by Lex Chase
Patrick liked to tease him about his discomfort with fooling around in front of customers who couldn’t see him anyway, but Benji didn’t care how illogical it was. It just felt wrong. Besides, once the doors opened and the customers started pouring in, the Impressions would start materializing too. And they actually could see them, and that was some messed-up shit.
Benji heard the telltale squeak of a poorly oiled cart wheel making its way down the aisle. He rolled to his side and watched as Patrick blinked one eye open and glared in the direction of the noise.
“I love the smell of CASA in the morning,” Patrick said as he sat up and rolled his neck, stretching.
Benji was starting to regret introducing Patrick to Netflix. In addition to burning through a good portion of the movies he’d missed out on, Patrick had started watching older favorites too. They were going to have to start torrenting things soon if Patrick didn’t slow down. If Benji didn’t kill him for his new propensity to speak in bad movie quotes, that was.
“Okay, Lieutenant Kilgore, let’s go,” he said, hauling himself up.
They didn’t save a customer’s life every day, but Benji liked to spend at least a few hours a day out with the crowds. It helped him remember what it was like to be alive, back when his biggest problem might be CASA not having enough PULITO boxes in stock in the color that coordinated with his classroom.
But between helping Impressions get their messages across to the living and helping lost children find their parents, Benji was able to keep himself pretty busy. But by far the best part of his day was hanging out with Patrick in their new morning ritual. They’d part ways in a bit and go about doing their own thing, but for the next hour or so, Patrick was his.
Patrick stood up and stretched again, revealing a sliver of belly that was deliciously sprinkled with hair. Benji couldn’t tear his eyes away from Patrick’s treasure trail, something that definitely didn’t escape Patrick’s notice from the way he winked at Benji.
“Anytime, sweetheart,” Patrick said with a lascivious smile. “You just say the word.”
Benji smiled sweetly. “Alec.”
Patrick’s nose wrinkled in annoyance. “Not that word. So I take it you don’t want to join me for a shower before our date, then?”
God, did he. But the thought of Patrick naked and wet was more than Benji could handle this early in the morning.
“Coffee,” he said, shaking his head.
“Spoilsport,” Patrick teased. He pulled his borrowed CASA shirt up to his nose and sniffed. “I’ve got to hit up Lost and Found at the very least. This is rank.”
“Why don’t you just materialize something for yourself?”
He changed his own clothes to illustrate the point. The jeans were modeled after a pair he’d seen on a customer a few days ago, tight enough that they made Patrick’s eyes linger on the man’s ass as he’d walked by. From the strangled sound Patrick made, he liked them just as much on Benji.
Patrick heaved a put-upon sigh and scrunched up his face again, with an expression too overdone to actually be taken for concentration. Nothing happened.
“Can’t.”
“Won’t,” Benji countered. He’d heard Patrick’s reasoning for his inability to change his clothes at will, and it was bullshit. Patrick had a complicated explanation that involved conservation of matter and the frequency that particles vibrated at, but really it came down to belief. He didn’t believe he could do it because it was counter to the laws of science. Laws that had been the most important thing in Patrick’s life before, well, his death. “You can eat, and that doesn’t make sense. You can teleport.”
“Different things, darling,” Patrick said, his voice singsong. “If you’re not joining me for that shower, then I’ll go help myself to some new clothes. Maybe Tommy finally washed his uniform shirts and restocked his locker. I like his stuff better than Lost and Found. He uses Tide. Meet you in ten.”
He was gone before Benji could reply, leaving Benji standing alone and shaking his head.
The day was in full swing, CASA shoppers filtering through the store with rapidly filling carts and eager expressions. He’d seen three people in Santa hats and Ugg boots a few days ago, but today everyone was wearing tank tops and flip-flops. He looked down at his feet, frowning. He’d never tried to change his shoes. A blink later he was wearing the comfortable pair of Havaianas he’d last seen in his closet. They were molded to his feet perfectly from years of wear. Even though he knew they were just a manifestation of his ghostly energies, part of him still believed they were the real thing. He lifted his foot, grinning when he saw the splash of orange paint that had never fully worn off the bottom of the left sole.
Benji listened to the reassuring slap of the familiar shoes against the tile as he made his way to the employee lounge. He could teleport, but it was a room off the locker room, and he didn’t want to chance popping in and seeing Patrick naked. Not with his blood still thrumming from their early morning make-out session and the teasing banter that felt a lot like foreplay these days.
The café was the obvious choice for their morning coffee dates, except for the fact that they couldn’t actually drink coffee there. Not during business hours, anyway. The living could see objects they picked up, so it made sense that they’d probably be able to see coffee cups hanging in midair. And now that Benji could actually drink it, he wasn’t content with just sitting there and smelling it like Patrick often did when he spent hours on end up in the cafeteria doing God only knew what with the strange old man who was there almost every day.
So that left the employee lounge, where a pot of burnt coffee was almost always on the warmer. They timed their dates for an hour or so after the morning shift started, too early for any employees to be on break or for the next shift to be milling around, killing time before hitting the floor.
And if anyone did happen to walk in while they were there—well, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. Benji was starting to feel sorry for Tommy, who Patrick tormented mercilessly. Benji had overheard more than a few of the employees talking about how crazy he was, since Tommy insisted the CASA was haunted. Maybe someone else walking in and seeing two coffee cups floating in midair would help him. Despite being a nervous kid, HR sure did promote him quickly. It seemed just last week was his first week, now he was among management. It was a little sad that he was the manager every employee talked about for his… eccentricities.
“…but they only have it in the pine color, and everything else in her room is white.”
Benji tripped over his flip-flop, startled by the sound of a voice he hadn’t heard in months. A voice he’d assumed—hell, more like hoped—he’d never hear again, and that was before he’d died.
“Well, whose fault is that? I wanted the cherry crib, but you insisted on the white finish.”
Benji didn’t recognize the other voice, but he couldn’t help himself, inching forward toward the children’s furniture department. He doubted Charles had ever set foot in a CASA before, let alone the children’s department. He’d hated all of Benji’s CASA furniture, and he also hated kids.
“White is timeless. And the cherry was too heavy for her room. We agreed.”
The defensive lilt to Charles’s voice was so familiar that Benji didn’t have to be close enough to see his face to know that Charles’s lip was curling upward. Still, Benji sneaked closer, popping his head around a hanging display of puppets so he could peer over the aisle divider.
Charles looked tanned and healthy. Even with the unmistakable look of annoyance on his face, his classic features were gorgeous. He looked like he’d gained a little weight, and his glossy dark hair was flecked with gray, but the overall effect was distinguished. Benji snorted, wondering if Charles had dyed his hair to make himself look more professorial. It was definitely something his vain ex-boyfriend would do.
But shopping in a CASA? Out of character for the man who’d insisted on an $8,000 sofa that had been as ugly as it was uncomfortable. The same w
ent for arguing in public. Charles was nothing if not obsessed with his image, which meant biting condescension in public, not fighting. That always came later, after they’d gotten into the car, when he’d unleash on Benji, criticizing him for whatever social faux pas or imagined misstep he thought Benji had made. So who was this guy he was with, and why were they arguing in the middle of a bunch of pint-sized dressers?
Benji nearly had a heart attack when Charles looked up. He ducked down, hiding behind the puppet castle before realizing that even if he looked directly at him, Charles wouldn’t be able to see him. His slouching and covert creeping had been totally unnecessary. Though some habits, like assuming people could see you, were hard to break.
He straightened and walked into the aisle, coming as close as he dared to Charles and the other man. They were dressed almost alike, button-down shirts rolled up, exposing tanned and strong forearms, and tailored khakis with pristine boat shoes. No flip-flops or form-fitting jeans for them.
Benji studied the stranger curiously. He was about Charles’s height but definitely younger. Probably closer to Benji’s age than Charles’s, which stung a bit. Charles had sworn up and down that he wasn’t leaving Benji for one of his students, and apparently that had been true. Thinking Charles had left him for a younger man had hurt, but he’d been able to deal. It was so…. Charles. But finding out the other man he’d been thrown over for was a little older than himself? That was harder to digest. And shopping for furniture, which must mean they lived together. Or at least were going to be soon. That seemed insanely fast, unless they’d been seeing each other before Charles had left him.
“Are we really going to be one of those couples that fights in CASA?” the stranger asked, the anger that had been so apparent only moments before bleeding into amusement.
Charles laughed. Laughed. Benji nearly swallowed his tongue. Was this really the same man he’d dated for so long? Benji had never heard Charles make a sound like that, chagrined and self-effacing.
“Gay cliché,” Charles said, and then the two of them were kissing, right there in the middle of CASA. Public displays of affection? Humor? It was like being in bizarro land.
Benji rounded the last aisle and came up short so quickly that a woman ran her cart right through him. She shivered and looked around wildly, the hair on her arms standing on end. He couldn’t focus on her, though. His attention was fixed on the small pager tucked in the breast pocket of Charles’s immaculately ironed shirt.
His gaze shot down to Charles’s hands, which were unmarked. Benji let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. Then the stranger raised his own hand to rub at his temples and Benji saw the thing he’d been terrified of seeing on Charles’s skin—a hand stamp. It was faded on one edge and dark on the other from being unevenly applied, like most club stamps were. But this wasn’t the remnant of a night out on the town. Somewhere down in Bambini Mondo was a tiny hand with a matching number.
Charles was dating someone with a kid. What the fuck.
Without conscious thought, Benji dissolved and reappeared in Bambini Mondo. It was a busy day, and there were tons of kids there, but Charles and his boyfriend had definitely said “she” when talking about the kid’s crib, so Benji could rule out half of the kids toddling around by virtue of that. If she was in a crib, she’d be tiny, but that didn’t make much sense, since Bambini Mondo had a minimum height requirement. Still, he started with the smallest ones first, scanning kid after kid until he found one who had the same sequence of numbers stamped on her hand.
When he saw her, everything stopped.
Literally. He was so surprised and distraught that his energy pulsed, overloading the circuits and sending Bambini Mondo crashing into darkness. Kids screamed and employees rushed around trying to reassure them and figure out what was happening, and Benji stood in the middle of the chaos, unable to feel guilty about the mess he’d caused because he was too busy feeling nothing at all.
She wasn’t tiny. Or rather, she wasn’t as tiny as Benji had expected. The mention of the crib had made him think baby, but this girl had to be at least four.
She was also unmistakably Charles’s. From her patrician nose to the shape of her ears, she was Charles all over. His boyfriend might have been the one with the stamp, but there was no way this little girl wasn’t Charles’s biological child.
He could barely hear himself think over the cacophony of crying children. The lights blinked back on a few seconds later, dimmer because they were on a generator rather than the main circuit. Benji took a purposeful breath and closed his eyes, focusing on drawing into himself. Expending enough energy to short out CASA’s electrical grid should have dissipated him instantly, but he felt stronger than ever. He was a little disappointed—if ever there had been a time he’d welcome the oblivion of wherever they went when their energies were expended, this was it. He could use a little calming nothingness just about now.
He didn’t stick around to watch the aftermath of his tantrum down in Bambini Mondo. No kids had gotten out and things were under control, so he tamped down the hot tendril of guilt snaking its way up through his throat and turned on his heel, making his way toward the stopped escalator. He wasn’t sure teleporting was a good idea right now. He’d probably end up stuck in a wall.
The escalator hummed to life when he was halfway up it, and a beat later the lights came back to full power. CASA was back on the grid.
None of the customers he passed looked panicked, only annoyed, so Benji figured the power had only been out for a minute or two, tops, not the eternity it had felt like to him. People were already back to stuffing their carts with plastic junk they’d never use, completely oblivious to the fact that Benji’s energy had somehow attacked the store.
He could feel Agnes and Karin somewhere on the fringes of his consciousness, but he didn’t take the time to look for them. He’d always had a vague pull that told him where they were, and Patrick, too, though the connection to him was stronger. He ignored them for the moment. Right now he couldn’t think about anything other than getting answers from Charles about the little girl downstairs.
Even if his estimate was off by a year or two, which he doubted, there was no way this kid hadn’t been conceived when he and Charles were together. He’d always suspected that Charles cheated, but this was still a shock. As far as he knew, Charles had never had any interest in women. Then again, as far as he knew Charles didn’t have any children and wouldn’t be caught dead shopping in a CASA, so clearly he was working with bad information.
Charles and his mystery boyfriend were still in the children’s furniture section when Benji found them. His heart was racing from the run, and he felt a prickle of moisture at his temple. He wiped it away absently, and it wasn’t until he rubbed his fingertips together a moment later that he realized it actually was sweat, not just the phantom feeling of it or the tiny misting of it he’d experienced before when he’d exerted himself. It was proper sweat, running down his face. He held his hand to his chest, his breath catching when he realized he could feel his heart beating. That was new too. Probably just another manifestation of extreme emotion. Finding out your ex-boyfriend had a child definitely qualified.
Feeling bold, he held his hand out in front of Charles’s face. Nothing. Still invisible.
“Why are you here? Who is this? When did you have a daughter?” he shouted, his throat raw.
Still nothing. Charles didn’t flinch or even cock his head like he used to when he’d hear something in the distance.
Benji swallowed down his disappointment and tried to center himself. Everything was going haywire, and he didn’t want to accidentally hurt someone by knocking something over.
And that was when he saw the Impression. She was biting at her lip a few feet away, her hands wringing together. The look on her face was pure, unadulterated fear, but it wasn’t directed at him. She was staring past him with a focused, laser-like gaze Benji had seen dozens of times before.
Shit.<
br />
Shit, shit, shit.
Was she here for Charles? Maybe his boyfriend?
Shit.
The Impression came closer, looking more anguished than she had a moment ago. Benji stepped closer, his eyes widening when he realized that they’d moved on from the tiny desks and two-tiered bookcases they’d been looking at earlier.
Charles ran his hand over the smooth white finish of the piece he and his boyfriend were examining. “It would match,” he said, squinting thoughtfully. “I still don’t see why we can’t just use Josie’s.”
The other man snorted, not looking up from the product information card. TRIGNO, it said. Cabinet, white.
They were looking at changing tables.
“Because you insisted on getting her a convertible one and she’s still using it as her dresser. Remember? We spent what, eight hundred on that thing?”
“Then let’s get her a new dresser and keep the changing table with the crib,” Charles said.
The man fisted his hands at his sides. “Great plan. She was already mad enough about the crib, and she wasn’t even using that. Let’s go ahead and take away furniture that’s actually in her room. She’s already feeling anxious, why not give her more of a reason to hate me?”
Charles moved toward him and rested his hands on the man’s shoulders. “Kerry,” he said softly, and the man’s head dropped forward, all of the anger disappearing. “She doesn’t hate you. Why would you say that?”
“Because she overheard my goddamned sister at the baby shower last night saying it was good that I’d have one of my own now,” he muttered. “And I tried to explain that it wasn’t like that, but Josie wouldn’t talk to me this morning.”
Charles’s lips curved up into a heartbreakingly beautiful smile. Benji had forgotten he could look like that—compassionate, kind. Loving. It had been a long time since he’d had that megawatt smile aimed at him, and it made him remember all the good times they’d had together.
