When the Dead Speak, Bailey Bradford [new ebook reader .TXT] 📗

“So who’s Conner?”

He hadn’t expected that. “Uh. I don’t know if it’s really my place to say…”

“Why not? Is he a ghost or something? Zeke told me Laine was worried he was going crazy because he’s been having some paranormal fun. I know the first time I had a run in with Zeke’s mama, I nearly had a heart attack.” Brendon laughed and shook his head. “There I was, standing naked as the day I was born in the hallway outside of Zeke’s room. We’d just…uh.” Brendon’s whole face turned red.

“I think I can figure it out, you being naked and all, but why were you out in the hall?” There was a story there, if Sev could draw it out.

“Well”—Brendon flashed a grin at Sev, a dimple in one cheek winking—“what can I say? Zeke’s sister Enessa and my cousin Gloria had been priming me to meet Zeke for weeks, sending me pictures, telling me about this gorgeous man. By the time I actually met him, my inner slut took over. Worked out great, though. But, he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of me hanging around McKinton. He’d been assaulted years before and had numerous run-ins with his bitch of a sister—not Enessa, his older sister Eva. Anyway, he kind of got upset when I told him I was staying for the summer at the very least, and stomped off to his room, all self-righteous and snarly. It was kind of cute…” Brendon paused, thinking it over. “Okay, maybe not right then. So I was trying to figure out what to do when this scent appeared, then something nudged my shoulder. I couldn’t get into Zeke’s room soon enough, let me tell you!”

Sev gave Brendon a minute to make sure he was done talking. When nothing else was said, he figured it was safe to speak.

“So you and Zeke don’t have a problem believing in ghosts, then?”

Brendon laughed so hard he had to wipe his eyes. “I wouldn’t say we have a problem believing in them at all, but I sure have a problem with when his mama pops in, like when I’m in the buff or when we’re…you know.”

Sev felt his eyebrows creeping up his forehead. “When you’re… You mean she’s been there when you two…when you have sex?” Suddenly, Sev’s mortification at being carried and wearing only a T-shirt didn’t seem half so bad. The idea of anyone’s mom popping in while he was fucking was enough to make him swear off sex. Almost.

“We’d just finished, actually, but were still, uhm, engaged, if you will.”

“Shit! I can just hear them, you know, like a buzzing in my head at first unless I push them out. I can’t imagine what my lover’s mom would have to say if…” The very thought had him shaking off the hinky feeling. “God, that’s messed up.”

Brendon turned down a dirt road and winked at Sev. “Yeah. I didn’t handle it well, but you hear them? That I couldn’t handle at all.”

“You learn to cope, build up a wall in your mind to keep them out for the most part. Some are too insistent—if that’s the case, you need to listen. When the dead speak, whether you want to or not, you need to hear what they have to say—again, if they won’t leave you alone. It’s almost always something of major importance, a message that needs to be passed along or something like that.” Listening to the dead had become Sev’s livelihood, a point that wasn’t lost on him.

What Sev had mistaken for a dirt road was actually a very long driveway that led to the home Brendon shared with his lover. The wraparound porch had a pair of rocking chairs on it, and Sev could just picture him and Laine sitting on a similar porch at the end of the day, sharing details of their jobs and teasing each other. That fantasy snapped Sev back to reality. He had no right to expect anything permanent from Laine, and even less of a right thinking of himself as someone who could stay around. He’d never tried to stay in one place, but then again, he reasoned, he’d never had any incentive to, either. Laine Stenley was one hell of an incentive.

“So, this is home sweet home.” Brendon’s dimple flashed as he got out of the truck.

Sev groaned, dreading the moment when his feet would hit the ground. Brendon was standing in front of him, arms out.

“I’ll walk, thanks.” A man had to have some pride, didn’t he?

“Yeah, because pushing whatever’s stuck in your feet in deeper is so much better than swallowing your pride. Think of how much worse it’s gonna hurt when I have to dig around with the tweezers…”

“God damn it.” Pride was overrated sometimes, anyway, and Sev wasn’t a pain slut. In fact, he knew there was a good chance he might scream if Brendon had to jab him too much. “Fine. Whatever.”

To Brendon’s credit and Sev’s unspoken gratitude, Brendon didn’t laugh or so much as smirk as he swept Sev into his arms.

“Huh.” Brendon grunted as he carried Sev up the porch steps. “You’re heavier than you look. I would have put you at one thirty-at the most.”

“One forty, the extra ten pounds is—” Sev gasped as Brendon let him drop a couple of inches. “I was going to say it was all muscle! Perv.”

“And I bet I know just which muscle you were going to claim it was.” They looked at each other and laughed, which Sev really appreciated later, when he was sitting on the bathroom countertop getting thorns plucked out of his feet. He hadn’t yelled yet, but there had been some groaning and a lot of sweating.

“Geez, man, aren’t you done yet?”

“Well, if you’d have thought to grab some shoes after the mysterious Conner tipped you off, we wouldn’t be doing this, would we?” The tweezers pinched and Sev nearly kicked Brendon in the head. On accident, he claimed, though the