Love, Like Ghosts: A Bay City Paranormal Investigations Story

because I’d hate to be in love all by myself.”
He loves me. I was right.
Pure happiness ballooned in Adrian’s chest until he thought he’d burst. Smiling, he tucked a tangled curl behind Greg’s ear. “So. You hungry?” He yawned.
“Not really. But I’m as wiped out as you look.” Stretching forward, Greg pressed a kiss to Adrian’s lips. “Let’s have a nap. We can call for pizza later.”
“Okay.” Adrian’s eyelids drooped. He hauled them back up. “You want me to grab a washcloth so we can clean up a little?”
Greg rolled off of Adrian, grabbed the corner of the sheet and swabbed the semen off both of their bellies. “There. All clean.” He gave Adrian another kiss—longer this time, and with more tongue—then snuggled against his chest with a contented sigh. “Now go to sleep.”
Chuckling, Adrian put his arms around Greg and rested his cheek on Greg’s head.
Drifting in the twilight just below wakefulness, in love for the first time and lying in bed with Greg naked in his arms, Adrian felt a perfect peace wash through him. After all he’d been through in his life, he thought he deserved a little happiness. He sure as hell intended to enjoy it.
Adrian nuzzled Greg’s hair and let sleep carry him away.

Epilogue
    The spring semester had been over for a week, but the UNC campus was more crowded than it had been since basketball season ended. School officials had even elected to leave one of the dorms open for any students who wanted to stay for today’s event. A couple hundred—mostly history and anthropology majors—had chosen to remain.
    Adrian couldn’t blame them. After all, it wasn’t every day the school held a memorial service for a man who’d been murdered over one hundred years ago. If he hadn’t already been staying in town for the summer to work with Dr. Perez, he would’ve hung around for the service anyway.
    He was just glad Greg had agreed to share Adrian’s apartment and had been able to find work in town. As much as he looked forward to the cutting-edge research in which he’d be involved, a summer without Greg would’ve been unbearable.
    On this particular May morning, however, Adrian thought his life looked pretty damn spectacular. He drew a deep breath scented with flowers and smiled as he and Greg made their way to the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.
    Lyndon Groome’s memorial service was scheduled to begin shortly. After an exhaustive process to positively identify the skeleton whose name Adrian already knew, the school had decided that since Lyndon had no surviving family, he should be given a place in the old cemetery. The body had been buried in private the previous day, tucked into a green corner of the graveyard and marked with a modest stone. A memorial obelisk was being placed near the center of the cemetery today, to tell what was known of Lyndon’s story and honor his memory.
    Adrian kept the truth about Lyndon and Cassius mostly to himself. He couldn’t bear the thought of exposing their doomed romance to the scrutiny of thousands of strangers.
He only wished he could have found out what happened to Cassius. After almost a month of filing near-daily police reports under his John Davis pseudonym, the man had vanished from the face of the earth. Adrian had spent two solid weeks of digging, but had failed to turn up any further information about him. Unless the unidentified body the police found in a Chapel Hill alley in early February of nineteen-oh-six was him. Adrian fervently hoped it wasn’t.
“Wow, look at all the people,” Greg said when he and Adrian rounded the side of the theater and the cemetery came into view. “Good thing we have VIP passes.”
Laughing, Adrian squeezed Greg’s hand. “I keep telling you, there are no VIP passes. We just get to stand up front because we found the body, that’s all.”
“ You found the body. I just helped you dig.” Greg glanced up and down the road, then trotted across, pulling Adrian with him. “I’m glad they decided to put Lyndon’s memorial next to the gazebo, where it’s shady. I don’t think I could take standing out in the blazing sun in a damn suit.” He shot Adrian a reproachful look. “Speaking of which, I can’t believe you talked me into wearing a suit for this thing. How’d that happen?”
Adrian grinned. “You’ll agree to anything for up to seven minutes after sex.”
One pale eyebrow arched up. “Not anymore.”
“Uh-huh.” Hooking his arm around Greg’s waist,