Ascension by Bailey Bradford (desktop ebook reader txt) 📕

“Rich is fine, and he won’t go home,” Sev said as he walked into the office. He closed the door. “He doesn’t, however, want to hear a spirit speaking after his previous encounters with them, so he is manning the front desk for a while.”

“I didn’t mean to scare him. I thought he was you or Laine,” Ro explained. “I was startled when it wasn’t.”

Sev looked around the office, and Ro saw it then, the age that had crept up on Sev over the years. He guessed it’d been so subtle that he hadn’t realized how the years had affected Sev. On Laine, it was even less noticeable because he tended to be stern-looking, with weathered features by the time Ro had met him. But Laine’s hair had once been dark, and was now almost entirely a steel-gray color, and the lines he had were etched deeper into his skin. It saddened Ro and he shared Conner’s fears for his uncles.

He realized he’d been wool-gathering while everyone else had been talking. He tuned back in, listening as Sev explained how Ro seemed to have the reverse psychic abilities of his.

“That’s messed up,” Ro mumbled. “Yours you could at least use while you were alive.”

Sev canted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Well, but I have to wonder. How different is it being a spirit, really? Y’all get your feelings hurt, experience the same emotions and shit that we do. You feel lust—and please, don’t even try to tell me you and Conner aren’t going at it like bunnies. Conner broadcasts accidentally sometimes, and do you have any idea what it’s like to be talking to a funeral director and have someone slam their orgasm into your head?”

“Oops,” Conner whispered.

Sev glared daggers at him. “Oops, my ass. I walked out of there with a freakin’ erection, and that was beyond disturbing.”

“I’d be offended but I get what he means, even if I didn’t hear exactly what he said just now,” Laine said as he hooked an arm around Sev’s hips. “Sev felt what Conner felt, and that wasn’t something he could control.”

“I didn’t know.” Conner didn’t look overly sorry, though. “I wouldn’t have invaded your privacy like that, and I wasn’t trying to brag or anything. Ro just blew my mind.”

“Don’t say it,” Sev warned.

Conner grinned. “And the rest of me, yeah, I won’t name the part but—”

“Conner!”

“Fine, fine, Sev, chill.” Conner dropped the subject easily and was all seriousness again. “The thing about what you can do, Ro, is that it’s probably more important than what Sev can do. If other spirits find out, they’ll be buzzing you to pass on messages and what have you. You won’t have a moment’s peace.”

Ro noticed Sev gaping at Conner before he turned to explain to Laine what Conner had said. Ro frowned at them in return. Didn’t they realize that Conner was pretty damned smart? Had they forgotten how he’d helped them catch killers and solve cases? Probably, he thought. Who liked to remember the bad things that happened? It was easier to focus on things like pranks and jokes.

Sev finally spoke, his voice not hiding his surprise. “Conner’s right. I’ve had spirits hunt me down to reach the living for them, but it’s really hard for most of them to clarify what they want me to do or say. With Ro, they wouldn’t have a problem, not if he can be heard as clearly as we hear him.”

“What do you mean?” Ro asked.

Sev twirled a finger around, pointing at them. “We’ve all had some kind of brush with death, and—or—spirits. Rich, too. Maybe that has something to do with why we can hear you. I don’t know, though. It’s just a theory, and I kind of don’t believe it even if I did share it.”

Conner’s gleeful expression returned. “That’d be easy enough to check out. All you have to do is pop out and say ‘boo’ to the first stranger you see. I wish I could do that. Man, I’d have a ball!”

“So it’s a good thing you can’t do it,” Sev told him. “Ro, why don’t we go to the city park, and you can try it? I’ll be close by, so that if whoever you choose to speak to hears you and freaks, we’ll just say it was me.”

Laine settled his Stetson lower on his brow and took Sev’s hand in his. “Why not just go for a stroll and have Ro say ‘hi’ to people, and if they respond, Sev, you just nod like it was you who said it. Might spare someone a heart attack.”

“You take all the fun out of everything,” Conner muttered. “Not that I want anyone to keel over, but a yelp or two would be funny.”

“Conner’s bitching, ain’t he?” Laine asked.

Conner slapped a hand over his heart. “He knows me too well.”

“He’s hamming it up,” Sev told Laine. “Okay, let’s do this, if you’re game, Ro?”

“Why not?” Ro couldn’t help but notice that Rich seemed to look right at him as they passed him by. It was unnerving, and he was sorry for freaking the guy out.

Outside, the sun was bright and hot—well, he’d bet it was hot. He didn’t feel it any more than he felt the wind blowing through him. He did, however, feel Conner’s hand in his as they moved along.

As soon as they reached the small park with the walking trail, Ro looked for people he didn’t know. It was hard because McKinton was a small town, and he’d lived there for years. Most of the people had eaten at Virginia’s Café at one time or another. That didn’t mean he’d served them, but he had certainly waited on a lot of them. Still, he saw a few people he didn’t think he’d ever talked to, and when he spoke to the first one, the old man answered right back. Sev’s eyes went wide but he talked to