Love, Like Ghosts: A Bay City Paranormal Investigations Story Read Free Page A

tempting whispers had hurt him more often than not, and he’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t listen anymore.
“We’re too different,” Adrian answered, though he wasn’t sure if he was talking to Sean or himself. “We wouldn’t have anything to talk about.”
Sean made a rude noise. “Bad excuse.”
Sighing, Adrian rested his head in his hands. “Sean, come on—”
“No, dammit.”
Adrian looked up, surprised at the heat in Sean’s voice. The spark in Sean’s eyes matched the expression on his face. It made Adrian feel unaccountably ashamed. “Sean—”
“Look, you’re always like this. Always so damn careful.” Sean jabbed a finger at the computer screen. “Let me tell you something. If you don’t loosen up a little bit, you’re gonna careful yourself into dying alone.”
Anger swelled in Adrian’s gut. Years of hard-won control kicked in before the unwelcome emotion could even raise his heart rate. He arched a cool eyebrow. “I’m only twenty-one, Sean. It’s a little early to be condemning me to a lifetime of loneliness, isn’t it?”
Sean shook his head. “Just ask the guy out, Adrian. What’s the worst that could happen?”
The memory of Adrian’s last date, just over five months ago, flashed into his mind. The boy had called him a frigid, self-loathing emo fag before stalking out and leaving him alone at a club in Raleigh with no ride back to school and not enough cash for a thirty-mile cab fare. He hadn’t even known about Adrian’s abilities. That particular rejection was based purely on Adrian’s sparkling personality.
Adrian elected not to mention the incident, since Sean would only point out that he’d managed to get a ride to the bus station and catch a late bus back, and anyway such a thing wasn’t likely to happen again. “Oka y, I’ll think about it.” Adrian heaved an exaggerated sigh. “You’re worse than Mom.”
Sean snickered. Their mother pestered Adrian for details of his nonexistent love life every time she talked to him. It irritated him on one level, because he wasn’t looking for a relationship and wished everyone would just leave him alone and let him concentrate on his studies. Deep inside, however, a part of him loved that his mother accepted his sexuality so completely.
When he’d first come out to his family in ninth grade, it hadn’t been that way. His announcement had torn open wounds everyone had believed healed. His mom had blamed his dad and Sam for Adrian’s “problem”, and Adrian had blamed himself for the renewed rift between his parents. The psychokinesis he’d worked so hard to gain control over had begun to leak through again. He’d lost sleep to endless nightmares and watched his family fall apart right before his eyes.
He still remembered the moment of crystal clarity which changed everything. At three in the morning one rainy Sunday in April, he’d woken his mother and told her that he was himself, that no one made him who and what he was, and that she could either accept him as he was or not, but he would no longer listen to her or anyone else—including himself—assign blame where there was none. He’d turned away from her stunned expression, gone back to his room and fallen into an exhausted and dreamless sleep. The next day, his mother had called his father and Sam to talk. There had been no more blame, no more nightmares, and now Adrian’s mother nagged him about his love life just like everyone else’s mom did. It was nice to have a bit of normality in his life.
He flexed his well-honed psychokinetic muscle to pull a Carolina mug across the room into his hand, just to remind himself how far from normal he really was.
“Hey. Okay there, bro?”
Shaking himself, Adrian nodded. “Fine. Just thinking.”
“Thinking about asking out Mr. Cute Theater Major?”
Adrian laughed at the hopeful gleam in Sean’s eyes. “Good grief, you’re relentless.”
“That’s what Coach Rodriguez says too.” Behind Sean, someone