that. Must have been Jack’s idea.”

“Hmm,” Sally hummed. “As a matter of fact, it was. That
is
a bit suspicious,
isn’t
it?” I heard her snicker.

Sam laid his hand over my beer hand, which was flopped on the table. When my beer bottle got in his way, he plucked it from my grasp and set it aside. Then he covered my hand again with his. He didn’t seem quite as fearful now that I would spill the beans about him being there, but he still didn’t look like he trusted me much. All I wanted to do was end the conversation with my sister so I could find out what this was all about.

“Well, Sal, enjoy your dinner. Tell Peckerhead I said hello. Or don’t. I don’t care. Don’t worry about Timmy. We’re getting along great. Oh, and next time you call, maybe I’ll have some news for you about the house.” What’s the point of having your very own ghost if you can’t brag about it?

Apparently, Sally was barely listening to me anyway. Or maybe her phone was conking out.

“I didn’t catch that,” she said. “But I’ll call you back in a few days and we’ll have a nice chat. Kiss the brat for me. And if you have to tie him up, don’t leave any ligature marks. The people from protective services get all snooty about that.”

I figured that was probably a joke, so I laughed. Didn’t know what else to do.

Sally’s voice was growing distorted, squelchy. “Jason? Are you still there? I think you’d better recharge your phone. I think you—”

A horrible screeching erupted through the receiver. It was mind-numbingly loud. I flinched away from the sound, holding the phone at arm’s length just to get it away from my ear. Sam could hear it too. I could tell by the way he jumped. Startled, he stumbled to his feet, and his chair tipped over with a crash.

“Holy shit!” he sputtered, scrunching up his face and poking his fingers in his ears.

Unbelievably, the screeching from the cell phone grew even louder. I could feel goose bumps popping up all over my body, from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. The noise was like electronically magnified fingernails scraping across an amplified blackboard. My teeth were starting to hurt from grinding them together, the sound was so loud. I jumped to my feet as Sam had done and tossed the phone into the little wastebasket by the sink because I didn’t know what else to do with it. All I knew was I had to get away from that god-awful noise. I grabbed the dish towel and for lack of a better idea, threw that over the damn thing, hoping to mute the sound a little more.

It didn’t work. In fact, the cell phone screamed and wailed all the louder. The wastebasket bounced and rattled against the floor like one of those windup toys that clatter and buzz and jump around. The wastebasket was plastic, and as I watched, a crack split the side of it with a loud
snap!

Sam and I jumped straight up into the air when Timmy spoke from behind us. His voice was calm, almost eerie. When I spun his way, I saw that his face was even calmer and eerier than his voice.
Where had he come from?

“Hang up the phone,” the boy said quietly. “He doesn’t like her voice. It’s making him mad.”

“Who?” Sam asked. “Making
who
mad?”

But Timmy didn’t answer. He merely stood there with his butchered hair and his rocket-ship pajamas, rubbing his eyes, staring back, looking cuter than hell and half-asleep. And calm. He was the only one in the room who wasn’t freaking out completely.

I gawked at the boy, then I swung my eyes back to the wastebasket. The noise was so loud now that Sam and I both had our hands clamped over our ears trying to shut it out. The only person that horrible screaming sound didn’t seem to bother was Timmy. In fact, I wasn’t sure if he could hear it at all. He certainly gave no indication he could.

Then another eerie caterwauling erupted in the hallway behind Timmy. Sam and I jumped
again
. This time it was Thumper, howling to the heavens. The sound emanating from the cell phone must have hurt her ears. God knows it was hurting mine.

Another
snap
cracked through the kitchen. I turned and saw the little clock built into the top of the stove burst into fragments. Shards of glass flew out across the room, making us duck. One of the flying shards struck my arm like a tiny arrow. I looked down, amazed, and plucked the needle of glass from my forearm.

“Ouch,” I said, as sort of an afterthought. Things were happening too fast for me to keep up. Even pain had a three-second delay before it registered.

“Break it,” Timmy said, his voice still calm, his eyes still hooded, unconcerned, unfazed by everything going on around him. He looked drugged. “Break the phone before it’s too late.”

“Why?” I yelled. “What’s it going to do?”

Timmy ignored me. Sam didn’t. He nudged me out of the way and kicked the wastebasket over with his foot. The screaming cell phone slid across the floor and banged to a stop against the wall. It screamed all the louder without the dish towel to mute the sound. His hands still to his ears, Sam stuttered, “Sorry, Jason,” then strode across the kitchen and slammed his bare heel down on my cell phone with a crash. Little bits of plastic and metal flew out in every direction to mix with the shards of glass from the stove.

The silence was so immediate and so profound, I found myself reaching out to grab the back of the chair before I toppled over in surprise.

Out in the hall, Thumper’s howling continued on for about five thudding heartbeats; then she too fell silent.

I looked down at my arm. It was bleeding.

Sam was looking at the bottom of his foot. That was bleeding too.

“Jesus Christ,” Sam breathed, turning back to me, studying the shock on my face. “What the fuck was
that
?”

Slowly, Sam and I turned to Timmy. We watched, still stunned, as his eyes fluttered closed and he began to sway on his feet.

I caught him just before he hit the floor.

“Look,” Sam said behind me.

I turned with Timmy in my arms, cradling him, worried he had passed out.
Why would he pass out?

Thumper was charging across the kitchen floor on her arthritic little legs, her tiny toenails tapping and clattering on the tiles like castanets. She exited through the other door, running so fast that when she swerved to make a turn she lost her footing and almost fell on her side. She awkwardly regained her balance and slid to a stop in front of the basement door. She stood in front of it, trembling, teeth bared, a menacing growl stuttering in her throat. The hair on her back was standing straight up. It was like a rerun of the other night.

My eyes pivoted to Sam, just as his eyes swung to me.

“What have you got in your basement?” Sam asked. “What the fuck is
down
there?”

All I could do was shrug. I lifted Timmy and held him close, looking down at his face.

He was sound asleep.

Sam and I directed our eyes back to the basement door.

S
AM
DABBED
my cut with peroxide, then wiped it dry with a tissue. He blew on the wound for a moment to dry it even better before attempting to slip on a Band-Aid. That simple act of blowing his sweet breath across my skin, rustling the hair on my arm, making my skin shiver and my dick twitch with the intimacy of the act, was enough to make me want him right then and there, even after everything we’d just gone through. Not only was I a slut, but I was a slut with incredibly poor timing.