Love, Like Ghosts: A Bay City Paranormal Investigations Story

blessed solitude. As he sat against the wall munching sausage pizza and watching Greg laugh with his friends on the other side of the room, Adrian thought he knew why he felt so particularly invisible today. For a couple of glorious, horrifying moments, he’d been wanted. Not in the general way of all the men and women who admired Adrian’s dark good looks from a distance, or the futile and ultimately sexless way Erin stared at him. No, Greg had desired him, on a very personal level. Then in the time it took for him to say no, that desire evaporated and Adrian became the same thing to Greg that he already was to everyone else—the weird science geek who never talked to anyone.
    For some unfathomable reason, losing Greg’s regard left Adrian feeling bereft, lonely and awkward in this tightly knit crowd. For such a long time now, he’d successfully avoided situations that made him feel this way. Now here he was, once again the odd man out. He hated it.
    A sudden wave of anger rolled through his brain like a tide. The wooden frames he and his team had just finished building rattled against the floor. A few of the other students glanced over with puzzled frowns on their faces.
    Shit. Abandoning his last half-eaten slice of pizza, Adrian scrambled to his feet and crossed to the archway leading toward the back part of the house as fast as he could without drawing further attention to himself. The last thing he wanted was anyone following him upstairs this time. He needed to be alone for a while, to gain control of himself before he brought the whole damn place down around their ears.
    The second he was out of the main hall, Adrian took off at a dead run toward the entrance to the tower, located at the southern corner of the castle. He took the stairs two at a time, arriving at the top breathless with a combination of exertion and fear.
    Crossing the room, he threw open the window, leaned his elbows on the rough stone sill and drew the sharp October air deep into his lungs. He hadn’t experienced anything less than perfect control of his psychokinesis ever since he broke up with Christian. The fact that his control could slip even a little simply because he felt uncomfortable worried him.
    “It can’t happen again,” he declared to the red, gold and orange leaves rustling outside. He couldn’t start letting his emotions get away with him. It was dangerous, not only for himself but for everyone around him.
    An icy draft brushed the back of Adrian’s neck. Although there were three other windows in the thick stone wall, all of them were shut, and anyway the outside air wasn’t nearly this cold.
Keeping his movements slow and even, Adrian pushed himself upright and turned to face the apparition he knew would be there. Sure enough, Lyndon Groome’s ghost stood only inches away, regarding Adrian with eyes far too intelligent for those of a mere residual haunt. Spectral gore dripped down his translucent neck to stain a shirt and brown leather vest old-fashioned enough to have been part of a costume even at the turn of the twentieth century. Adrian hadn’t noticed that before, but he wondered about it now. Had Lyndon died during a Halloween party or something?
Lyndon’s face took on a mournful expression that made Adrian’s heart go out to him. Holding one hand palm up in front of him, Adrian let the shields restraining his psychokinesis drop enough to sense Lyndon’s spirit.
Growing up with a father who owned a paranormal investigations company, Adrian had seen his share of residual hauntings. He’d even faced down terrifying otherdimensional creatures bent on death and destruction, though not by choice. But he’d never encountered a real apparition before Lyndon. He’d certainly never made a deliberate attempt to open himself up to one. For some reason, he’d expected the experience to be unpleasant, like a blast of freezing water to the chest.
It was nothing of the sort. Instead, a pulse of warm, welcoming energy flowed through his veins to burst like fireworks in his skull.
His knees buckled. He sat down hard on the cold floor, legs sprawled out in front of him. Planting his hands behind him to brace himself against the dizziness making his head spin, Adrian tilted his head back and squinted up at the spirit hovering above him. Lyndon hadn’t moved, except to track Adrian’s undignified fall with that sorrowful gaze.
“I wish I could talk to you.” Adrian had no idea what made him say that. It was the