She brightened and took the opportunity. “Actually, yes. A couple. There’s a banquet Saturday, some charity event. And I have a wedding Sunday.” And she was off and gone, talking about hors d’oeuvres and main courses and how many people were expected at each event.
Elliot tried to pay attention, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of a bullet tearing through his stomach, the smell of his own blood, and the terror of losing the love of his life.
THEY HAD
decided to make a day of it. Sheri wanted to go shopping, and while that wasn’t Elliot’s idea of a good time, he didn’t mind tagging along while Sheri had fun trying on every outfit in every store in a ten-mile radius. She’d be going to the charity event and wedding this weekend. Working, yes, but she mingled with the partygoers and often drummed up more business that way, so she wanted to look her best. And she swore that none of the clothes she already had were suitable because some of the people at the banquet would be in attendance at another fundraiser and she couldn’t possibly risk them seeing her in the same outfit.
By the time they got back to Sheri’s house for dinner, Elliot was beyond exhausted and told her so as he sunk into the overstuffed cushions of her sofa.
“Why are
you
exhausted?” Sheri asked. “All you did was sit and watch me try on everything. I’m the one who did all the work.” She dropped her bags on the floor and oozed into the armchair opposite the couch.
“Yeah, lots of work, trying on clothes.” He picked up a white cat hair from the arm of the green sofa and flicked it to the floor.
“I’ll have you know it takes a lot of effort to look as good as I always do.”
“Well yes, considering what you have to start with.” He screeched when she kicked him. “Ow!”
“Be nice.” She pointed a scolding finger at him.
“Why? More fun to pick on you.” He found another cat hair on his lap, and he hadn’t even seen the cat yet.
“Well, quit it, or I’ll sic your ghost on you,” Sheri teased as the white Persian cat, whose name Elliot absently remembered was Midnight, finally peeked around the corner to the hallway.
“You need to make up your mind about whether or not you believe I have a ghost.” He slumped down on the couch, truly too tired to go home at the moment. Propping his feet on the table, he looked aghast as his pants leg slid down to reveal his socks. “Geez, Cher. You walked me all over God’s green earth so much that my ankles are swollen.”
She glanced at his ankles, swatted his feet off the table, then rolled her eyes. “I think it’s PMS. It would explain why you’re so bitchy today too.”
“Now who should be nice?” He spied the cat slinking across the floor—whether to pounce on him or Sheri, he didn’t know.
“Turnabout’s fair play,” Sheri said in a singsong voice, then startled as the cat touched her leg from under the chair.
“Yeah, yeah.” Elliot watched the furry time bomb wind its way around Sheri’s feet and jump up on the couch.
They fell silent for a couple of minutes, Elliot petting Midnight and Sheri going through her bags. Finally Elliot caught his second wind and felt like he could drive home. Lifting the cat from his lap, he placed her on the floor and stood up. “Well, I guess I better go. I need to go see if Ben died or if Patrick saved him.” Elliot tried to make light of the dreams and a possible ghost, as Sheri had earlier, but as anxious as he was to get home to put his feet up—without getting them pushed off the furniture—he was also apprehensive about actually falling asleep.
Sheri laughed as she stood up with him to see him to the door. “You sound like a chick hurrying home to watch her soaps.”
“I’d feel a little better if it was soaps. At least then I’d understand where they were coming from. And could tape them and watch them when I wanted to. But if I’m going to dream them anyway, I might as well invest some interest, right?” he quipped as they walked to the door.
“Sure.” She hugged him and turned serious. “Drive carefully. You really do look wrung out.”
“I’m tired, but I’ll be fine.” He ran his hand through his hair and turned the doorknob.
Sheri caught his arm so that he would turn back around. “Call me when you get home.”
“Yes, Mom.” He grinned and kissed her cheek.
She smacked the back of his head, and he laughed all the way to his car.
ELLIOT GOT
home and barely made it to the door. He didn’t even bother heading to the living room or even the kitchen. He grabbed the chair that always sat at the table in the foyer, turned it around, and dissolved into it. He wasn’t sure why he was so tired. He called Sheri as instructed and was lingering in the foyer ten minutes later when the doorbell rang. Since he was right there, he answered it before he even thought to look for who it was.
“Darrell.” He was genuinely surprised.
Daniel didn’t wait to be asked in. Elliot was standing off to one side anyway, and Daniel took that as an invitation. “You do that on purpose. I know you know my real name.”
Elliot shrugged. “I call Sheri Cher. She calls me Ellie. I have a friend named Daytona whom I call Don and another named Barbara whom I call Bob. It’s sort of what I do.”
Daniel’s face lit up. “So it’s a friend thing?”
It hadn’t been in the beginning. In the club he had truly thought he’d heard Darrell the first time, since it had been so noisy. The rest of that night he’d done it to distance Daniel so he would leave him alone. Then he’d referred to Daniel as Darrell when talking about him to Sheri, mostly to tick her off. By now it was merely habit. Elliot hadn’t considered that it might be hurtful. Daniel had wheedled his way into Elliot’s life pretty quickly, and it hadn’t occurred to him to explain the eccentricity. “I do know your name, and I can call you that if the nickname bothers you.”
Daniel shook his head. “Naw. I kind of like that you have a nickname for me. It’s cool that you consider me one of your friends.”
Elliot let that go. He was too tired to try to figure out what Daniel was to him. What he wanted him to be. He didn’t make friends easily. But Daniel was, as Elliot’s mother used to say, “quite a character.” Which made him exactly the kind of person Elliot tended to have as a friend.
Elliot shut the door behind Daniel. “I thought you didn’t like my house because it was haunted?”
“It is. But I wanted to see you.”
Rolling his eyes, Elliot led Daniel into the kitchen. “You do realize we’re not dating or anything, right?”
Daniel smiled. “Sure. But I can do friends with benefits. The sex is fantastic, and I’m horny but too tired to go to a club.”
Elliot threw a soda to Daniel and pointed toward the living room. He followed Daniel across the hardwood floors, using the toe of his shoe to flip back a dislodged corner of a throw rug as he went, and slumped into the nearby recliner. “I never in my entire life thought I’d say this, but I’m too tired for sex tonight.” He opened his soda, took a long drink, and set the can on the end table. A set of thin cardboard coasters sat not six inches away, but he was too drained to care.
“Wow.” Daniel threw himself into the adjacent armchair and dangled his legs over the side. “You really are an old man.” He sat his unopened can of soda on the floor beside the chair.
“I’m still young enough to kick your ass if you don’t stop with the
old
shit.” But his actions belied his words as he slowly leaned over to untie his shoes.
Daniel smiled, swinging his legs. “I love it when you tease with me.”
“Who’s teasing? I can whip your ass with the best of them.” He toed off his shoes and sat back in the oversized chair.
“Kinky.” Daniel leered, slipping off the chair onto his knees, scrabbling to rest in front of Elliot.
Elliot let his head drop back on the top of the recliner. “You’re gonna kill me, kid.”
Daniel’s found Elliot’s belt and he started to undo it. “Naw, Grampa. You can stay there in your old man’s chair, and I’ll do all the work.”
Elliot started to push Daniel’s hands away, but when Daniel used one to palm Elliot and start rubbing, Elliot wasn’t sure why he was protesting so much. He leaned his head back again and closed his eyes.
“Don’t expect much in return, kid,” he said sleepily. “I’m almost out already.”
“Fine with me.”
Daniel slipped Elliot’s belt through the loops and tossed it toward the chair he had been sitting in. Now that there was no resistance, Daniel easily unfastened the button and opened the zipper. Elliot hummed contentedly and turned his head, thinking he heard something fall behind him. But Daniel carefully freed Elliot’s already-hardening member and swallowed it down.
“Oh my God.” Elliot practically jumped out of the chair and quickly forgot about any foreign sound he might have noticed. Daniel quickly put a hand on his hip and the other on his chest to try to keep him still, while he smiled up at Elliot from around his coveted mouthful.
It didn’t take long for Elliot to relax into the activity again. He leaned back and closed his eyes, but this time he scooted down in the chair to give Daniel better access.
“Damn, you’re good at that.” He didn’t open his eyes to see what Daniel’s response might have been.
Elliot was too tired for it to last very long. He was surprised he was able to get it up at all. Daniel didn’t seem to mind, though. He licked Elliot clean and replaced his cock exactly where he had found it and did up the zipper and the button. “There, good as new.” Daniel smirked.
Elliot had to grin too. “I’m not sure what you got out of that, kid. But, I’m really too tired to do anything.”
“I know.” Daniel sat back on his haunches. “That’s fine. I like giving head. I’m golden.”
Elliot still felt bad about not doing something. “You want to come up? Spend the night? Maybe I’ll feel like giving you a turn in the morning.”
Daniel looked like he was considering it. “I don’t know, man. I don’t think your ghost likes me.”
Elliot made a show of looking at the ceiling as he addressed the air. “Ghost, will you behave yourself if Darrell stays the night?” He waited for a beat and said, “See? He says he’s fine with it.”
Daniel chuckled. “I don’t think I believe that, but I’d love to stay the night with you.”
Elliot grinned. Daniel wasn’t a bad kid, and he could do worse. But Elliot wasn’t the relationship kind. He had never been. No matter how successful he was, he never quite felt whole to start with, and to try to give part of himself to someone else in a long-term relationship? It never worked. He didn’t mind short-term ones, though, and the thought of rousing morning sex seemed like a good idea.
He had a harder time than he thought he would, though, simply getting out of the chair. Daniel let him struggle for a moment, then reached out a hand.
“Here you go, old man.”
Elliot slapped it away, but when Daniel brought it right back in front of him, the look on Daniel’s face changed from teasing to concerned. Elliot took his hand and allowed himself to be pulled to a stand. “Brat.” Elliot cuffed the back of Daniel’s head as he passed him, leading him to the stairs.
Daniel chuckled as he turned to follow, but then gasped. “Did you see…?”
When Elliot turned, he saw Daniel’s wide eyes directed toward a stack of coasters on the floor behind the chair. “How did those get there? I thought they were on the coffee table.”
“The ghost—” Daniel started to explain.
Elliot shrugged. Even if he was starting to consider that the dreams might be coming from some unseen entity, he didn’t believe ghosts could move things or would care one way or the other if Elliot had sex in the living room. “We must have knocked them off earlier.” He started back toward the stairs. “Come on if you’re staying. I’m exhausted.”
ELLIOT JERKED
upright in bed, gasping for breath, as if oxygen were a luxury he could no longer afford. He grabbed tightly onto the covers and tried not to panic. There’d been no dream this time, and even though night still wrapped around the bedroom, this wasn’t a reaction to any nightmare.
Daniel rolled over, concern etching his face in the gleam of the moonlight. “You okay?” He covered Elliot’s nearest hand with his own.
Elliot nodded while he got his breathing under control, and Daniel reached across him to turn on the lamp. When Elliot was finally able to speak, he answered Daniel’s question. “Yeah. That’s been happening off and on for a month or so now. Before I came to SC even. I always thought it was due to dreams I didn’t remember, but this time I don’t think it was. It’s okay, though. It always goes away, so it’s nothing to worry about.”
Daniel sat up beside Elliot. “That doesn’t necessarily make it okay.” He placed his hand on Elliot’s chest. “I’m glad it goes away, but the fact that it’s been happening that long is concerning. You really should go get checked out.”
Elliot shook his head and chuckled humorlessly, finally able to loosen his grip on the blankets. “Because of a couple nights waking up breathless? They’d laugh me out of the office.”
“You said you’ve been unusually tired for that long too.”
“I’m busy. Busy people get tired.” Elliot pushed back the covers and swung his legs off the side of the bed.
“I know that.” Daniel seemed to want to lighten the mood. “And you’re old too, and old people get tired really easily.” Daniel moved his head around so that he looked Elliot in the eye. “But I still think you should get checked out.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Elliot dismissed the conversation as he started toward the bathroom. “I’ll be right back. Go back to sleep.”
When Elliot returned from the bathroom, Daniel was still sitting on the bed, wide-eyed, staring at the lamp on the bedside table. “Hey, did you see that?” He waved toward the lamp.
Elliot sat on the edge of bed and looked where Daniel pointed. “See what?”
“The lamp moved.” Daniel’s voice didn’t really sound fearful, but it was definitely wary.
Elliot tried to keep an open mind. He did think something or someone was giving him the dreams and guessed Daniel might be able to sense it too. But he was having a hard time believing that whatever it was could move lamps. “Are you sure you’re not just imagining things? It does only seem to happen when you’re half-asleep.”