Connection - Part Thirteen
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here. This episode contains mature content.
In the quiet, peaceful night that’s fallen, our house sits wrapped up in a blanket of velvet darkness. The malachite tree is chiming in the breeze. The sky is a dusty purple, the meadows are silver with moonlight, and our windows glow with pure gold.
Some of it is coming from the flames in the corner stove. Some of it is coming from the glowing Heliomancer.
I can tell myself whatever I want about how I won’t be bossed around. The fact is that it’s different when Aiden does it.
The ruby flowers took me longer than I expected to deal with. We had such a rich outburst of blossoms that I decided to make some quick bunches of them and hand them off to be appreciated elsewhere. Ketterbridge is such a small town that I knew it wouldn’t take me all that long to deliver them, and Aiden was busy helping his aunt anyways. I still got home before him.
As soon as I did, I got back into our bed to wait for him. Just like he told me to. So much for not being bossed around.
On an impulse I got back out of bed to strip off all of my clothes. I laid myself out across the comforter, on my stomach, wearing only the malachite necklace and the heist ring. My head resting on my folded arms. My wandering mind full of him.
My thoughts drifted back to one of our earliest times together. We were in his attic apartment, a few days after that first night in the loft of the Ghost Office. He was sitting up in the bed, and I was straddling him, my hands holding his jaw open. Completely lost in how good it felt to kiss him, to finally let my hand slide down and play between his legs. He was holding perfectly still, one hand softly resting on my back, his lips parted to let mine do whatever they wanted. His breaths swelling his bare chest, which was burning hot against my fingertips as I ran them lightly across his skin.
I remember how, when I climbed off of him to tug down his jeans and drop my head between his thighs, he let out that huge, shuddering sigh. How his eyes fell closed and his head fell back, and how he lifted it again to watch me for a minute before he sank down onto his back on the covers. I remember the little twitches of his eyelids, the fluttering of his dark lashes.
He didn’t know what to do with his hands. First he brought one arm across his hard-breathing chest, put his hand over his heart while he watched me. Then his elbows fell open as he dropped his head back again, and his hands curled into fists on the bed by his shoulders, a situation which showed off his biceps so temptingly that I had to stop and stare.
While I was staring, he seemed to remember all at once that he could put his fingers in my hair. The instant he did, there they were, clutching eagerly at me. Then there was that soft moan he let out as I went back to what I was doing, and the way his hips did an involuntary roll towards my mouth, and how he panted, in a voice tight with pleasure, oh, man, that’s so good…
It all played out again in my mind as I fell asleep in our bed, waiting for him to come home.
I dreamt of him. Maybe because I was breathing in the perfect fragrance of the remaining ruby tree flowers. To me, their perfume is all vetiver, aged paper, the salt sweat and damp grass after an early morning jog. All Aiden.
Whatever the cause, I had dreams that got me so worked up and turned on that I startled myself awake, panting with desire.
I opened my eyes, and there he was. He must have entered the room so softly that I didn’t hear him. He was standing motionless before the bed, just looking at me.
His cheeks were blazing, his eyes two shimmering pools of pure blue heat. His lips were slightly parted, because even though he was standing still he was all out of breath.
I understood completely. I was aching for him so badly that I felt like I would die. I wasn’t even surprised when he suddenly dove for me. I just threw my arms open for him. An overwhelming storm of immense love and passion swept across my heart, blazing trails of white fire through my whole body.
It shows no signs of letting up. If anything it’s growing, drawing me deeper into the trance, melting me helplessly…
“Aiden,” I whimper, barely able to form my gasping words. Every move he makes sends my heart somersaulting, forces another panted, ragged breath out of me, threatens to make me moan. Although really it’s not him moving. He’s moving me, using his grasp on my hips. “I – I – can’t help it-”
He stops immediately, making me let out a breathless wail of protest.
“Not yet,” he pants, his deep, soft voice rumbling through me. “Hold off a little longer, baby, I need more… you don’t know how good you feel…”
I bite my lips, trembling in his lap. My breath catches as he puts one hand around my throat, uses it to tilt my head all the way back onto his shoulder, and begins slowly kissing my neck.
My crimson cheeks somehow manage to grow even darker. You would think someone was watching us, the way he’s putting me on display.
“Who are you – showing me off to?” I stammer, laughing a little.
He nods past me, letting me lift my head so I can see.
“Myself,” he answers, his deep voice dropped to a low, husky purr.
I stare into the mirror across from us with wide eyes. It reflects us back as we are. Aiden sitting at the end of the bed, one forearm pressed across my chest to hold me in place, the fingers of his other hand playing slowly down my lower stomach. And me, balanced on my parted knees over him, arching back into his lap. Clutching tightly to his arm as I pant for each deep, ragged breath. Fighting to hold still, my cheeks practically smoldering.
“Look at you, pretty boy,” Aiden pants hungrily in my ear, but I’m looking at him.
My hazy eyes drink in the sight, a cascade of overwhelming fire rushing through my heart. He looks so good like this, his velvet-soft bronze skin radiating golden light, his cheeks dark with the hottest blush imaginable. His eyes are glazed over with heat and lust, entranced and frenzied at the same time. Beautiful soft chestnut tumbles, beautiful hands on my body, beautiful thighs holding mine apart.
Watching my expression, he starts fondling me with his free hand, letting it go to any sensitive place it wants, do any rough, teasing thing it wants. His other hand stays where it is, keeping me firmly pinned down to his lap.
I can’t help myself. I buck a little in response, my breath hitching in my throat. Aiden groans softly, and a snap of Heliomancer lightning sparks down our bodies. I’ve lost count of how many of those I’ve seen tonight. Half the time my dazed mind assumes that they came from me, instead of him. They do tend to appear when both of us are shuddering and gasping, clinging tightly to each other, struggling to bear up under pleasure like this.
I drop my head back. My stubble beard brushes against Aiden’s as I look over my shoulder, bringing my lips to his lips. The feverish heat of his cheeks is intense enough to burn against my own as we sink into a deep, hungry kiss. Now our mouths and bodies are both fused, two into one. I make the kiss even deeper, trembling on him, unable to help it.
Aiden draws an audible breath, then lets it out heavily against my lips. His brows draw together, his grip on me tightening. He’s been trying to hold both of us still, but he’s betraying signs of losing control. He wraps an arm around my waist and starts working my hips again, and his, too, rolling up to meet me as he pulls me down. Only allowing us the barest, most subtle of rocking movements, like we’re trying to get away with this in public.
Even that is almost too much. My toes curl in the bedding, and I flinch with my whole face, struggling to breathe. Mounting spasms come from this rising pleasure, which rushes to climb up higher in my chest with every passing second.
I break my lips break away from Aiden’s and let out an anguished, half-moaned whisper, a burst of incoherent curses tangled up with his name. Driven wild with desire, I dig my fingertips deep into his forearm, pushing myself back and rubbing myself against him in desperation.
Aiden loses grasp on his self-control. He raises me almost all the way up, then wrenches me back down in one swift, hard, rough movement. Such a rush of agonizing pleasure is instantly shot through me that my head snaps all the way back, then falls forward to hang limply over his forearm, which my fingers are clutching at desperately. I don’t even know what sound I let out, but I’m sharply aware of the tight, jagged exhale Aiden just let out into my ear. A dart of golden light flashes across my hazy, intoxicated vision. Another bolt of Heliomancer lightning. It snaps down our intertwined, hard-breathing bodies, followed swiftly by another.
With a deep, choked curse, Aiden completely abandons the struggle to hold still. Whimpering moans start spilling from my lips, forced from me as he rocks me up and down on his lap with fast, ferocious, relentless hunger.
All I can do through the delirium is hold onto him and arch myself back for more, in total, adoring compliance. Aiden eagerly takes advantage of it, more uninhibited, more guided purely by his desire each passing second. My eyes find the expression on his face in the mirror, and just like that I’m right on the brink again, all ready to let myself be pushed over. My body tenses, my grip on Aiden growing even tighter, my moans turning to rising cries.
A gasp of surprise escapes me as Aiden suddenly turns us both over. One swift jerk of his powerful arms, and I’m sprawled on my stomach on the bed, and Aiden is up on his knees behind me. He positions me up on my knees, too, brings us back together with a sigh of satisfaction, then catches my wrists in his hands and takes them. I’m forced to balance myself on the cheek I have pressed against the bedding, and the front of my shoulders, and my chest.
I let out a stifled moan into the sheets as Aiden begins to move again, using his grasp on my wrists to hold me in place. I was afraid he was going to slow us all the way back down – at which point I would have started begging – but he can’t hold back any longer. He takes me with the signature wild hunger that I never imagined before him. I let him, amazed all over again to find a matching share of hunger in myself.
He releases my wrists and falls onto his elbows over me, sinking me down flat into the bed. I spread my thighs wider, lifting my hips for him. He moans, starts moving faster. Both of us are shuddering, and hoarse cries are rising up from my throat again. The pleasure is so intense that I can barely take it. I’m helpless to do anything, melted in ecstasy, dazed by each new crescendo of pleasure I’m flying to. Each one overtakes the one before, builds on it, and leaps higher. My breaths are stumbling over each other, my body tensing and tensing.
Aiden starts spilling words in my ear. Rough, choked words, broken up with short, gasping breaths. Ones that make my already flaming cheeks blaze up to fever heights. I open my eyes to look over my shoulder at him, and find his bare, straining body sparkling with golden lightning.
That’s all I have time to see before the building wave suddenly overcomes me, so powerfully that I know I’m being swept away, and all I have time to do is gasp –
“Oh, god, oh f-fuck – Aiden-”
He sinks a kiss into my neck, and lifts me up into heaven.
A lightning strike of unthinkable, wrenching pleasure hits me. My head snaps backwards again, a broken, shattered cry tearing itself from my lips. I’d be writhing if he didn’t have me pinned down, forcing me to keep it to shuddering convulsions and incoherent, wailing whimpers of ecstasy.
Feeling that, hearing that, Aiden lets out a sharp hiss through his teeth. His body begins shaking. He hadn’t let up for me – only slowed down – but now he picks up frantic speed and urgency. Without warning, he shoves one of my knees up higher on the bed, sinks himself down even more deeply – forcing another gasping cry out of me – and lets out a long, stuttering moan of his own.
Swearing softly and breathlessly, he rocks me into the bed three more times, hard and slow. Each time making both of us groan again, making my ragdolled body give a jolt.
Silence and stillness falls. Broken only by the sound of us panting, and the muffled snap of the Heliomancer lightning flaring its brightest before vanishing.
Aiden slowly rolls off of me, then collapses beside me. We both lay there panting softly.
“Man, Keane,” Aiden murmurs after some time, sounding shell-shocked.
I know exactly what he means. I still can’t even speak. My body is humming, dazed, still on fire. The kind of pleasure Aiden gives me is so, so wildly far beyond all reasonable expectation. It feels like it comes from a whole different world.
I stretch out motionlessly for a while, too wrecked to do anything, then eventually pull myself up onto my knees. I lay out flat on top of Aiden and kiss him, deeply and slowly. Wrapping myself around him like a climbing flower.
He puts his arms around me, kissing me back. I coax his soft, swollen lips further apart, then push my tongue between them as I move to straddle him, feeling that we still have more to do, further to go…
I’m not sure when exactly we both started moaning and slowly grinding ourselves against each other. I’m only consciously aware of it when Aiden suddenly breaks off the kiss and murmurs hopefully -
“Are you up for more?”
“More!” I laugh, incredulous. “How many times can we fit into one night?”
Aiden sits up on his elbows, smiling at me with his heat-hazy blue eyes. “Whatever, man, I’m – I’m having the time of my fuckin’ life, why stop?”
God, me too. And he’s right, why stop? I never want to stop. I wish I could do only this, forever.
I move back, catch hold of his heavy, muscled thighs, and draw them apart. “Your turn again, then.”
“Okay,” he says eagerly, shivering as I draw a teasing fingertip down his sensitive inner thigh.
I press a kiss onto the same place, then straighten up. “Let’s just go back to the shower for a sec.”
We’ve been to the shower once already tonight, and it went much the same way it goes this time. With us eventually locked in a deep, breathless kisses, our bodies tangled together, my back up against the wall. My legs are loosely wrapped around Aiden’s hips, my hands wrapped in his soaked hair. It’s obvious that he’s already fretting to go again.
“I want you so bad,” he sighs in my ear, confirming it.
I take a deep breath of the cold air coming in through the window over the sink, then let out a sudden laugh.
“How can we already be-? Aiden, this is – even for us, this has been one hell of a marathon. It’s been a crazy amount of times, now.” I bite my lips as he begins brushing soft kisses up the curve of my neck. “Why… can’t we… stop?”
“I don’t know,” he says breathlessly, his fingertips stroking the wet skin of my chest as droplets from the shower spill down over my shoulders. “Can’t get enough of you…”
I can’t get enough of him. I’ve been desperate for him all night long, unable to think of anything besides him. My heart is always singing some wild song for Aiden, but tonight it overpowered me and swept me away. I can barely keep my hands off of him, or calm my heart when I look at him. I can barely meet his eyes without being flattened by a raw, crushing wave of desire and adoration and love. Overwhelming, indescribable love.
Even now, I almost can’t take it.
“Oh, god,” I stammer faintly, looking anywhere but at him.
My eyes fall on my inhaler, which is sitting by the sink. Might be a good idea. My breath is coming up a little short, being wrapped in Aiden’s arms like this.
I slip free and step out of the shower to go get it. Aiden stands in the shower and gazes after me, suddenly motionless, his fist curled against the wall. He watches as I use my inhaler a few times, his blue eyes very wide.
I tilt my head to the side inquiringly. Aiden flinches sharply, like I stabbed him, then doubles over.
“Fuck,” he stammers, in an agonized voice. “I love you so much, it’s like – it hurts.”
I let out a helpless laugh, then look down at my inhaler, wondering. The clean, medicated air gave me a few nice deep breaths, and the bedroom haze I’ve been lost in for hours draws back ever so slightly. Just enough for me to wonder if this is normal.
I mean… Aiden and I have gone on ravenous all-night marathons before. But this… this has seriously been on another level. I didn’t know I was physically capable of this much play in one night, or that Aiden was, for that matter, and here we both are jonesing to go again.
“What’s – what’s up with us?” I lift my gaze back to him, tilting my head to the side. “Why can’t we calm down?”
Aiden reaches for my wrist, trying to pull me back into the shower. “Who cares? It’s the best.”
“Wait a second, I – I swear we need to – we need to calm down and think for a second.”
“What?” Aiden groans, with all the surly, petulant indignance of a teenager being informed of a mandatory family gathering. “Why?”
“Just humor me,” I laugh, beckoning to him. “Come on, let’s go outside. It’s cold, that should help us chill out.”
We dry off, then go together downstairs. Twice we get derailed, stopping to breathlessly make out on the couch, then to tease and toy with each other for a minute in the kitchen, but eventually we stumble out into the cold, moonlit garden.
“Let’s just sit down for a minute,” I manage, dropping onto one of the mossy stone benches. “And maybe stop warming us up so much? We need to cool off.”
Aiden drops to sit in the flowers beside me, rests his head on my knees, and murmurs – “It’s not on purpose. Hang on, let me change it into something else.”
There’s a pause, and then the sudden, silent arrival of quite a lot of Heliomancer fireflies. The little dots of gold drift away from us out into the garden, and the toasty heat Aiden was radiating in his happiness grows less intense. The air cools off until I can feel the chilly breeze on my face.
Aiden takes a deep breath of it, then another. “You sure we need to do this, Linden? I had good ideas for when we got back to bed.”
He tilts his head back to look up at me as he says it, and my heart almost pops. He’s as handsome as a man can be, and then somehow more than that. It’s really unfair, at least on my nerves.
I let out a shaky laugh, combing his hair out of his face with my fingers. “Just bear with me for a minute, Sugar Maple.”
We sit there, silent and still, naked together in our dreaming garden. Aiden leans his face into the warmth of my thigh, kissing it gently at first, then gradually stopping. I rest my fingers in his chestnut hair, which is ruffled into complete disorder.
He glows brightly, casting a small pool of golden light around us.
The garden is tranquil and quiet, and so is the secret sacred forest in my heart, my love for Aiden. Earlier it felt like the whole place was in an uproar. The cold air makes me shiver a little, but it feels good. It’s clearing my head.
A few minutes after calm has fully settled over me, Aiden breaks the silence with: “Are you hungry, dude?”
“God, I’m starving,” I realize out loud, then lift my eyebrows, coming to a follow-up realization. “We never ate dinner.”
Aiden lifts his head. We catch each other’s eyes, then blink hard as we take in the sight of each other. Aiden looks like the perfect picture of post-sex exhaustion, his lips puffy from bites and kisses, his eyes heavy-lidded, his shoulders slumped in extreme relaxation. It’s hot on him, but that’s not how he looked just a few minutes ago. He was blazing with energy, raring to go. Not anymore.
I don’t need a mirror to know that I look the same way he does. We stare at each other dazedly, bewildered.
“What happened to us?” Aiden asks, blushing a little. “Why’d we both lose our minds temporarily?”
“Yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t know.”
“Well, we need to find out,” Aiden murmurs, exhausted, drowsily rubbing the side of his nose. “So we can do it again as soon as possible.”
“Okay, but seriously, what happened to us?” I shake my head at Aiden, baffled. “Should we retrace our steps?”
“Alright. One, we came home and put the groceries away. We talked to Kasey and Will for a few minutes.”
“Two, we went upstairs and showered off all the car grime. Three, we got into bed together.”
“Four,” Aiden begins, “The ruby tree-”
He stops right there, opening his eyes very wide. I stare back at him with a matching expression, my fingertips flying up to my lips.
“Oh my god,” I stammer. “The ruby tree blossomed! The flowers, Aiden!”
~~~~
Back upstairs, I push open the door of the bedroom and cautiously peek inside. Aiden leans in after me, and we both stare suspiciously at the ruby tree.
A gentle gust of autumn breeze rolls in through the window, rustling the leaves. I let out a gasp, and Aiden takes a sharp breath. We both just saw that. The cloud of molten-gold pollen that just blew lightly into the air from every blossom that I didn’t cut away.
“Aiden!” I twist to face him, half in disbelief. “We were breathing that in all night, that’s what happened to us!”
“Oh. Okay.” He twists a strand of his glossy chestnut hair between his fingertips. “So – should we breathe in some more, is that what you’re saying?”
“No!” I laugh, swatting his chest. “Aiden, we are gonna hurt ourselves if we keep going, I can’t believe we were about to! We have to get rid of the rest of the flowers, before we get overpowered again!”
Aiden peers at them uncertainly. “Got a way to do that without breathing in more of the dust?”
“You’re the Heliomancer!”
He pauses, then gives his broad shoulders a shrug. “Yeah, okay. No problem. Should be easy, since you already got rid of a lot of them. I’ll just – whoa, what’s the matter, Keane? What’s that face for?”
Very slowly, I lift my thunderstruck eyes to him.
“Aiden… the flowers I cut from the tree… I made them into bunches, and I gave them away. You were taking a while at your aunt’s house, so I drove around, and dropped them off to people… a lot – a lot of different people have these flowers in their house right now. They’ve had them – for as long as we’ve had them.”
Aiden’s eyes grow very wide. “Who did you give them to?”
“Everyone I could get to before I figured you’d be headed home.”
Aiden stares blankly at me, then lifts his gaze to the ruby tree. “Okay… well, it’s only if you breathe it in, right? Maybe no one has. It’s not the windiest night-”
As if specifically to contradict him, a rush of breeze comes in through our branch window, lifting a swirl of glowing pollen from the blossoms into the air.
“Oh, no!” I blurt out, pressing my fingers to my cheeks.
“Oh, my god. Oh, holy shit.” Aiden stands there holding a fistful of his own hair for a second, then strides into our bedroom, frosty blue light leaping into his eyes. “Alright. Flowers, thank you for everything, but take yourselves out to the meadow now, please!”
An accommodating gust of wind flutters across the room in answer, neatly catching the remaining flowers as they suddenly drop from their branches. They dance through the window and out into the night as Aiden snatches his jeans up off of the floor.
I allow myself just a second to be extremely impressed before I rush in after him and seize my clothes.
“You, my sweet cupcake,” Aiden rumbles reprovingly, turning his sweater the right side out, “Have a head full of frosting and nothing else.”
“Look, I didn’t know! How was I supposed to know!”
“We need to get those flowers back before someone hurts themselves. Who’s the closest person you gave them to?”
I hesitate, wincing guiltily like five or six times before I answer. “To – to your aunt…”
Aiden freezes halfway through doing up his belt, then lifts two very round, astonished eyes to me. “My aunt?”
“I didn’t know!”
“Oh, my god. Come on, get your clothes on, let’s go!”
It’s only when we’re pulling up outside of Aunt Sarah’s house that we realize how late it is. Considerably closer to sunrise than midnight. But there’s a faint glow coming from between the closed curtains in the windows of her bedroom. The glowing windows downstairs show that the living room is empty, and she forgot to turn the lights off.
“She’s not going to answer the door at this hour!” I protest, when Aiden presses the doorbell.
“Guardian family, Jamie,” Aiden murmurs, anxiously peering in through the windows. “She’ll at least check to see who’s there, no matter what time it is. I just hope she’s okay, didn’t get overwhelmed or anything.”
There’s a brief silence, broken only by the sounds of the crickets and a distant dog barking. Aiden is about to ring the bell again when the door suddenly sweeps open.
Aiden and I stare up in astonishment at the eyeful of burly muscle, silver chest hair, and Navy tattoos we’re suddenly faced with. In tandem, we slowly lift our eyes to Leo’s face.
He’s wearing only his jeans, and he’s all out of breath, red-cheeked and dazed-looking. He draws back in bewilderment when he sees that it’s us.
“Hey, boys,” he manages, leaning against the doorframe. “Everything alright? Pretty late to come by…”
“Oh – we know, and we’re so sorry!” I manage, pulling myself out of my flustered silence. “It’s just, um – that bouquet I brought by for Aunt Sarah earlier, it turns out the pollen-”
“WHAT’S THAT, SON?” Leo breaks in, cupping a hand around his good ear.
Fighting my hardest not to look wildly around at the dark street his voice just echoed down, honestly just fighting for my life on every front, I stammer: “THE – THE POLLEN!”
“We need the flowers back so we can get rid of them!” Aiden explains, managing to find the correct in-between volume that both Leo and I missed. “Trust me, it’s for your own good.”
“Oh, okay.” Leo glances behind himself, then nods at us. “One second.”
He turns to go back into the house, revealing red stripes of fingernail marks on his back. Aiden and I exchange a very swift look, then hastily face forward again when Leo reappears in the doorway with the bouquet. The stems are dripping water from their vase, which he hasn’t seemed to notice, and some of the pollen has fallen onto his fingers.
“Just wash that off, okay?” Aiden says, pointing to Leo’s hands.
“Sure,” he answers, not really listening, apparently unconcerned with whatever it is that might happen to his hands. “Everything else alright?”
Aiden turns on his heel and rushes down the steps with the flowers. “Yep, bye!”
Leo is already closing the door. I think I hear the sound of him running back upstairs.
Back in the car, we sit in awkward silence for a moment, both of us staring straight ahead.
“Leo is hot,” I finally blurt out. “I’m just gonna say it so we can move past it, because we’re both thinking it. What a silver stag. Good for Aunt Sarah.”
Aiden lets out an anguished groan, burying his face in his hands. “Jesus Christ, Jamie!”
“Anyways, you said you just hoped she’s okay. I’d say she’s more than okay.”
Aiden lifts his glowering eyes to me. “This is the most absurd – this is all your fault!”
“Um! I thought we agreed it was Gage’s fault that we’re dealing with all these flowers! Or maybe it’s your fault, you made that tree! It was all your idea in the first place!”
There’s a brief silence while Aiden considers that, then decides: “Gage’s fault.”
Poor Gage will have to take the blame for now, because we don’t have time to discuss it further. The ghosts we decide to leave with their flowers, since they won’t suffer any mortal side effects. There are others who are considerably more urgent.
“Ralph!” I gasp in relief, when he answers my call. “Where are you? We just went by your house and it was empty!”
“Driving,” he answers briefly.
Aiden – who’s also driving – glances over at my phone in alarm. “Driving where? Where are you going?”
“Calla.”
“Calla?” Aiden widens his eyes in confusion. “I thought she’s down the coast with her dad. What are you gonna do, drive for six hours, show up out of the blue?”
“Yeah. I’m almost there.”
“Oh, my god.”
“Ralph,” I jump in urgently, “Where are the flowers that I gave you earlier?”
“Have ‘em. They’re for her.”
“What?”
“They’re for Calla.”
“Ralph, listen, you can’t give them to her!” I protest, then look to Aiden for help when the only answer that gets is a growl. “I’m serious! They’re magical, they’re gonna overpower you! Both of you!”
“Okay,” Ralph says distractedly.
“Oh, you’re not even hearing me, you’re fully – Calla-brained! Are you even aware you’re on the phone with me?”
“I’ll help you out with your magic flowers or whatever when I get home. Right now I gotta go. Bye.”
“No, Ralph!”
He’s already hung up. I lift my dismayed eyes to Aiden, who sighs and shakes his head.
“At least he’s driving with the windows down, I could hear the wind. Maybe that’ll take care of most of the pollen on the flowers.”
“Let’s hope so!” I hesitate, tapping my lip, then add – “Is it great that he’s spreading that pollen all down the highway, though?”
“One thing at a time,” Aiden groans, pulling my car up in front of the workshop.
Ripley doesn’t answer when we bang on the door, forcing us to make use of the spare key hidden under the potted plant. There’s no one on the ground floor when we go rushing in, but the situation more or less explains itself. Ripley’s wall mural, which was a barebones sketch last I saw it, is showing evidence of having been feverishly worked on.
But at some point he dropped his brush directly on the floor, where it’s still sitting. And in the middle of the workshop floor: one white platform shoe, which I know belongs to Alix.
Fortunately the flowers are sitting on the work table closest to the mural, so there’s no need for us to go upstairs to Ripley’s apartment. I pick them up and turn to leave, catching Aiden’s eye in relief.
“That one was easy,” he agrees, then freezes to the spot as a sudden crash of water spills out onto the workshop floor.
There’s a burst of mingled laughter from Ripley and Alix, coming from the second floor.
“In the hurricane shower?” I laugh, genuinely astounded. “How?”
“Come on, Jamie, no time to waste! Floyd and Spencer are – old!”
“What effect would the flowers have on Floyd?” I ask, realizing all at once. “Does he get aro/ace immunity?”
The answer presents itself in the form of Floyd instantly answering our knock on the bookshop door. He flings it wide open, his eyes wild behind his enormous glasses, his flyaways standing at a new, ludicrous height.
“Jamie, Aiden!” he nearly shouts, wrenching us into the bookshop. “Absolutely dynamite for you to turn up right now! Dynamite! I’ve been up all night, I’ve been on a tear, I’ve solved three cases I’ve been working on for years! Years! Including the Meddfield mine collapse!”
He snatches up a casebook and waves it in our faces, then lets out a somewhat crazed laugh.
“MmmmmmHAHA I told you I could solve it, I told you!”
He directs this jubilant announcement at Spencer, who’s sitting on the stairs in his pajamas, grasping a cup of coffee so tightly that his fingers are turning white. His cheeks are the same burning crimson that Leo’s were, his dilated eyes very wide and locked onto Floyd.
“You alright there, Spencer?” Aiden asks, concerned.
Spencer turns dazedly to him, gives his shoulders a bewildered shrug.
“Just been – I’ve just been sitting here w-watching him,” he whispers faintly. “F-for hours, I’ve just been watching him. Don’t know what’s wrong w-with me.”
Floyd has begun rushing back and forth between the open books on the counter and the case board he has propped up on a chair. Ida is dutifully following him around, but her stiff old legs only allow a certain speed. Floyd is usually bounding back the other way before she’s made it past the middle of the room.
“I’ve also uncovered several mysteries that have yet to be cracked!” Floyd tells us delightedly, tacking an old newspaper article and a photocopied page from a book to his board. “There’s still so much left to learn! Oh, Ida!” He stops suddenly in front of her, seizes her adoringly into his arms, and kisses the top of her head. “So much left to learn!”
Ida sits down, wagging her tail happily, and contents herself with watching Floyd rush around. Much like Spencer.
“Oh, well – we’re glad that you guys are okay,” I manage, struggling not to laugh. “But we need-”
“Spence!” Floyd blurts out, coming to an abrupt stop in front of him.
“What?”
Floyd gestures around wildly. “I love our bookstore.”
Spencer blinks at him, then bursts suddenly into tears. “I know. I love it so much. And I love you.”
“I love you too, buddy,” Floyd says fondly, his eyes already back on the case board. “Come have a look at this, won’t you? Could the motive have been blackmail?”
“I don’t know,” Spencer answers, in a fragile voice. “Maybe.”
Aiden and I exchange a swift grin.
“Alright, we’ll leave you guys to it,” I tell them, scooping the flowers out of their vase on the counter. “I’m just gonna take these. They’re, um-”
I hesitate, realizing that I should have left Aiden to handle lying, but thankfully it doesn’t matter. No one in the bookshop is paying us or the flowers the slightest attention.
“This is the most ridiculous errand we’ve ever gone on, possibly,” Aiden says a little later, ringing Roger’s doorbell a second time. “And that is really, really saying something.”
“At least it can’t get more ridiculous,” I answer encouragingly. “There’s that. So-”
I break off as the door is suddenly wrenched open, to reveal a completely naked, visibly sexed-up Roger. I let out a sharp gasp, and Aiden’s eyes go perfectly round.
“Jamie,” Roger pants, half-growling, “You are interrupting some real steamy action right now, so unless this is an emergency emergency-”
“It is!” I blurt out, covering my eyes with my fingers. “Give me back the flowers, they’re magic and they have – properties!”
“Can’t get more ridiculous,” Aiden repeats in disbelief, once Roger’s flowers have been added to the garbage bag in the trunk. “Oh, can’t it.”
“Probably not now! I think Roger made sure of that!”
Kent’s house is quiet, since Ellen is on her class camping trip. No one answers our knocking, so Aiden and I let ourselves in and start searching around the living room for the flowers.
“Oh, here they are!” Aiden scoops them out of the vase, then looks up at me, arching an eyebrow. “You know what I just realized? You gave Gabby these flowers right after Gage gave Kent – whatever that expert piece of advice was.”
I open my mouth to answer, then freeze at the sound of an actual scream of pleasure from upstairs.
Aiden and I both gasp, staring at each other with wide eyes, then bolt for the door with the flowers.
“I’m so happy for Gabby!” I laugh, as we sprint back to my car. “She deserves it, you know?”
Aiden shakes his head in disbelief, then bursts out laughing, himself. “Okay, that one was definitely Gage’s fault!”
We’re both beyond exhausted by the time we pull up the driveway to park behind Raj’s truck. Our bodies are beginning to realize exactly how hard we worked them, for how many hours. We’re practically clinging to each other as we stagger up to the door.
I have to lean on the bell in order to get an answer.
Noah opens it, then pauses when he sees it’s us. His long hair is all messed up, his cheeks dark with a deep blush. His grey eyes are blazing feverishly, and he’s wearing only his sweatpants, which I can tell he put on in a hurry.
I expect him to give us roughly the same reception that Roger did. But when his eyes land on Aiden, he says, almost tearfully -
“Aiden! My brother! My brother for fuckin’ life, man!”
“Always, man, always!” Aiden blurts out, still somewhat feeling the pollen effects, his voice equally choked with fraternal love.
“Noah, where are those ruby flowers I gave you earlier? I need them back! The pollen can’t be breathed in!”
“Oh, shit. Why not?”
“It’s like the resin, but even stronger!”
“Oh, really? Well, that explains a lot…”
Noah trails off, contemplating this information further, then steps back and tries to shut the door on us.
“Noosh, don’t make me chase you down!” Aiden warns him, catching the door. “There’s no way this ends where you get to keep the flowers!”
Unfortunately Noah decides to make an attempt regardless. Aiden has to tackle him down and give him a hard shake and firm talking-to before he’ll go upstairs to get them.
I have the distinct feeling that one or two of the flowers are missing from the bunch Noah hands me.
“Is that all of them?” I ask.
“Yeah, totally,” Noah promises, the liar.
Aiden lets out a fond laugh, slapping the back of his head. “Fine, you miscreant, keep a few of them. But we need your sister’s address. I don’t remember it, and Jamie gave her one of the bouquets when she was here earlier. Where’s Gage, by the way?”
That’s a good question. I did give Gage his own bunch of the passion flowers.
“Don’t know where he went,” Noah answers distractedly, with an impatient glance in the rough direction of Raj and Mel’s bedroom. “I heard him pacing around his room for a while, and then he left.”
Aiden and I look sharply at each other.
“Oh, no,” I murmur softly, my eyes widening. “If he breathed in all the pollen – he probably doesn’t even know what he’s doing!”
“Noosh, would Gage know where to find Noelle?”
“Sure, Noey gave him the address for when he’s gonna go to my mom’s house for dinner.”
Aiden and I look anxiously at each other, then turn as one to rush for the door.
“I can’t believe you guys dragged me away from my house at a time like this,” Noah complains from the backseat of my car a few minutes later, pulling his beanie down over his hair. “My wife and my husband and me breathed in all that lovesome pollen stuff, too. You got any idea what I left behind upstairs?”
“We didn’t ask you to come, Noosh. You got worried about Gage and jumped into the car yourself. If you’d have told us you were gonna do that, we would’ve left time for you to get a jacket.”
“I’m fine,” he says, shivering a little in the t-shirt he hastily pulled on, hugging his tattooed arms to his chest. “That pollen stuff really burns you up. Feel like my face is on fire.”
“Mine, too,” I admit. “We’re all still a bit, um – passion-drunk, so just nobody be weird.”
“Man, my car is gonna be so great,” Noah blurts out suddenly. “I can’t wait for her to shine again. Take her out for a real cruise, just like in her glory days.”
“Okay, that’s safe to talk about,” I decide.
“Bring Raj and Melanie out with me,” Noah goes on dreamily, like he didn’t hear me. “Ride out on some dark country roads one hot summer night. Hit some smoky roadside dives. Drive back really slowly. Maybe I’d put a hand on Mel’s thigh and Raj would put a hand on her other one, and we’d look at each other and know. I’d pull over, somewhere off the road-”
“Noah.”
“-and my baby doll would never normally do something like this in public, she’s mostly a good girl, but tonight the music is good, and it’s hot out, and she’s feeling the vibrations of the motor. She feels that spark, feels lured across that line-”
“Noah.”
“And she’d be wearing those sexy nylons, and Raj and I would leave her strapped in for a little bit while we-”
“Okay,” I break in gently, covering Noah’s mouth with my hand. “Let’s all just calm down, and – Aiden, what’s the matter?”
“Just – hard to keep my eyes on the road,” he stammers hoarsely. “When you’re talking. I love your voice. Love you so much.”
“Oh my god, we are the most helpless group of people on the planet right now,” I stammer, rubbing my eyes. “You guys, I’m so sorry. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t-”
Noah lets out a sharp laugh, and Aiden widens his eyes incredulously at me.
“He’s sorry,” Noah tells Aiden. “What he did just created a series of new additions for the category of ‘best hours of my whole goddamn life’, and he’s sorry.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Aiden laughs, then adds, in a watery voice – “That’s so Jamie.”
To my immense surprise, Noah answers, in an equally wavering voice – “Yeah, man, it really is.”
“What-? Oh, Jesus.” I let out a helpless laugh, then extract my inhaler from my pocket. “Okay, that’s it. Everyone hit this, please. Regain enough sense to realize that I should feel bad, because now Gage is tangled up in some magical thing he knows nothing about for the second time already on this trip!”
“It’s because Gage is like part of the family,” Noah answers, waving away my inhaler. He puts down the car window and takes long, deep breaths of night air instead. “Therefore he shares in the family problems.”
“Aw! You should tell him that, Noah,” I answer fondly. “Seriously, for Gage… I think that would mean a lot to him.”
“Yeah, okay,” Noah scoffs. “Sure, Jamie, I’ll just tell him a cupcake thing like that to his face.”
Aiden flips on the blinker. “We’ve got to find him before we can tell him anything.”
“Where’s Ralph, by the way? Didn’t he have some of the flowers?”
“Got away with them, the fuckin’ outlaw,” Aiden sighs, with passionate affection.
Noah slaps the back of my seat. “Of course he did! I should’ve thought to run with them. That’s so smart. Ralph is so smart. Should we call him? Just – to say hi?”
“Put all the windows down,” I instruct Aiden firmly, struggling to hold back a laugh. “You two need it.”
With the cool wind rushing into the car we all manage to pull ourselves together, at least well enough to drive very fast to Noah’s mom’s house. As soon as Noah’s head is remotely clear we swap things around so he can be the one at the wheel, which will definitely cut down on our time.
“Oh, god, I hope we beat Gage here!” I look anxiously at Aiden, pressing my fingertips to my lips. “I feel so bad. This is all my fault, babe. Why did I give those flowers to everyone, what was I thinking? They were just so beautiful, and I wanted so badly to share them, and I loved them so much-”
“Oh, my god,” Aiden cuts in, his blue eyes lit with a sudden realization. “Aw, Jamie – you breathed in the pollen while you were cutting the flowers, and you’re all passionate about doing nice things for people – of course you handed them out to everyone! You probably couldn’t help it! It’s not your fault, Linden. You were – drugged.”
“Oh,” I answer, with considerable relief. “Does that make it your fault again, for giving me the tree?”
“Thought we decided it was all Gage’s fault!” Aiden protests.
“I have a question, science man,” Noah interrupts. “If we all breathed in the pollen, does that mean we’ve been fertilized? And if so, what’s that entail for us boys?”
“No, Noah, because we’re not plants,” I gently explain. “You breathe in regular pollen like, all the time.”
“My boy Noosh doesn’t know how the entire season of spring works,” Aiden rasps, with fierce affection and lingering pollen symptoms.
“At least he knew that pollen has something to do with fertilization,” I answer encouragingly. “That’s pretty good, that’s actually more biology than I expected him to know.”
“I do listen when you talk to me, dude,” Noah answers off-handedly. “Even when it’s about boring school stuff.”
Now it’s me suddenly overcome with affection. Noah quickly puts out a hand to hold me back as I try to give him a hug.
“Good thing we’re almost there,” he tells Aiden. “The flowers weren’t in Gage’s room, which means he took them with him. Did you say you gave some to Noey, too, Jamie?”
“I did, yeah… what – wait a second, is that her?”
Noah slows my car down, and we all lean forward to peer up through the windshield.
Yep, that’s definitely her.
There’s a snug, modest little house tucked in at the end of the street, presenting us with the sight of a driveway with a basketball hoop, and a front yard boxed in by low, pretty walls of flowering hedges. And on the low, flat roof, wearing her pajamas, pacing back and forth – there’s Noelle.
The pen she uses to draw on her tablet is threaded between her fingers, but it seems like she’s forgotten she has it. She’s prowling from one side of the roof to the other, twisting her wrist in her hand, breathing like she’s trying to calm down after a race.
She stops in surprise when Noah pulls the car over, puts it in park, and gets out.
“Noey!” he calls up to her, as Aiden and I get out and hurry over to join him. “What are you doing?”
She gives her shoulders a bewildered shrug.
“Oh, you know,” she calls back, resuming her pacing. “Sometimes if your head starts getting full of – of wild ideas, you just need to walk it off.”
She recites it like a piece of advice someone gave her, one I’m not sure she’s following in the way they envisioned.
Noah opens his mouth to point that out, then changes his mind. He hurries over to an old tree with wide, low-hanging branches near the corner of the house, climbs up the branches with practiced ease, and joins Noelle on the roof.
“C’mon, come down,” he insists, reaching for her. “You can pace in the yard.”
Noelle suddenly seems to realize what she’s doing. She blushes in confusion, then scurries over and follows Noah back down the tree.
“God, what’s gotten into me!” she sputters, touching down on the grass. “I hope none of the neighbors saw me up there! I can’t imagine what they’re thinking!”
“Who gives a single fuck?” Noah snickers, landing beside her in the front yard.
“I’m sure they’re all asleep!” I add reassuringly.
Noelle checks the time on her phone, stares at it in disbelief, then lifts her grey eyes to Noah.
“Here you are asking what I’m doing! What are you doing, showing up here at this hour? With no jacket, and no shoes?” She shakes her head at him sternly, then dissolves without warning into watery laughter and an adoring smile. “This is just like you! Always coming back from some nonsense! What’s wrong with you?”
Hearing the warmth in her voice, Noah beams fondly at her, answers her affectionately in French. Noelle lets out a shaky laugh, swats his arm, then rubs her eyes.
“Seriously, what’s going on with me right now… and what are you guys doing here?”
“We actually need to take back those flowers that Jamie gave you. Turns out the pollen is, um – we need them back.”
“Oh, okay,” Noelle says distractedly.
She goes to the house and retrieves the bouquet. It was sitting on a table on the narrow porch, beside Noelle’s tablet. A wicker chair with a hastily thrown-aside blanket is next to the table. I can see a few glimmers of pollen clinging to the fabric.
Noelle looks unwilling and reluctant, but she hands the flowers over to Noah.
“Aw. I hate to give them up. They smell so nice. Reminds me of the body wash Gage uses.”
Noah winces apologetically. “Sorry to have to take them back.”
“It’s alright,” Noelle says, not really listening.
Her cheeks are on fire, and she’s fidgeting endlessly with the pen in her fingers. Her gaze is darting around somewhat wildly, until – suddenly it stops, caught on something behind us.
I glance over my shoulder, and freeze again.
Gage is walking up the sidewalk towards us, his deep brown hair wild and his eyes glazed from the wind. Even from here I can see the color blazing across his cheeks, and the bright flowers clasped in his hands.
“Gage!” Noelle blurts out, in a gasp of something like relief.
He lifts his head, sees her, and breaks into an eager smile. He speeds up, and Noelle starts to rush forward.
They realize what they’re doing and stop at the same time, both of them looking a little bewildered.
“What are you doing here?” Noelle asks breathlessly, as Gage comes up to join us at a more measured pace.
“I – I don’t know,” he answers, his green and brown eyes wild with heat, blinking fast. “Just – I just-”
Gage cuts himself off in surprise as I hastily take the flowers from his hand.
“I’m sorry, Gage! I have to take these back, there’s – a whole thing with the pollen.”
“Oh, okay,” he answers, like he only just realized anyone else is here. “That’s too bad. Never met a flower that smelled as nice as these ones.”
Regardless, it’s a relief to see Gage take a deep breath of night air with none of the flower pollen in it. Aiden is already busy shutting the last bunches of the flowers away in the car.
Gage stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket, shifting from foot to foot. Noelle takes a few deep breaths, then asks Gage -
“So, what are you doing here at this hour? I know you can’t have gotten the time and date for dinner this wrong!”
“I couldn’t-” Gage begins, in a fierce, earnest rush, then breaks off suddenly.
The haze is slowly clearing away from his eyes, the autumn air finally starting to have a cooling effect on his cheeks. He blinks hard at Noelle a few times, twisting the stud in his ear, then slowly goes on -
“I, um – couldn’t seem to keep myself at home. Thought I’d just come see what you were up to.”
Noelle blinks at him, then lets out a sputter of laughter. “Seriously?”
“Yep,” Gage answers, in a choked voice. He clears his throat, then gives Noelle a sheepish smile. “Dawns on me now this isn’t considered polite calling hours.”
“I don’t know how I’d explain it to my mom,” Noelle laughs apologetically.
“Yeah, no worries.” Gage breathes out a laugh at himself, shaking his head. “That only makes sense.”
Aiden sees the opportunity and jumps on it. “We’ll give you a ride home, Gage.”
Gage increasingly looks like it’s a struggle for him to be here. He nods at Aiden with grateful relief, fidgeting with his necklace. Noelle drops her gaze to it, looking closely at the little chip of blue stone turning in his long fingers.
She also seems to be having a hard time holding still. She twists her wrist around in her hand, blinking fast.
“Everything okay, Noey?” Noah is searching her face with his eyes. “All good with Logan?”
“What?” Noelle stares blankly at Noah for a second, like she honestly has no idea who he’s even talking about, then gives a startled jolt. “Oh – oh! Logan, yes. I forgot to call him tonight, but I’m sure he’s fine. Gage-”
She adds this last part quickly, breathlessly, with her eyes shining and her voice sounding caught up in her throat.
He smiles warmly at her. With only his eyes, as usual. “Yeah, Bug?”
She hesitates, then laughs, waving a hand at him.
“Oh, nothing!” she says, still in that breathless voice. “Anyways – goodnight!”
She turns and practically flees for the house. Gage watches her go, a mixture of complete bafflement and pure adoration in his eyes. A pained look, too, as if it’s agonizing to just stand here while she disappears into the house with her tablet and her blanket. I can’t help noticing it, and it wrings my heart.
Gage bites his lip, then silently leans back against my car.
Noah takes a close look at his expression. He hesitates, then slaps Gage’s shoulder.
“C’mon, man,” he murmurs gently. “Let’s get you home.”
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