Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Four years ago, Edgar had run home and slammed the door behind him, desperate to be safe from the ghost of a little girl who had followed him from the bus stop. Its eyes had been black voids, its mouth a hole of jagged teeth, and its hair leucistic snakes. (Later, when he’d calmed down, he’d realized that it’d had no eyes, its jagged mouth was that of someone caught between baby and permanent teeth, and its white-blond hair had been in braids.)
That night, door shut and double-locked firmly behind him, he had ordered paint, rush delivery. He’d stayed awake until the package came the next morning, dragging it inside with one hand while the other shielded his eyes from the sun, a rat heaving its treasure back into the sewers. Then he’d stayed up until every inch of his bedroom was painted, ceiling to windowsills to floors, with haint blue in a piteous, desperate, wretched bid for safety.
Now, he stood in the doorway of that same bedroom, but it had been transformed.
Gone were the gray rug, a hand-me-down from Allie, the heavy dresser that had been in the apartment when he moved in, and the storage trunk—a yard sale find that had never stopped smelling like crayons.
In their places, Jamie had set a light modern dresser on each side of the closet and laid down a gorgeous rug that Edgar thought he recognized from Germaine and Carl’s house. It was warm shades from deep wine and terra-cotta to the lightest petal pinks. Hints of midnight blue played beneath it all, grounding the color. The linens were the colors of champagne and mushrooms.
His mother’s painting had been rehung above the bed, and now Edgar could see Jamie’s inspiration for the palette for the room.
There wasn’t a speck of haint blue in sight. The walls were now a delicate peach color that was warm in the lamplight. When the morning sun filled the room, Edgar knew, it would positively glow.
Edgar walked in slowly, wanting to look more closely at everything.
The white blinds had been replaced with gauzy curtains the color of saffron. Where the serviceable (but distinctly nipple-shaped) ceiling light used to be hung a fixture with a light and a sleek ceiling fan that would make sleeping much easier on the hottest nights. And on a small shelf next to the mirror stood several framed photographs of Jamie and Edgar, Poe and Allie and Nour, and the kittens.
“What do you think?” Jamie’s arms came around his waist from behind, and he leaned into them.
“It’s absolutely amazing. I don’t know how the hell you did this in one day, but it’s…it’s like being inside a sunset.”
Jamie, in Edgar’s T-shirt, hair tousled and eyes soft, asking him his favorite color as they held hands over cereal.
“I can’t believe you remembered,” murmured Edgar, overcome.
“Course I did. I remember everything about you.” Jamie’s arms tightened around him; their breath was warm on the back of his neck. “These colors are warm and intense and comfortable. Just like you.”
For a moment, Edgar thought they were teasing. He turned around in Jamie’s arms to look at them. “Is that really how you see me?”
“Among other things, yeah.” They winked at him.
“Oh yeah?” Edgar’s cheeks heated. Jamie’s compliments always made his stomach turn to goo.
“Yup. I haven’t even mentioned your awesome family, your superior ability to see ghosts, or your exquisite taste in boyfriends,” Jamie teased.
Edgar grinned. His heart felt like it would overflow his chest. “I do have all those things, don’t I?”
Jamie reached a hand out to Edgar, and he took it. “We should see how it looks from the bed, right?”
Edgar agreed, and they climbed into bed, curling around each other.
“What do you think, gorgeous?” Jamie asked. The compliment warmed him from the inside.
“It’s perfect, Jamie, really. And these sheets feel like heaven.”
“Germaine and Carl gave them to us, and I’m sure they’re fancy as fuck. They’d been sitting in their linen closet since the Nixon administration, according to Carl.”
Edgar smiled.
“Rug’s from them too. And the dressers. Your old one was untenable.”
“I don’t know why you’d be so quick to dismiss something just because three of its drawers collapsed when you tried to open them.”
Jamie snorted. “Three of four.”
Edgar grinned. A wave of exhaustion closed over him, and he sank into the fluffy, luscious embrace of rich people’s cast-off linens.
“Mmm, so comfy,” Jamie said against his shoulder.
Edgar pressed a kiss to their hair. He was on the edge of falling asleep, and everything he’d ever wanted was in his arms. “Love you.”
“I love you too, sweetheart,” Jamie said.
“Jamie?” Edgar murmured. “I want to get a cat.”
It was time.
Jamie chuckled softly. “I think that could be arranged. I know a guy.” They kissed him softly.
“Yay,” Edgar said against their lips and let sleep creep in.
Edgar wouldn’t have any bad dreams that night. He wouldn’t wake afraid or alone or lonely. He would not see a ghost or feel a ghost or hear a ghost. That wasn’t to say that in the future he would not have bad dreams. That wasn’t to say that he would never again wake afraid or alone or lonely. And that was not to say he wouldn’t see or feel or hear ghosts again.