csi fic: a ghostly tale
SUMMARY: There’s a ghost in Sara’s apartment.
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own CSI. I do own the ghost, though. Please don’t steal my ghost. I’m rather attached.
Dedicated to my mother and her brother Jamie, who insist they each have a ghost. In fact, my uncle’s story about how he got his ghost inspired this story.
+++
“There’s a ghost in my apartment.”
Nick didn’t even look up from the glass coffee table he was dusting for prints. “Hmm,” was the only response he gave.
“I have a ghost as a companion.”
Nick grabbed a printer lifter. He bit his cheek as he applied the sticky part of the lifter to the print his dusting had uncovered. “That’s nice,” he said distractingly, as he smoothed the lifter on to the tabletop.
“It’s your fault.”
Finally, Nick raised his head and fixed Sara with a contemplative look. “There’s a ghost in your apartment and its presence is my fault?” he said dubiously.
“So, you have been listening.”
“Yes, Sara, I have been listening. I’ve been listening to you ramble for the past few minutes instead of working.” He shook his head. “What’s with you today?”
Sara took a step in Nick’s direction, abandoning the window she had finished dusting five minutes ago. “My apartment has been infiltrated by a ghost. Excuse me if I think that matters.”
“Sara, ghosts aren’t real,” Nick said slowly, as if talking to a child.
Sara glared at him, not appreciating the condescending tone of Nick’s words. She tucked her hair behind her ears, the gesture almost angry, as she glared at Nick. Her look made Nick feel like he was ten and being punished for telling the next door neighbor’s youngest child that Santa Claus was just make-believe.
“The Chinese believe-“
Nick cut her off. “Sara, you’re a scientist. Think about this rationally.”
Sara continued to glare at him. “I’ve met a number of scientists who believe in God. No one can prove the existence of God, yet many respected scientists still profess to believe in God. Who’s to say, then, that ghosts can’t exist? Isn’t it all a matter of faith?”
Nick decided not to touch the God-aspect of Sara’s argument. “You seriously believe in ghosts?” he asked, needing confirmation. He hadn’t expected this, not from Sara Sidle who prized science upon all else.
She was the one with the B.S. in Physics, after all. He was the one with the B.A. in Criminal Justice. She should be the one arguing against ghosts, not proclaiming ghosts are real.
“Well, I didn’t but now I do,” Sara said emphatically. “A ghost followed me home from the cemetery and is now calling my apartment home.”
Nick thought back to the cemetery the two of them had visited. He had taken Sara on Las Vegas’ Haunted Trolley Tour the week before Halloween. One of the places the tour visited was a cemetery.
If he had known that his suggestion for fun would result in Sara claiming ghosts were real, he wouldn’t have suggested the tour. Regret was beginning to seep through his bones.
He wanted to get back to work. The only way to do that, Nick foresaw, was the humor Sara temporarily. “And how do you know a ghost followed you home?”
“Because, all these weird things have occurred since that night. There’s a ghost and the logical explanation is that it followed me home from the cemetery. I must have stepped on its grave or something like that.”
Nick cracked a smile. “Don’t let Grissom hear you talking like this. He’ll send you to the psychologist.” Ghosts were something Grissom definitely wouldn’t believe in.
Sara frowned. “I’m not making it up, Nick. There’s a ghost.”
There was a hurt look on Sara’s face, and Nick felt like a bully for making fun of her so much. He sighed softly and said, “Okay, so what exactly has the ghost done?” He hoped he didn’t sound indulgent. He didn’t want to piss Sara off. A pissed off Sara was never a joy to work with. Even if she was being fanciful with her insistence that a ghost was haunting her apartment, Nick figured she wouldn’t appreciate it if it was obvious he was just humoring her.
And since he really just wanted to process the scene, he figured he could mask his annoyance and feign curiosity in the activities of Sara’s alleged ghost.
Sara’s face softened, which meant he had succeeded in allaying her fears that she was being mocked. “Well, nothing major, really, but-“
Nick held up a hand and cut Sara off. “Wait. Is this laundry list of ghostly deeds fairly long?”
While he was willing to humor her, they did have a job to do. Sara could ramble when she was interested in a topic. He suspected that her adventures with her ghost would be one of those topics Sara was interested in and could go on about for some length of time.
“Maybe,” Sara huffed. “But there all important,” she insisted with a smile. She was looking at him hopefully, leaving Nick with very few options.
Nick sighed, but was resigned to his fate. “Okay,” he began, “We’ll talk about your ghost after shift. I promise I’ll be open-minded and everything. But right now we have to process this scene. Deal?”
In his mind, his deal was the best possible solution. He got to work while Sara got the opportunity to ramble on over breakfast. It was a compromise that required him to give up probably an hour of his time, but he figured there wasn’t much else he could do if he wanted to work in comfortable climate. He didn’t much feel like working alongside an annoyed and pissed off Sara. An hour of his time was a reasonable sacrifice he’d make in exchange for a happy night of co-worker cooperation.
Sara agreed to the deal. “Deal,” she said, picking up her container of black dusting power and attacking the scene with renewed concentration.
Her back was turned, which Nick was glad for. Her turned back meant she didn’t see the amused smile that spread across Nick’s face as he watched Sara smile and work dutifully.
After a minute, he went back to work.
+++
After shift, Nick met Sara at Frank’s Diner. Once they had ordered coffee, juice, and breakfast, he gave her the go ahead to start detailing her adventures with the ghost living in her apartment. As promised, Nick tried to keep an open-mind.
Sara took a sip of coffee before beginning. “Over the last three weeks, there have been a number of strange incidences,” she began. “Several times the smell of lemons has suddenly filled my apartment, despite the fact that I don’t buy lemons or own any lemon-scented products.
“Three times when I arrived home, music was playing. I never leave the radio on, but on those three occasions, the radio had been turned on.”
Nick nodded and took a sip of his drink. “Anything else.”
“Strange sounds, knocks when there is no one at the door, stuff like that. As well, twice I’ve been woken by something shaking me awake. Both times that it happened, it was when my phone was ringing.”
“Maybe the phone woke you up?” Nick suggested tentatively. That sounded like the most logical explanation to him. He liked logic. Logic was good. Ghosts weren’t logical.
Sara shot him a dirty look. “There’s a difference between a noise waking you up and someone shaking your shoulders to wake you up.”
“So, you’re saying your ghost woke you up,” Nick stated skeptically. The phone explanation seemed more reasonable to him still.
“I thought you were going to be open-minded,” Sara complained. Her fingers were clutched around her coffee cup. She was one step away from pouting.
“I’m trying to be open-minded, but ghosts aren’t a thing I really believe in,” Nick said in his defense. He hadn’t believed in ghosts since he was six and still afraid of monsters under his bed.
Sara shrugged, seemingly unconcerned with his statement. “I didn’t either, but the evidence I’ve accumulated suggests ghosts are very real indeed.”
Nick rubbed a hand over his eyes; feeling very tired all of the sudden. Hearing to Sara’s tales of a ghost haunting her apartment was beginning to border on ridiculous. His open-mind had left the state when Sara started telling about ghosts waking her up.
He took a calming breath. “Sara, I want you to repeat after me, there are no such thing as ghosts, there are no such things are ghosts.”
It was meant to be a joke, to relax them both, but Sara took the joke the wrong way. She stood abruptly and threw down a ten dollar bill. She left without a word.
Nick stayed seated at the table as the waitress came and set their food down.
“I guess you’re friend won’t be eating hers,” the waitress said, not unkindly.
Nick shook his head. The waitress nodded and left with Sara’s plate in her hands. Nick stared at his food for a moment before burying his face into his hands. He had made the situation worse and now he had to think of a way to make amends.
It wasn’t a task he was looking forward to. Knowing Sara, she would make it extremely difficult for him.
But all he could do was try, Nick figured. He probably couldn’t make things much worse.
+++
“What are you doing here, Nick?”
Nick smiled. It was one of those smiles that made most women melt into puddles. Sara wasn’t like most other women. She didn’t melt, didn’t budge one inch. She wouldn’t even let him into her apartment. Instead he was stuck outside in the hallway, trying to plead his case.
He raised his hand, the one that was clutching a VHS rental case. “I brought a movie for us to watch. I figured we could hang.” He raised his other hand. “I also have sugared donuts, the kind you love.”
“What movie,” Sara demanded, still refusing him entry into her apartment. The door was barely open three inches, most of her face hidden behind the wooden door.
“Ghostbusters,” Nick said, with what he hoped was a serious face.
“Get lost.”
Sara made a move to slam the door in his face, but Nick quickly stuck his hand holding the film into the small crack between the door and the doorjamb.
It wasn’t the smartest move, Nick discovered a minute later. He had moved faster than Sara, and while the door was not shut completely, his hand was trapped. And Sara hadn’t exactly been gentle in the closing of her front door. His hand was now throbbing with pain.
He couldn’t remove his hand, of course, not even if his hand hurt. If he did, then Sara would just close the door before he got the chance to apologize for making her feel like a fool at the diner yesterday. She had refused to speak to him at work last night beyond what was required to work their case together.
A little bit of pain in his hand was worth it if it meant he got the chance to make amends with Sara. He had never liked silent treatments as a child and he didn’t like them as an adult either.
Nick was intending to make a spiel about how he just wanted to apologize while hiding how much pain he was in. His face must have belied his attempts to hide his pain, because a second Sara was ushering him into her apartment, an ice pack placed against the bruised skin of his right hand, donuts and movies abandoned on the kitchen countertop.
The ice was cold, but Sara was holding his right hand tenderly and her soft touch made the bite of the cold ice more bearable.
“Does that feel better?” Sara asked after a minute. Her voice was low, almost husky.
Nick swallowed heavily. In less than a minute, everything had changed. His mind was having difficulties adjusting to this new reality. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Sara nodded. “Sorry about slamming the door on your hand. That wasn’t really my intention. I just…”
“Didn’t to be made fun of again,” Nick finished for her. “I get it.”
He glanced around, realizing they were in Sara’s small kitchen. He leaned against the countertop. “I’m sorry about the whole mocking thing. Really, Sara, I am.”
Sara just stared at him for a moment, her dark eyes studying his face intently. The close scrutiny made Nick’s cheeks feel hot. Finally she nodded, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Okay, you’re forgiven.”
Nick carefully removed his hand from Sara’s. Her hands had been warm and soft, cradling his tender hand. It had been far too long since he had been touched so simply. In a way, her holding his hand was overwhelmingly, much more intimate than a person would think.
Although his intention was to be causal about the whole breaking-hand-contact thing, the way Sara backed up two steps in her small apartment kitchen told Nick he had failed. The smile was still on Sara’s face, but her eyes were no longer smiling. Despite having grown up with six sisters, Nick still lacked the ability to successfully navigate the female gauntlet of emotions. Too often he thought he had done right, only to discover a minute later he had gotten all of his signals mixed.
Sometimes he wished for a guidebook. Unfortunately, there weren’t any. Even if there had been a guidebook on how to deal with women, Nick doubted the handbook would have been useful for dealing with Sara. Sara was unique and unlike most of the women he had ever known. Sara in fact reminded Nick of his mother, who rarely marched to a conventional beat. Sara didn’t either, making her own music, and Nick admired that. It was the quality he had always admired in his mother.
If daughters picked men that reminded them of their fathers, did that mean sons picked women that reminded them of their mothers? Nick wasn’t sure, but if his attraction to Sara was any indication, that reasoning might have been accurate.
But now he had done the wrong thing, making the air between them tense once more. Things had started out bad, but things had been looking up. Then he had made the wrong move, all because Sara’s touch had been too much for him to handle. In all likelihood, Nick had probably just convinced Sara he had no real attraction to her.
Nick removed the ice from his hand, examining it. “Looks like nothing’s bruised,” he said, at a loss for anything else to say.
“That’s good,” Sara replied neutrally. Too neutrally, in Nick’s opinion.
“So, what to watch the movie?” he asked, somewhat awkwardly. He wasn’t surprised. He felt awkward after all. Actually, he felt vaguely like he was fourteen again.
It wasn’t a good feeling.
The smile left Sara’s face. “I don’t know, Nick. It’s getting late, plus you do have to work tomorrow.”
“It’s only eight. It’s early. Plenty of time left in the evening to watch a movie, and pig out on donuts. Besides, we both have tomorrow off.” He grinned. “I checked.”
Sara crossed her arms. “How come you have tomorrow night off too?”
Nick didn’t let his smile falter, despite the fact he had been convinced that the smile, combined with the donuts, would have been enough to sway Sara. It was like he had feared: Sara was far from a normal female.
“The lab has this policy. If you max out on overtime, they give you a two-day weekend. It’s a sweet deal, if you ask me.”
“Since when do you max out on overtime?” Sara asked. Her words were a bit quick to the cut, but they weren’t spoken venomously or even skeptically. Her tone was merely conversational, even if the words she had chosen expressed a tinge of doubt.
“I’ve got a big family,” he admitted. “Lots of gifts to ship to Texas, so the extra money is helpful at this time of year.”
“How big?”
Nick figured it was a good sign Sara was asking about his family. Asking meant she had gotten over her earlier hurt. And that meant he had succeeded in making amends once again tonight. His night was looking up.
“Six siblings, one brother and five sisters. All older, and all are married. Four nephews and eight nieces. Plus my parents, five uncles, three aunts, one grandpa, and two grandmothers. Oh, and some three cousins I particularly close to.”
He had been reciting the facts by rote. He hadn’t been paying attention to Sara. Now he rectified that, and found Sara staring at him with wide eyes.
“I think ‘big family’ might be an understatement,” Sara said after a second, her eyes still wide.
Nick laughed at her comment. “Maybe,” he said. Then he switched topics, shifting abruptly, hoping to capture in on the sudden light-hearted atmosphere. “So what do you say to the movie?” he asked with a waggle of his brows. He grabbed the movie from the counter, holding it out.
His sisters could withstand his charm, but they had never been able to withstand the eyebrow waggle. He was hoping Sara was similar.
Sara jerked the film out of his hands. “Fine,” she retorted, before pushing away from the kitchen island she was leaning against and walking away.
Nick resisted the urge to pump his fists in the air. The waggle had worked. Instead, he settled on smiling for a moment. Then he reigned in the smile and followed Sara into the living room.
“Don’t forget the donuts,” she called to him from where she was squatting and setting up the VCR. “And bring a couple of Diet Cokes too. They should be in the fridge.”
Nick sighed, but accepted being bossed around. Apparently Sara wouldn’t be playing hostess for him tonight. He grabbed the donuts, found the cans of pop in the fridge, and returned to the living room to find Sara fast-forwarding through the previews.
Just as he was sitting down on the couch, close to Sara but not too close, the lights of the lamp Sara had on in the living room flickered. Off and then on again, the move repeated twice.
“That’s odd,” Nick commented as he sat down.
Sara sent him a sweet smile. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just Erma the ghost saying hello,” she said idly.
Nick stared at her for a moment, but Sara seemed completely sincere. “Erma?”
She nodded. “Yes, I named the ghost Erma.”
“You named the ghost?” he asked in disbelief. The lamp flickered once more. “You named the ghost Erma? You named the ghost you didn’t like two days ago Erma?”
Sara rolled her eyes, before turning her eyes away from him. “I got over my ghost phobia. Erma’s really been really nice the last couple of days. Now be quiet. The movie’s starting.”
Nick just shook his head. “She named her ghost,” he repeated dully.
The lamp flickered again.
Sara slapped him lightly on the arm. “Shut up and watch the movie,” she commanded.
Nick thought about arguing, but decided against it. He did want Sara asked. He shut up and focused his attention on the TV screen.
The lamp didn’t flicker again.
+++
The End.
One Last Thing: I have no clue if Las Vegas has a Haunted Trolley Ride. Vancouver does, and my uncle insists that's how he got his ghost. I'm totally not kidding.
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own CSI. I do own the ghost, though. Please don’t steal my ghost. I’m rather attached.
Dedicated to my mother and her brother Jamie, who insist they each have a ghost. In fact, my uncle’s story about how he got his ghost inspired this story.
+++
“There’s a ghost in my apartment.”
Nick didn’t even look up from the glass coffee table he was dusting for prints. “Hmm,” was the only response he gave.
“I have a ghost as a companion.”
Nick grabbed a printer lifter. He bit his cheek as he applied the sticky part of the lifter to the print his dusting had uncovered. “That’s nice,” he said distractingly, as he smoothed the lifter on to the tabletop.
“It’s your fault.”
Finally, Nick raised his head and fixed Sara with a contemplative look. “There’s a ghost in your apartment and its presence is my fault?” he said dubiously.
“So, you have been listening.”
“Yes, Sara, I have been listening. I’ve been listening to you ramble for the past few minutes instead of working.” He shook his head. “What’s with you today?”
Sara took a step in Nick’s direction, abandoning the window she had finished dusting five minutes ago. “My apartment has been infiltrated by a ghost. Excuse me if I think that matters.”
“Sara, ghosts aren’t real,” Nick said slowly, as if talking to a child.
Sara glared at him, not appreciating the condescending tone of Nick’s words. She tucked her hair behind her ears, the gesture almost angry, as she glared at Nick. Her look made Nick feel like he was ten and being punished for telling the next door neighbor’s youngest child that Santa Claus was just make-believe.
“The Chinese believe-“
Nick cut her off. “Sara, you’re a scientist. Think about this rationally.”
Sara continued to glare at him. “I’ve met a number of scientists who believe in God. No one can prove the existence of God, yet many respected scientists still profess to believe in God. Who’s to say, then, that ghosts can’t exist? Isn’t it all a matter of faith?”
Nick decided not to touch the God-aspect of Sara’s argument. “You seriously believe in ghosts?” he asked, needing confirmation. He hadn’t expected this, not from Sara Sidle who prized science upon all else.
She was the one with the B.S. in Physics, after all. He was the one with the B.A. in Criminal Justice. She should be the one arguing against ghosts, not proclaiming ghosts are real.
“Well, I didn’t but now I do,” Sara said emphatically. “A ghost followed me home from the cemetery and is now calling my apartment home.”
Nick thought back to the cemetery the two of them had visited. He had taken Sara on Las Vegas’ Haunted Trolley Tour the week before Halloween. One of the places the tour visited was a cemetery.
If he had known that his suggestion for fun would result in Sara claiming ghosts were real, he wouldn’t have suggested the tour. Regret was beginning to seep through his bones.
He wanted to get back to work. The only way to do that, Nick foresaw, was the humor Sara temporarily. “And how do you know a ghost followed you home?”
“Because, all these weird things have occurred since that night. There’s a ghost and the logical explanation is that it followed me home from the cemetery. I must have stepped on its grave or something like that.”
Nick cracked a smile. “Don’t let Grissom hear you talking like this. He’ll send you to the psychologist.” Ghosts were something Grissom definitely wouldn’t believe in.
Sara frowned. “I’m not making it up, Nick. There’s a ghost.”
There was a hurt look on Sara’s face, and Nick felt like a bully for making fun of her so much. He sighed softly and said, “Okay, so what exactly has the ghost done?” He hoped he didn’t sound indulgent. He didn’t want to piss Sara off. A pissed off Sara was never a joy to work with. Even if she was being fanciful with her insistence that a ghost was haunting her apartment, Nick figured she wouldn’t appreciate it if it was obvious he was just humoring her.
And since he really just wanted to process the scene, he figured he could mask his annoyance and feign curiosity in the activities of Sara’s alleged ghost.
Sara’s face softened, which meant he had succeeded in allaying her fears that she was being mocked. “Well, nothing major, really, but-“
Nick held up a hand and cut Sara off. “Wait. Is this laundry list of ghostly deeds fairly long?”
While he was willing to humor her, they did have a job to do. Sara could ramble when she was interested in a topic. He suspected that her adventures with her ghost would be one of those topics Sara was interested in and could go on about for some length of time.
“Maybe,” Sara huffed. “But there all important,” she insisted with a smile. She was looking at him hopefully, leaving Nick with very few options.
Nick sighed, but was resigned to his fate. “Okay,” he began, “We’ll talk about your ghost after shift. I promise I’ll be open-minded and everything. But right now we have to process this scene. Deal?”
In his mind, his deal was the best possible solution. He got to work while Sara got the opportunity to ramble on over breakfast. It was a compromise that required him to give up probably an hour of his time, but he figured there wasn’t much else he could do if he wanted to work in comfortable climate. He didn’t much feel like working alongside an annoyed and pissed off Sara. An hour of his time was a reasonable sacrifice he’d make in exchange for a happy night of co-worker cooperation.
Sara agreed to the deal. “Deal,” she said, picking up her container of black dusting power and attacking the scene with renewed concentration.
Her back was turned, which Nick was glad for. Her turned back meant she didn’t see the amused smile that spread across Nick’s face as he watched Sara smile and work dutifully.
After a minute, he went back to work.
+++
After shift, Nick met Sara at Frank’s Diner. Once they had ordered coffee, juice, and breakfast, he gave her the go ahead to start detailing her adventures with the ghost living in her apartment. As promised, Nick tried to keep an open-mind.
Sara took a sip of coffee before beginning. “Over the last three weeks, there have been a number of strange incidences,” she began. “Several times the smell of lemons has suddenly filled my apartment, despite the fact that I don’t buy lemons or own any lemon-scented products.
“Three times when I arrived home, music was playing. I never leave the radio on, but on those three occasions, the radio had been turned on.”
Nick nodded and took a sip of his drink. “Anything else.”
“Strange sounds, knocks when there is no one at the door, stuff like that. As well, twice I’ve been woken by something shaking me awake. Both times that it happened, it was when my phone was ringing.”
“Maybe the phone woke you up?” Nick suggested tentatively. That sounded like the most logical explanation to him. He liked logic. Logic was good. Ghosts weren’t logical.
Sara shot him a dirty look. “There’s a difference between a noise waking you up and someone shaking your shoulders to wake you up.”
“So, you’re saying your ghost woke you up,” Nick stated skeptically. The phone explanation seemed more reasonable to him still.
“I thought you were going to be open-minded,” Sara complained. Her fingers were clutched around her coffee cup. She was one step away from pouting.
“I’m trying to be open-minded, but ghosts aren’t a thing I really believe in,” Nick said in his defense. He hadn’t believed in ghosts since he was six and still afraid of monsters under his bed.
Sara shrugged, seemingly unconcerned with his statement. “I didn’t either, but the evidence I’ve accumulated suggests ghosts are very real indeed.”
Nick rubbed a hand over his eyes; feeling very tired all of the sudden. Hearing to Sara’s tales of a ghost haunting her apartment was beginning to border on ridiculous. His open-mind had left the state when Sara started telling about ghosts waking her up.
He took a calming breath. “Sara, I want you to repeat after me, there are no such thing as ghosts, there are no such things are ghosts.”
It was meant to be a joke, to relax them both, but Sara took the joke the wrong way. She stood abruptly and threw down a ten dollar bill. She left without a word.
Nick stayed seated at the table as the waitress came and set their food down.
“I guess you’re friend won’t be eating hers,” the waitress said, not unkindly.
Nick shook his head. The waitress nodded and left with Sara’s plate in her hands. Nick stared at his food for a moment before burying his face into his hands. He had made the situation worse and now he had to think of a way to make amends.
It wasn’t a task he was looking forward to. Knowing Sara, she would make it extremely difficult for him.
But all he could do was try, Nick figured. He probably couldn’t make things much worse.
+++
“What are you doing here, Nick?”
Nick smiled. It was one of those smiles that made most women melt into puddles. Sara wasn’t like most other women. She didn’t melt, didn’t budge one inch. She wouldn’t even let him into her apartment. Instead he was stuck outside in the hallway, trying to plead his case.
He raised his hand, the one that was clutching a VHS rental case. “I brought a movie for us to watch. I figured we could hang.” He raised his other hand. “I also have sugared donuts, the kind you love.”
“What movie,” Sara demanded, still refusing him entry into her apartment. The door was barely open three inches, most of her face hidden behind the wooden door.
“Ghostbusters,” Nick said, with what he hoped was a serious face.
“Get lost.”
Sara made a move to slam the door in his face, but Nick quickly stuck his hand holding the film into the small crack between the door and the doorjamb.
It wasn’t the smartest move, Nick discovered a minute later. He had moved faster than Sara, and while the door was not shut completely, his hand was trapped. And Sara hadn’t exactly been gentle in the closing of her front door. His hand was now throbbing with pain.
He couldn’t remove his hand, of course, not even if his hand hurt. If he did, then Sara would just close the door before he got the chance to apologize for making her feel like a fool at the diner yesterday. She had refused to speak to him at work last night beyond what was required to work their case together.
A little bit of pain in his hand was worth it if it meant he got the chance to make amends with Sara. He had never liked silent treatments as a child and he didn’t like them as an adult either.
Nick was intending to make a spiel about how he just wanted to apologize while hiding how much pain he was in. His face must have belied his attempts to hide his pain, because a second Sara was ushering him into her apartment, an ice pack placed against the bruised skin of his right hand, donuts and movies abandoned on the kitchen countertop.
The ice was cold, but Sara was holding his right hand tenderly and her soft touch made the bite of the cold ice more bearable.
“Does that feel better?” Sara asked after a minute. Her voice was low, almost husky.
Nick swallowed heavily. In less than a minute, everything had changed. His mind was having difficulties adjusting to this new reality. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Sara nodded. “Sorry about slamming the door on your hand. That wasn’t really my intention. I just…”
“Didn’t to be made fun of again,” Nick finished for her. “I get it.”
He glanced around, realizing they were in Sara’s small kitchen. He leaned against the countertop. “I’m sorry about the whole mocking thing. Really, Sara, I am.”
Sara just stared at him for a moment, her dark eyes studying his face intently. The close scrutiny made Nick’s cheeks feel hot. Finally she nodded, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Okay, you’re forgiven.”
Nick carefully removed his hand from Sara’s. Her hands had been warm and soft, cradling his tender hand. It had been far too long since he had been touched so simply. In a way, her holding his hand was overwhelmingly, much more intimate than a person would think.
Although his intention was to be causal about the whole breaking-hand-contact thing, the way Sara backed up two steps in her small apartment kitchen told Nick he had failed. The smile was still on Sara’s face, but her eyes were no longer smiling. Despite having grown up with six sisters, Nick still lacked the ability to successfully navigate the female gauntlet of emotions. Too often he thought he had done right, only to discover a minute later he had gotten all of his signals mixed.
Sometimes he wished for a guidebook. Unfortunately, there weren’t any. Even if there had been a guidebook on how to deal with women, Nick doubted the handbook would have been useful for dealing with Sara. Sara was unique and unlike most of the women he had ever known. Sara in fact reminded Nick of his mother, who rarely marched to a conventional beat. Sara didn’t either, making her own music, and Nick admired that. It was the quality he had always admired in his mother.
If daughters picked men that reminded them of their fathers, did that mean sons picked women that reminded them of their mothers? Nick wasn’t sure, but if his attraction to Sara was any indication, that reasoning might have been accurate.
But now he had done the wrong thing, making the air between them tense once more. Things had started out bad, but things had been looking up. Then he had made the wrong move, all because Sara’s touch had been too much for him to handle. In all likelihood, Nick had probably just convinced Sara he had no real attraction to her.
Nick removed the ice from his hand, examining it. “Looks like nothing’s bruised,” he said, at a loss for anything else to say.
“That’s good,” Sara replied neutrally. Too neutrally, in Nick’s opinion.
“So, what to watch the movie?” he asked, somewhat awkwardly. He wasn’t surprised. He felt awkward after all. Actually, he felt vaguely like he was fourteen again.
It wasn’t a good feeling.
The smile left Sara’s face. “I don’t know, Nick. It’s getting late, plus you do have to work tomorrow.”
“It’s only eight. It’s early. Plenty of time left in the evening to watch a movie, and pig out on donuts. Besides, we both have tomorrow off.” He grinned. “I checked.”
Sara crossed her arms. “How come you have tomorrow night off too?”
Nick didn’t let his smile falter, despite the fact he had been convinced that the smile, combined with the donuts, would have been enough to sway Sara. It was like he had feared: Sara was far from a normal female.
“The lab has this policy. If you max out on overtime, they give you a two-day weekend. It’s a sweet deal, if you ask me.”
“Since when do you max out on overtime?” Sara asked. Her words were a bit quick to the cut, but they weren’t spoken venomously or even skeptically. Her tone was merely conversational, even if the words she had chosen expressed a tinge of doubt.
“I’ve got a big family,” he admitted. “Lots of gifts to ship to Texas, so the extra money is helpful at this time of year.”
“How big?”
Nick figured it was a good sign Sara was asking about his family. Asking meant she had gotten over her earlier hurt. And that meant he had succeeded in making amends once again tonight. His night was looking up.
“Six siblings, one brother and five sisters. All older, and all are married. Four nephews and eight nieces. Plus my parents, five uncles, three aunts, one grandpa, and two grandmothers. Oh, and some three cousins I particularly close to.”
He had been reciting the facts by rote. He hadn’t been paying attention to Sara. Now he rectified that, and found Sara staring at him with wide eyes.
“I think ‘big family’ might be an understatement,” Sara said after a second, her eyes still wide.
Nick laughed at her comment. “Maybe,” he said. Then he switched topics, shifting abruptly, hoping to capture in on the sudden light-hearted atmosphere. “So what do you say to the movie?” he asked with a waggle of his brows. He grabbed the movie from the counter, holding it out.
His sisters could withstand his charm, but they had never been able to withstand the eyebrow waggle. He was hoping Sara was similar.
Sara jerked the film out of his hands. “Fine,” she retorted, before pushing away from the kitchen island she was leaning against and walking away.
Nick resisted the urge to pump his fists in the air. The waggle had worked. Instead, he settled on smiling for a moment. Then he reigned in the smile and followed Sara into the living room.
“Don’t forget the donuts,” she called to him from where she was squatting and setting up the VCR. “And bring a couple of Diet Cokes too. They should be in the fridge.”
Nick sighed, but accepted being bossed around. Apparently Sara wouldn’t be playing hostess for him tonight. He grabbed the donuts, found the cans of pop in the fridge, and returned to the living room to find Sara fast-forwarding through the previews.
Just as he was sitting down on the couch, close to Sara but not too close, the lights of the lamp Sara had on in the living room flickered. Off and then on again, the move repeated twice.
“That’s odd,” Nick commented as he sat down.
Sara sent him a sweet smile. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just Erma the ghost saying hello,” she said idly.
Nick stared at her for a moment, but Sara seemed completely sincere. “Erma?”
She nodded. “Yes, I named the ghost Erma.”
“You named the ghost?” he asked in disbelief. The lamp flickered once more. “You named the ghost Erma? You named the ghost you didn’t like two days ago Erma?”
Sara rolled her eyes, before turning her eyes away from him. “I got over my ghost phobia. Erma’s really been really nice the last couple of days. Now be quiet. The movie’s starting.”
Nick just shook his head. “She named her ghost,” he repeated dully.
The lamp flickered again.
Sara slapped him lightly on the arm. “Shut up and watch the movie,” she commanded.
Nick thought about arguing, but decided against it. He did want Sara asked. He shut up and focused his attention on the TV screen.
The lamp didn’t flicker again.
+++
The End.
One Last Thing: I have no clue if Las Vegas has a Haunted Trolley Ride. Vancouver does, and my uncle insists that's how he got his ghost. I'm totally not kidding.