Free Giving Up the Ghost by Jane Davitt, Alexa Snow Page A

without talking about it, even if all Nick wanted was to pretend none of it had happened in the first place. The thought of John kissing someone else, touching someone else…
    He swallowed hard and went inside to find a note on the kitchen table.
     
    Couldn’t sleep. Going to take a bit of a walk. I’ll be back soon.
    John
     
    He could hear John’s voice saying the words; see the stutter of the pen where John had set it against the paper to write “love” before his signature but then changed his mind. John’s writing was precise and careful, old-fashioned even, and it looked like him somehow.
    While Nick was debating whether to wait for John to come back or to go look for him, the phone rang.
     
    “Hello?” Nick sounded impatient and he knew it.
    “Yes, this is Carolyn Mosser with DeltaZone Airlines; I’m trying to reach Dominic Kelley. Is this his residence?”

Chapter Four
     
    John had known Nick was back as soon as he’d walked in, even before the sound of Nick’s footsteps overhead reached him. The house didn’t feel empty as it had done when he’d woken from his doze. Taking the stairs slowly, he wondered if it was a good idea to talk in their bedroom; maybe he should see if Nick wanted to come back to the kitchen where they could --
    His thoughts cut off abruptly as he reached the open door. His suitcase, the one he’d bought new for their trip to the States earlier in the year, lay open on the bed, half-filled with his clothes, and an assortment of toiletry items were piled up beside it.
    “You’re…what are you doing?” Stupid question, when it was obvious. He knew he deserved this, but it hurt that Nick was so eager to see the back of him that he couldn’t even let John do his own packing, or wait for him to arrange somewhere to go.
    Nick looked up at him. God, even worn out and hurting, the man was one of the most gorgeous things John had ever seen. “My father’s dead,” he said, straightening up with one of John’s T-shirts in his hands.
    “God, I’m sorry,” John said automatically, even though everything Nick had ever said about the man -- and it wasn’t much -- had left John thinking that Nick was better off without him. He’d walked out on his wife and young son when Nick was a child, after all. “What happened?”
    “Plane crash.” Nick was wooden, moving from chest of drawers to the bed and putting the shirt into the suitcase as if he was on auto-pilot. “Probably the one that I…” He stopped, his face in profile, eyes closed. “I don’t even care about him. I don’t.”
    “Then why are you --” John replayed Nick’s words in his head, hearing them properly this time. “Christ. That was it? This is what you’ve been dreaming about? A plane crash?” Let it be something small. Not hundreds of deaths for Nick to blame himself for, even though John knew damn well there wouldn’t have been a thing Nick could’ve done to prevent it.
    “I kept looking for it in the news. I didn’t know what else to do. There weren’t enough details for me to figure it out.” Nick smoothed out John’s clothes in the suitcase. “I have to go. I already booked the flight, and…would you come with me?” It sounded as if he was steeling himself for John to refuse.
    “I thought --” John gestured at the open case, stepping into the room. His eye was caught by a second case, already fastened, standing behind the door. Nick’s case, battered by use. “I thought you were kicking me out.” He pushed his hand through his hair, rubbing at the back of his neck as he studied Nick. “Aye. I’ll come with you. If that’s what you want.” He walked over to Nick, who had straightened and was looking at him with eyes that were still blank with shock. “Nick…”
    He touched the back of his hand to Nick’s face, stroking it gently. “Come here, will you?” he whispered, pulling Nick into his arms without a thought for anything but taking that stricken, frozen look off