Rough Trade Bonus Content 

Warning: SPOILERS!!! (Last updated 5/28/20)

We start off with a couple of short little tidbits that were written for two different websites to celebrate Rough Trade’s release. They are both set before Loose Cannon.

***

Ghost’s intake form to Woodbury for his second trip looked like. It was originally posted on Love Bytes to celebrate Rough Trade’s release. Read on their site: https://bit.ly/2CbgLm0

Dear incoming resident, 

Please complete the following questionnaire to help us get to know you better. This will help us assign you to a compatible therapist. Thank you for your honesty. 

Sincerely, 

Dr. Carole Reeves 

Director of Mental Health Services

Woodbury Residential Treatment Center

1. What is your favorite color? 

2. How old are you? 

3. When are you at your happiest?

4. When are you at your unhappiest?

5. What is your favorite thing?

6. What do you want to do with your life and why?

7. What makes you angry?

8. What are you afraid of?

9. Why are you in Woodbury?

10. What would you like to accomplish in therapy?

Name: Ghost

1. Let’s be clear: if you’re assigning therapists based on favorite colors, I’m already fucked. 

2. I understand that it’s really hard to check my date of birth when it’s listed on all of my paperwork, but I’m not about to do your job for you.

3. When I’m promoting peace on earth by giving good will to men. If you know what I mean. 

4. Every time I look at Teen Vogue and Emma Stone isn’t on the cover.

5. Whiskers on kittens

6. Rescue a defenseless child from a burning building. For the karma.

7. Don’t come for Regina George. I will stab you. 

8. Mold in showers. Also tweed. Unless it’s pink. Pink tweed is lovely. I think it’ll be big this fall. 

9. I like a man with a slow hand.

10. I would like to become a better human being so I don’t have to return to Woodbury again, because this place is a godforsaken shithole. No offense.

Hey Carole,

Can I have Steve back? Don’t get me wrong, I have no doubt that this insightful little quiz could match me with a rising star within Woodbury’s state-of-the-art crop of pro-boner therapeutic professionals. But I had a connection with Steve that I don’t think I’ve ever had with a therapist before, even if he was only an intern. I can’t tell you how rewarding it was to share my experiences with a fellow believer in alien abductions. And I really liked knowing about all his plants. Did you know he had a ficus that he named Kevin? That’s the kind of shit that helps people open up. What do you say? Hook a guy up? I mean, assuming Steve still works here after all that hoopla where he was caught selling weed to the residents.

Also, I would prefer not to room with Thacker again. I think it would be best for my program if I wasn’t forced to shank someone in the first week.

XOXO,

G

***

And here’s an article for Duncan’s police department’s newsletter in which Duncan is interviewed for the bachelor auction for the Widows and Orphans fundraiser. Originally posted on A Novel Approach. Read on their site here: https://bit.ly/2RWaMXN

Again, this is set before Loose Cannon. 

***

Bachelor number 6 interview. Officer Duncan Rook…whoa, you’re a big guy! I can work with that. Rugged, flannel, the strong, silent type. They’ll eat it up. I’m Jose. So the way this works is I’ll ask you some questions for the department website and at the end of the month they’ll do the auction. You mind if I tape this? 

Did you say bachelor auction?

Sure did!

I think I’m in the wrong place. I was told this was an interview for the department charity—

Yep, that’s us! We’re auctioning off a date with eight bachelors in the department, and you’re—

No.

What? But you signed up.

No, I didn’t.

There’s a shuffle of papers. Isn’t this your signature?

Do I look like someone who puts a smiley face in the O’s in my name?

A pause. No?

No.

Um. I don’t…you’re still signed up, though?

Rook sighs. I think we’ve been pranked by my fellow officers. You can cross my name off the list.

Um. It’s for charity?

Is that a question?

No? I don’t know what’s happening.

He sighs again. What’s the charity?

Widows and Orphans. A chick pays to go to dinner with you, and then…that’s it. The money goes to widows and orphans. 

I’m not kissing anyone.

You don’t have to.

What happens now?

I have a list of questions.

All right.

Right. What made you decide to become a police officer? 

I’m good at hurting people. I figured I might as well do it in a way that helps society.

Dude, you can’t say that.

Why not?

It’s creepy. You’re supposed to say that you like helping people. So people will want to go out with you. That’s the whole point.

Fine. I like helping people.

Good! Great! That’s great! Let’s talk about girls. There’s a long pause. And then a very slow smile. Hey, that’s a nice smile, Officer Rook. I can use that! Tell me about your dream girl.

I like muscles.

Huh. That’s…nice. You don’t often get that one.

And height. 

That makes sense! You’re the size of a mountain! Tall girls, step right up!

His smile gets a little sharp. And I like the natural look. No makeup. Nothing with flowers. Hairy legs. That sort of thing.

Hairy legs?

He nods. 

That’s…look, if you’re not going to take this seriously, we might as well…

I’m not lying to you. 

But…ew.

He shrugs. You asked.

Okaaaaaay. Describe your dream date.

I don’t know.

Sure you do!

Is this a thing people do? Sit around thinking about the dates they want to go on?

Jesus. Just say what you like to do.

I like to debate philosophy. Read. Go fishing.

Help me out here a little bit, man. I’m trying to hook you up. 

I’m being honest.

Fine. Whatever. What’s your most embarrassing middle school memory?

I’m not telling you that.

For crying out…just make something up, dude.

No. 

No?

I try not to lie to people.

So you value honesty in a relationship?

Doesn’t everyone?

Sure! That’s great! Hey, girls! He’s a rugged officer who likes to read, won’t lie to you and, uh, doesn’t expect you to shave! Make a wager today! 

Officer Rook sighs. 

Author Note: Some of you may remember a blog post where I talked about being concerned over how dark the beginning of Ghost’s book was. You may also remember a blog post considerably later where I admitted that the original first chapter got trashed for exactly that reason. In retrospect, the scenes were also somewhat repetitive. I wanted to show how Ghost was living at the beginning of his journey, but I might’ve done it a little too well. It was overkill for what I needed to accomplish, if that makes sense. So these first pages were removed. A few tidbits of this material made it into the book in other forms, but the vast majority of it did not.

Despite all of these pages getting trashed, I don’t feel like it was wasted effort. Looking back, I can tell that a lot of this was me trying to get in Ghost’s head, so even if the pages didn’t make it into the book, they were still incredibly useful in developing his character.

As usual, this is unedited. Dates and names may be inconsistent with the novels.

Beware, there is some definite NSFW content here. And it’s really dark. If you’re feeling a little sad at the end, just remember that eventually Ghost meets Duncan and finds his happiness.

Deleted scene—original first chapter of Rough Trade—nsfw

2012

“I have this vintage chicken coop in my basement,” the man said, breath already huffing as Ghost knelt in front of him. “It locks and everything. To keep foxes out.”

“Uh-huh,” Ghost said. Gravel dug into knees through his jeans, sharp little snags of pain. He shifted his weight. Didn’t help. Well, it’d stop in a minute.

“It’s warmer there. We could go there.” The man’s breath fogged as he spoke. “The bricks are really cold, is all.”

Ghost wasn’t sure what the guy had expected from an alley in December, but he wasn’t wrong about the temperature. Still. Foxes trying to get to chickens in a basement? For fuck’s sake, how stupid did he think Ghost was?

“As much fun as your murder basement sounds,” Ghost said politely, “I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.”

“Okay. Sure. Fine.” The guy nodded in little jerks. “Can we still, um, do this?”

“If you’ll shut up.”

“Okay.” He shoved his boxers down and waited, his skinny thighs vibrating, his hands with their dirty nails twitching in the air like he wanted to grab Ghost by the hair but didn’t quite dare.

Ghost reached up, giving the guy’s dick a few tugs while he did the junk check, looking for sores and crabs and other gross things, but people who raised chicken coops for prostitute murdering took good care of themselves. Ghost looked up, caught the guy’s eye. He had, objectively, a not-ugly face. For a potential psycho, he appeared normal enough. Ghost gave him a few more lazy tugs, slid one hand into the waistband of his jeans to pry the hilt of his blade up—just in case—and leaned in.

The guy tasted like he smelled—relatively clean sweat and hidden-away skin, the small jogs of his hips probably involuntary as he let out a moan that definitely reached beyond the end of the alley to the main street.

Ghost pulled back. “Seriously? Are you trying to get us busted? You know what they’ll do to you in lockup if you get caught with someone my age?” Which was two years older than he’d told the guy, but still enough to get the asshole shanked by one of the rare criminals with standards. “Shut your fucking mouth.”

“Sorry, sorry, don’t stop, what the fuck, kid—”

Ghost rolled his eyes. He’d be earning those twenties tucked into his sock on this one. He leaned back in, took the guy deep again, and—

—

—

“Jesus. Jesus. Jeee-SUS.”

Ghost blinked. The alley wobbled around him. His mouth was wet and sour and he…he spit. That’s right. Had to spit. Alley. Chicken coops.

He got up. His knees ached. Blade in his left hand. Blade in his left hand.

The guy did up his pants. “You’ve got one hell of a mouth, kid.”

“Thanks.” Ghost wiped his lips. “Your feedback is important to us.”

Blade in his left hand, but the guy walked away and Ghost breathed again.

2013

Woodbury Residential Treatment Center.

Where the food was the only thing worse than all the fucking therapy.

Well, the food and all the searches. Now that they knew how much he liked knives, after that whole thing with Strickland’s testicle, he was going to have to deal with strangers touching him all the time.

He told them he wasn’t going to see Dr. Carole today. Let them make a black mark next to his name for refusing. Tomorrow, he’d pick up the act. He’d get his shit together. Work the program and get out.

But for today…today he was tired.

2014

“I’m, uh, looking for something a little rougher, princess.” The frat-boy smirked, but there was a tinge of uneasiness to the expression. His gaze darted around, lingering on shadowed alleys and darkened cars. His eyes weren’t bloodshot and his hands weren’t trembling. His skin was clear, his teeth all present. Not a junkie. And a cop wouldn’t have any reason to be nervous.

A rookie, then. Huh. Ghost didn’t get many of those.

“Looks aren’t everything. You won’t find rougher than me.” He pulled his blade out, cleaned under a fingernail, eyes still on frat-boy’s face.

The guy swallowed. His eyes ran up and down Ghost’s body. “Are you even eighteen?”

“Yes.” Or he would be, in about seven months. Close enough. He kept his body language languid. Relaxed. Like nothing could rattle him. Sexy, he figured, to a guy looking for someone who could handle himself.

“I, uh…”

“Or did you come all the way down here just to go back to Beta Delta Bullshit with your cherry intact?”

Frat-boy flushed, his lips parting as he sucked in a breath. “Yeah, okay.”

They walked down the sidewalk to the overpass, where the distant red-green of the streetlights disappeared into shadow. There was just the scents of oil and asphalt and damp soil carried on the soft, damp night breeze.

“Am I fucking you or sucking you?” Ghost tilted his head to one side.

Frat-boy’s gaze dropped to Ghost’s crotch. “Uh…”

God save him. Ghost rolled his eyes. “In this lifetime.”

“Um, suck me.”

Ghost considered the quality of the guy’s clothes and threw out a number that would’ve had his usual clientele laughing in his face. “Two hundred.”

“Sure. Okay.”

It must be nice to be able to shell out that kind of money for head without blinking. Ghost held his hand out. “Up front, asshole.”

“I knew that.” The guy held out four fifties, his fingers shaking, the watch on his wrist worth at least a couple grand. Ghost considered taking it, but then dismissed the idea. He’d probably have to hurt the guy to get the watch away from him, and the cops might actually investigate the claims of a guy whose education was probably costing his daddy upwards of fifty thousand a year. Not worth it. Besides, he had a feeling that if he made it good enough, this guy might turn into a regular, and Ghost wasn’t stupid enough to shoot a gift-MBA in the mouth.    

Guys with kinks always came back if they got what they needed, and if there was one thing Ghost was good at, it was becoming whatever he needed to be.

He tucked the bill away and knelt. Blade in his left hand, this time from the fold in his jeans he’d sewn at the small of his back.

After a thorough glance of the guy’s junk, he darted in, sucking one ball into his mouth and biting down. Not hard—barely a whisper of pressure—but enough to scare the shit out of the guy, to make him shout and fumble and try to push Ghost’s head back. Ghost knocked his hand away—he didn’t want to actually tear the guy’s nut off or anything—and looked up at him, drawing back in increments that took ages, finally opening his mouth with a loud slurp, letting the guy’s ball thwap against his thigh. The guy’s chest heaved, his eyes wide. His hand curled up into a fist.

“You might be able take me,” Ghost offered, fucking with him. Right. If this guy had ever been in a fight, it’d been a sloppy drunken mess at a frat party, the kind of parties Ghost had only seen on TV or movies, the ones he’d seen at no stop i avoid looking back parties that showed up in the kinds of movies the staff never let them watch at Woodbury, parties with loud music and expensive whiskey and roofied sorority girls passed out on beds upstairs. Ghost could take this guy’s liver out without blinking. Good luck at a kegger without that.

Ghost said, “You’re big. You could maybe even get your money back. But by the time we’re done, you’ll be out at least one ball, never mind what shape you leave me in. Or you can stand there and take your chances and maybe I’ll make you come your fucking brains out. Princess.”

The guy’s breath shuddered out of him. “Yeah. Yeah. Do that.”

Predictable.

Ghost took the guy in his mouth, sucking hard for a minute, listening to the guy’s soft moans until he felt a hand in his hair. He pulled off, grabbed the guy’s wrist, twisted it, used the leverage to yank him down, ignoring his cry of pain, and the blade—in his left hand, in his left hand—went to frat boy’s throat.

“If you pull on my hair again, you’re going to lose something vital,” Ghost said pleasantly. “Do you understand?”

The guy’s gaze was hazy. Yeah, he definitely had a type. He stammered out agreement, and Ghost let him go.

“Hands above your head. Pin them to the fucking cement. Don’t touch me again.”

The guy’s hands flew upwards like they’d been jerked on a string. “Yep, yeah, okay, yeah.”

“Stay there.”

“Yeah, yeah, oh—”

So fucking predictable. The way they all broke apart, logic gone, self-preservation gone, all at the thrum of a hand or a mouth on their dicks or clits. Times like this, Ghost feared for the human race. And later, when the guy’s brain crawled out of his balls, he’d still want Ghost. He’d be back.

Ghost leaned in, blade in his left hand, sucking, blade in his left hand.

Later, when the guy was gone, Ghost realized it’d been one of the tricks where he hadn’t vanished in the middle.

Huh. He wished he knew what set those off.

2015

Jesus. Did all police cars have to smell like piss in the back? The cuffs dug into his wrists. It was late and his head hurt and he was fucking tired. Just take him to Woodbury already and let him sleep it off. He thought of Church and Tobias and felt a pang of something sweet. Maybe Woodbury wasn’t a good idea after all.

Then the cruiser turned onto a side street, away from the nearest precinct, and Ghost knew. He sighed, tipping his head downward. Don’t say it, he reminded himself. If you don’t say it, it’s all good.

“Make you a deal,” the cop said, and Ghost met his gaze in the rearview. The cop didn’t explain what the deal was, but then, he didn’t need to.

Don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it

“Okay.”

Good. Now just keep not saying it it’s a deal if you don’t say it.

When the back door of the cruiser opened and the cop—big belly, graying hair, canny eyes gone desperate already—loomed in the open space, handcuff keys out, Ghost said, “Yeah, okay.”

He said it in his head then, too, reminding himself that he was getting something out of it, that it was a deal, he was getting paid with his freedom, that he meant it. Okay, okay, okay—

2016

The motel bed smelled like sweat and cheap detergent, and she reeked of cigarettes under her perfume. She was terrified—not of him, but of this, this room and what they became by coming here—her blue eyes huge behind her thick glasses. It took forever to get her wet. He hadn’t had to work this hard since—well, since the last woman he’d fucked. Like it wasn’t difficult enough to do this shit when he wasn’t trying to stay hard.

He wondered if he would’ve been gay if not for no stop I avoid looking back. He stared at a mole above the woman’s left tit for a second while he contemplated this. Eventually he shrugged. Wasn’t like it mattered. Meat was meat, and it didn’t get any sexier in a different shape.

He should probably update his site to say he didn’t fuck women, though, now that he thought about it. But there was something…it was…he found it tricky to say no when a woman said, “I picked you because you look more like a girl. I picked you because you won’t hurt me.”

He could understand that. They were really wrong, but he understood it.

She was shuddering beneath him, and he hadn’t even entered her yet.

“You want to get on top?” he asked.

She shook her head. Her skin was blotchy and red.

More gently, he asked, “You want me to stop? We could watch a movie. Or I could leave.”

She had tears coming out of her eyes. Her fingers ran up his back and he wanted to knock her hands away but he didn’t. She was one of those, apparently, one of the ones who wanted touch, not sex, and if he’d known, he’d have bailed the second he saw her, but it was too late now. Even he wasn’t bastard enough to walk out on her now.

“Let me brush your hair,” he murmured. “Yeah?”

She nodded, and started crying hard, and he slid off of her, tossing the condom in the trash and tugging her against him. It made his skin crawl, but she was outright sobbing and he understood that too, and he could handle a minute or so before he—or maybe not, maybe—

He came out of it slowly. Heard water in the bathroom. His left hand was empty, it was empty, and he sat up, this was all wrong, it was backwards and wrong and his jeans, where were his jeans, his blade went in his left hand, it WENT IN HIS LEFT HAND AND—

There was a woman holding his jeans out. She watched him pull the knife out and went very still, and he had to breathe, had to breathe, had to, it was here, blade in his left hand, and he managed a garbled, “Won’t hurt you. Just. A second.”

She plainly didn’t believe him at first, but she stayed, and eventually, when he only clung to the weapon and didn’t otherwise move, she whispered, “So it’s, um. Like a lucky rabbit’s foot?”

He jerked one shoulder. Lucky wasn’t the word. If she’d still been touching him when he came out of it without the blade, this would’ve gone in a very different direction.

She straightened the corner of the duvet, murmuring, “Don’t be embarrassed. I’m probably still more screwed up than you.”

She might have a point; a whore had pulled a knife on her and she hadn’t run. But he had his own shit to deal with, so he only shrugged again. How did anyone measure something like that anyway?

She had a hairbrush in one hand. He shimmied into his clothes and tucked the blade back in the waistband.

Instead of fucking, they ordered pizza and watched Die Hard and he brushed her hair. Halfway through the movie she started mumbling something about her kid that he couldn’t make out. He tuned her out; she wasn’t here for his opinion anyway. After a while she cried a little more, but he kept brushing her hair and eventually she stopped.

They talked a little about whether or not Alan Rickman was hot. She said yes. Ghost wasn’t sure how he was supposed to know one way or the other, but he agreed out loud. He managed a mildly-crooked French braid, and tied the fuzzy pink hair band around the tail.

She tipped him a hundred as he left. He told her to keep his number and hoped she didn’t.

He thought he’d probably rather suck a hundred dicks for free.

2016

Woodbury again.

For the first time, getting out of the social worker’s car in the parking lot, looking at those institutional brick buildings and the long cracked sidewalks, Ghost’s heartbeat slowed instead of sped. He liked being on his own. It wasn’t safer. Easier, though. Definitely easier. This was—he shouldn’t be feeling this. Shouldn’t be feeling his step lighten, shouldn’t be passing familiar and unfamiliar faces with an utter lack of interest only to feel everything in him go warm and soft and stupid as two guys in the big group room looked up from where they were sitting on the couch doing homework.

At the sight of him, they wore identical expressions of relief, and it cracked Ghost open.

Edgar-Allen Church and Tobias Benton, the closest Ghost had ever come to friendship in his life.

He couldn’t stop to talk; he had to go with the staff member to get searched and checked in. He tossed them a wink hello, though, and against his best instincts, he liked the way they both grinned in response, Church wry and shaking his head, Tobias flushed and sweetly pleased.

Later, in the free hours after dinner, they met in the front room again to catch up. Ghost had eaten his full portion in the cafeteria, and his stomach must’ve shrunk or something over the months since he’d last been in Woodbury, because all it’d take was half a cup of corn and some Salisbury steak to make him feel logy and bloated. Maybe that was why his guard was down when Church and Tobias exchanged a loaded glance before Church tentatively asked, “So…what’s new with you?”

“Same garbage as ever,” he said, unthinking, and only realized he’d sounded downright honest—that he’d been downright honest—when they both went still. He added, “Good times, kids. Nothing but fun.”

“You sound tired,” Tobias said quietly.

Ghost had to nip this in the bud right now, so he said, “Shift work will do that for you.”

Church’s expression twisted into frustrated sadness, and Tobias stared at the carpeted floor, his mouth pursed in misery.

Ghost sighed. He always seemed to get it wrong with these two. No matter what he said or did, they never just accepted it. They always wanted more. And no matter what he said or did to keep them from getting it, they kept making room for him.

Confusing. Frustrating.

He put his head back on the arm of the couch.

Whatever. In a few weeks’ time he’d have convinced yet another underpaid county therapist that he’d seen the error of his ways and he could go back to his real life. He could stop pretending he bought into the idea that if he just worked the state-sponsored program, he too could attain a Real Future. It wouldn’t do him any good to get used to this.  At some point after he turned eighteen, they’d start putting him in jail instead of juvenile residential treatment, and he didn’t fool himself about how long a guy like him would last in lockup. He’d have to kill to keep himself to himself, and then he’d have to kill more to keep any of his victims’ friends away, and at some point, he’d look up and realize he was sixty and talking to a parole board about how he could contribute to society, never mind that he hadn’t seen it in almost half a century.

No, he couldn’t afford to get used to this. Everything about Woodbury conspired to take him out at the knees.

“Still hustling, huh?” Church asked, his gaze direct. It made Ghost want to fidget. He didn’t, because that would only make Church think he was onto something, and then he’d push. Church had a propensity for violence—one of Ghost’s favorite things about him, actually—but he had a good heart and for some godforsaken reason he cared about Ghost, and that meant he’d push, even if he knew the ensuing conversation would suck balls.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Tobias didn’t say anything, but his brow creased, and Ghost felt unaccountably shitty at the sight of it. Which in turn pissed him off. “I’m going to go to bed. I’m tired.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Church said in a low voice.

“Do what?”

“Pretend you’re cool with all of this. That it’s okay. Not with us.”

Tobias still didn’t look up, but he nodded.

Ghost could’ve answered with a dozen different things, but he didn’t think Church would buy any of them. And as it was, they’d already dug too deep, reached for too much. If they kept this up, he’d have to…he’d have to do something, have to argue or fight or kick them loose, and none of that was good, none of it would…he needed…fuck them both for doing this.

“I’m going to bed,” he said again, as evenly as he could, and got up and left.

He heard Church curse behind him, heard Tobias say softly, “We had to try.”

Then he was past the staff desk and alone in the long hallway that led to his room and he could breathe again.  

 ***Author’s Note: It became pretty clear to me fast that I wasn’t going to be able to use the above pages as my first chapter, but that didn’t mean I knew what to replace them with. I toyed with a bunch of different things, made a bunch of attempts that never got longer than a page. The best of these attempts is below, but although there were things I really liked about it, I eventually realized that it would be better to have the book open with Ghost saving Tobias rather than having him save a complete stranger who never came back into the story. Once I decided to go that route—a flashback to the moment where Ghost intervenes on Tobias’s behalf in Woodbury—the rest of the scenes fell into place. All the key scenes that had been hidden because readers hadn’t had access to Ghost’s POV were suddenly fair game, and I knew that was the way to go.

So here’s the initial Ghost-as-hero scene. I’m a little sad that the conversation in the McDonald’s never made it into the book, because I feel like Ghost’s dialogue here captures everything that made him intriguing and fun to write. I’m pleased you’ll all finally get to see it.

There’s some foul language and references to violence and prostitution. I would deem it NSFW, but your mileage may vary.

Deleted Scene - Unused Alternate Opening #1

Don’t do it, Ghost thought, aiming the silent warning to the teenage girl on the opposite corner, watching her contemplate a car she had no business contemplating.

She had the look of a young, nervous wolf, all long, skinny limbs and hands and feet too big for her body, nervy and insecure as she hovered under the overpass, biting her lip. She’d been here for the last three days, watching the rest of them, trying to work up the nerve to take a trick, and it figured, it just fucking figured that she’d picked this particular piece of shit with which to break her cherry.

They called him Green Mercedes, and he tended to rope in the newbies because he looked like your middle-school best friend’s dorky, harmless dad, but he’d never brought a girl back. Sometimes they wandered down to the overpass on their own when they healed up, but mostly they didn’t. A few would never hustle again. Scars were only sexy to a very limited clientele.

The girl had no way of knowing this. No way beyond watching the rest of the whores under the overpass avoid Green Mercedes as he idled at the curb.

Ghost would’ve thought she’d be too smart to fall for Green Mercedes, what with the way she’d been observing the rest of them, trying to work out what they were doing and why, but she had the suburbs stamped all over her expensive jeans, and the baby-fat-round cheeks of someone who’d barely tipped fourteen, fifteen tops, and there were some lessons that could only be learned the hard way if you didn’t have someone wiser to lead the way. And hunger could turn anyone into a fool.

Don’t do it, Ghost told the girl silently.

 Don’t do it, he told himself.

Hadn’t he figured out by now what happened when you helped vulnerable idiots? Look what’d happened with Tobias—Ghost bailed him out of a beating in Woodbury, and now, months later, Tobias was still trailing after him, getting his sticky friendship all over Ghost, worrying about him, giving him big, worried blue eyes. Ghost didn’t have the time or energy for another leech. He couldn’t save this girl with the sad, chipped glitter nail polish and the pink streak in her hair and he shouldn’t have to. He wasn’t going to. He wasn’t.

Then she squared her shoulders and stepped out of the shadows, and Ghost thought fucking fucking fuck and broke into a light jog, crossing the asphalt and catching up with the girl just as she bent to stick her head through the passenger’s side window.

“Nope,” he said, grabbing her arm in an unbreakable grip and hauling her nearly off her feet before she recovered and caught up to his momentum. “Walk. Keep walking.”

“What the hell,” she snarled, stumbling, wrenching at her arm so that he was forced to stop or leave her alone.

Behind them, Green Mercedes opened his door.

“If you want to get in a car with a guy who gets his jollies using his fists on pretty little things like you, be my guest,” Ghost said, throwing the girl a blindingly insincere smile before letting it soften into something more real—or what she would interpret as real, anyway. “Or you can keep your skin intact and come with me.”

Green Mercedes—bearded, with father-type eyeglasses from the seventies, in an orange puffy jacket—began walking toward them. “What’s the problem?” 

Ghost ignored him and lifted an eyebrow at the girl. “Your choice.”

The man was still approaching. In just a few more steps, he’d be within reaching distance. His voice took on a stern, fatherly tone. “I think you should take your hands off the girl, young man.”

“I agree,” Ghost said, and took his hands off the girl, but only to slide one to the waistband of his jeans, where he kept his blade in the horizontal pocket along the small of his back. It was a butterfly knife, the blade concealed within the hilt until Ghost swung it open with a practiced flick of his wrist.

The girl’s mouth dropped open; she stepped away from Ghost, which—understandable. But Ghost only looked at Green Mercedes and said pleasantly, “Stop there or lose a ball.”

Green Mercedes stopped, gaze on the knife. He swiveled slightly, back toward his car and the stretch of filthy pavement where the other whores stood smoking, waiting for tricks, as if considering cutting his losses. But nobody back there would give him the time of day anymore and he knew it. He faced the girl. “Two hundred.”

Ghost snorted. As if that kind of outlandish price wasn’t suspicious enough.

The girl swallowed.

Green Mercedes added, “Going once…”

The girl peered up at Ghost, torn.

“He will carve you into pieces,” Ghost warned, and jerked a shoulder, frustrated, before heading off down the sidewalk. He’d done what he could; the rest was up to her.  

“Going twice,” Green Mercedes called.

“All right, fine,” the girl said from behind him, and he could hear her light approaching footfalls as she hurried to catch up with Ghost.

“All right,” Ghost agreed.

“Fucking cocksucker,” Green Mercedes yelled, making the girl flinch. Ghost glanced over his shoulder, but Green Mercedes was stomping back to his car.

“Smart choice,” Ghost told her.

“Yeah, whatever,” the girl mumbled. “Not going to get me fed, is it?”

Ghost sighed and gestured down the street in the general direction of the nearest fast food joint. “I’ll buy you a burger if you promise not to cry.”

She eyed him doubtfully—she wasn’t a complete idiot after all, good for her. In the distance, Green Mercedes slammed his door and revved his engine, yelling another crude comment out his window, and she edged a tiny bit closer to Ghost as the guy peeled off, his fury leaving tire treads on the asphalt. They both watched warily, but the car headed for the boulevard in the opposite direction, and Ghost let his tension begin to drain. He put his knife away. The girl watched him, exhaling hard when the blade disappeared.

“Okay,” she said. “A burger.”

In the McDonalds, they bought food and sat in a booth near the kiddie play place, the noise of the hordes of screeching children more than enough to cover what Ghost suspected would be the less-than-legal parts of their conversation.

“I guess I should say thank you,” she said around a mouthful of fries.

“I guess,” Ghost said dryly. “But don’t sprain anything with the effort.”

“It’s not like you saved my life or anything.”

Ghost wasn’t so sure about that, but he didn’t correct her. They had bigger fish to fry. “Let’s get the basics out of the way. What’s your name?”

“Maggie.”

“All right, Maggie. I’m Ghost.”

She sneered. “Like Casper? The friendly one?”

He laughed. “Do I strike you as the friendly sort?”

She surveyed him for a moment, her gaze flickering down to her waist, and he knew she was remembering his knife. The sneer dropped off her face and she shifted uncomfortably on her plastic bench. “No. I guess you don’t.”

“I guess you’d be right. How old are you? Fourteen? Fifteen?”

“I’m fourteen.”

“Did you run or get kicked out? Not that I can’t picture people crawling over themselves to experience your lovely personality.”

She gave him a dirty look. “Kicked out.”

“Any chance you can go back?”

She laughed, bitter and low. “I told my evangelical mom I kissed a girl. What do you think?”

No, then, Ghost figured. “Family you can stay with? Friends?”

“No family that’ll take in an enormous lesbo with a smart mouth,” she said, sullen. “I was staying with my friend Leslie for a while but her parents turned out to be assholes. So here I am.”

Ghost considered this while he chewed a bite of his burger. “The way I see it, you’ve got two options. You can go to the cops. They’ll try to force you to go home, and they’ll probably charge your mom with abandonment, which’ll only piss her off more. You’ll eventually end up in foster care, but it’ll be really fucking ugly in the meantime. Or you can stay out here, where your underdeveloped survival instincts will probably land you with a fuckton of abuse and a meth habit.” He took a slurp of his soda, watched her fidget as anger bloomed behind her dark eyes.

“What the hell do you know? You’re like, what, two years older than me?”

“They’ve been a long two years,” Ghost said, amused. “And no one has ever bought me a pair of jeans from the Gap, if that helps you put it together.”

She flushed. “So you’re saying I can’t hack it. I’m too spoiled or stupid, right?”

“I’m saying if you want to hack it, you need to get smarter and tougher fast. That guy, Green Mercedes? What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I was hungry.”

“It can take weeks to die from hunger,” Ghost replied, unsympathetic. “It takes fifteen minutes to die in the backseat of a car belonging to the wrong trick. Go stand in line at the foodbank and look pathetic. Con stupid tourists at the bus station. Grab shit from the 7-11 and then run for it, dumbass. But there’s no such thing as good luck if you’re whoring, you get it?”

He finished his burger while he let that sink in. She kicked the post under the table a few times, staring out at the screaming kids in the ball pit.

“I don’t know how to con people,” she said eventually.

“Go to the library and read a book about it. Read books about your legal rights as a minor while you’re at it. Go to shelters at night if you can, and if you manage to get in, stick close to the female staff. But even then, don’t get comfortable. No one does anything selfless.”

“You did.” She shoved the last of her fries into her mouth, chewing and swallowing pointedly. “You bought me a burger. You could teach me other stuff too. We could be friends, maybe.”

Ghost sighed internally. “If you’re looking for a precious moment, kiddo, you’re barking up the wrong Hallmark Store.”

She scowled. “If that’s true, why are you helping me?”

“I’m not,” he said. “I helped. Past tense. As in, it’s done.” He stood, balled his trash up, and grabbed his cup to get a refill.

“Wait,” she said, halfway to panic. “I don’t—I don’t know what to do next.”

He shrugged, ignoring the little ball of guilt in his gut. “You’ve got food in your belly and some newfound avenues for self-improvement. If you can’t make it from here on your own, you should go to the cops pronto, because it’s never going to get easier than it is at this moment.”

He left her there in the McDonalds, staring around at bright yellow and red plastic with a hollow expression, and headed back down to the overpass. He’d spent his last ten bucks on those damn burgers, and if he wanted to eat again today, he had work to do.

Back in the shadows, he stripped off his jacket, dumped it on the sidewalk beside him. It was too cold for the black mesh shirt, but then, hypothermia was an occupational hazard that they all had to learn to deal with. He lit a cigarette—three left in the pack—and leaned against the cold cement.

He didn’t have to wait long.

The guy in the old Buick had nervous eyes and fluttering hands; he followed Ghost’s directions on where to park, but blabbed the whole time about the reno he was doing on his house. Ghost tuned most of it out until the car stopped, when the guy said, “This is sort of cramped. We could go to my place. There’s the game room. And I have this vintage chicken coop in my basement that I could show you. It locks and everything. To keep foxes out.”

Foxes trying to get to chickens in a basement? For fuck’s sake, how stupid did he think Ghost was? For a second he thought of Maggie, still sitting in the McDonalds, maybe. She probably wouldn’t be able to see the difference between this asshole and Green Mercedes.

It’s because this guy is too stupid to know how to hide what he is, Ghost told her in his head. It’s because I could open his throat and he’d never see it coming. It’s because I’m not you. I know what to do if he crosses the line, and besides, part of me wants him to, just so I have an excuse to get some of this mean out of my system.

“As much fun as your murder basement sounds,” Ghost said politely, “That’s not going to fucking happen.”

“Okay. Sure. Fine.” The guy nodded in little jerks. “Can we still, um, do this?”

“If you’ll shut up.”

“Okay.” He shoved his seat back as far as it could go, shimmied his boxers down and waited, his skinny thighs vibrating, his hands with their dirty nails twitching in the air like he wanted to grab Ghost by the hair but didn’t quite dare.

Ghost reached over, giving the guy’s dick a few tugs while he did the junk check, looking for sores and crabs and other gross things, but people who raised chicken coops for prostitute murdering apparently took good care of themselves. Ghost looked up, caught the guy’s eye. He had, objectively, a not-ugly face. For a potential psycho, he appeared normal enough.

Ghost gave him a few more lazy tugs with his right hand and slid his left back, into the waistband of his jeans to pry the hilt of his blade up—just in case—and leaned in.

The guy tasted like he smelled—relatively clean sweat and hidden-away skin, the small jogs of his hips probably involuntary as he let out a moan.

Ghost rolled his eyes. He’d be earning those twenties tucked into his sock on this one. He leaned back in, took the guy deep again, and—

—

—

“Jesus. Jesus. Jeee-SUS.”

Ghost blinked.

Blade in his left hand. Blade in his left hand.

The world wobbled around him, coming back into focus. His mouth was wet and sour and he…he needed to…chicken coops. A Buick. He shoved the door open and spit onto the asphalt.

The guy did up his pants. “You’ve got one hell of a mouth, kid.”

“Thanks.” Ghost wiped his lips. “Your feedback is important to us.”

Blade in his left hand, but the guy let Ghost climb out of the car without trying anything.

He took his time heading back to the overpass, keeping an eye out for cops and assholes. One of the Russians had been shaking down the younger hustlers lately, trying to pull them into “protection” and Ghost had zero interest in turning over his hard-earned cash to someone for the shallow promise of aid during a fight.

He could take care of himself just fine.

***Author's Note: This is a collection of scenes that take place four years after Rough Trade. It's basically the story of events surrounding the trip to Oklahoma that you see in the epilogue. You might end up wondering why these scenes didn't end up in the actual epilogue of the book, because they definitely present a much more fleshed out version of the Oklahoma trip. Well, the short answer is that I couldn't write them back when Rough Trade came out and they weren’t fully crucial to that book offering a complete narrative so we went ahead without them. The long answer was that I was exhausted and kind of burned out, and that while I had ideas for what some of these scenes would be, I wasn't in a place where I could write them well. And, honestly, I had no idea what the sex scene at the end would end up looking like. I needed time to let the book sit in my brain before I came up with answers, and deadlines wait for no writer, so the book went on without them.

I have no idea if the 4th of July creates a three-day weekend four years from now. I also don't particularly care. If there are any readers out there for whom the entire story will be ruined by this potential, tiny inaccuracy, I'll apologize in advance, but I will also point out that studies have shown that people with low expectations report being considerably happier than people with high expectations. ;D

***

“We’re thinking about having a barbeque,” Church said, flipping through the channels. "Me and Miller. For the 4th of July."

“I’ll make a pie,” Tobias said absently, then resumed typing on his laptop. He was researching something for a grant thing he was writing for work. He’d explained it, but Ghost hadn’t listened too closely because Tobias’s job was ridiculously boring to everyone but Tobias. And Sullivan. Because Sullivan was stupid in love with the guy to the point where even non-profit grant writing was interesting. Tobias had his pen clamped in his teeth, but politely took it out to ask, “When do you need it? Oh, hey, wait, that’s The Maltese Falcon.”

“Veto,” Church said, still flipping. 

“It’s pretty good, actually,” Ghost said, but he didn’t really care, because he was flipping through his new issue of Vogue. “Also, punks, goths and skaters apparently took over Fashion Week.”

“That’s nice,” Tobias said, as if he gave two shits about Fashion Week. He was better at pretending to care about other people’s bullshit than Ghost was.

“You can come, right? To the barbeque?” Church asked, and Ghost realized he was going to have to bite the bullet on this one.

“Uh, no. I can’t. Not then.”

“What about Sunday?”

“No, not then either.”

“Okay,” Church said slowly. “Monday’s a three-day weekend. Maybe—”

“I’ll be out of town. The whole time.”

“Where are you going?” Tobias asked. “Someplace sunny?”

“Oklahoma,” Ghost said.

“Oh.” Church made a face. “Why?”

“The good people of Oklahoma are deeply offended by you right now,” Ghost said, hoping that would be enough to change the subject. 

“I’m not trying to knock Oklahoma or anything. I just…it’s not exactly Hawaii. No one really ever dreams of going there on vacation, do they?” He glanced at Tobias, one eyebrow rising in genuine curiosity. “Do they? Is Oklahoma, like, a thing?”

Tobias shrugged.

“It’s not an Oklahoma thing or a vacation thing,” Ghost said. “It’s a work thing.”

Tobias went very still even as Church said, “Ah,” and turned back to the TV. Because Ghost worked with Sullivan doing process serving and decoy work and Tobias apparently knew enough about the goings-on of Sullivan’s agency to know Ghost wasn’t traveling out of state for work. 

Ghost almost left it. Tobias hadn’t said anything yet; likely he wouldn’t. He would keep Ghost’s lie between the two of them and later ask just enough to make sure Ghost was okay. Which Ghost was. There was no credible reason for why his heart was suddenly pounding in his chest. Except for how he couldn’t leave it there. He hadn’t used to care when his friends knew he was lying. He’d felt entitled to his lies. They were a protection that he needed and hadn’t begrudged himself.

But he didn’t like the idea that he still needed them. 

“It’s not a work thing,” Ghost said eventually. 

Church hesitated, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. “No?”

What the fuck was Ghost doing? What the fuck was he doing? Jesus, this was stupid. But his mouth was opening anyway, and words were coming out, and fuck, this was a bad idea, but he was doing it anyway. “We’re going to see an inmate at the penitentiary there.”

“You and Duncan?” Tobias asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“An inmate,” Church repeated. His tone was carefully blank. 

“Yes.”

A moment of silence. Then Church tentatively said, “Are we allowed to ask questions about that?” 

Ghost’s chest was tight, but he thought…maybe. He was okay. It felt the way it felt when he talked about this shit in therapy, which was to say that it sucked because it was bad shit, not because he felt unsafe or like he couldn’t trust who he was talking to. “Yeah, but I might not answer.”

“That’s fair,” Tobias said. “Isn’t that fair, Church?”

“Sure.” Church fiddled with the remote. “Who is he?”

Trust Church to cut through the extraneous shit to get right to the heart of the issue, Ghost thought, and it might’ve made him feel fond if it hadn’t been such a tricky question to answer.

The thing was, neither Church nor Tobias were stupid. They’d been with him through some really complicated shit, and they’d seen how messy he could be. They must’ve guessed. Not the specifics, since he’d never once said a word about this to either of them. But the generalities, sure. Church had even been the one to suggest that Ghost try therapy, recommending specifically his own mother’s therapist because even though she mostly worked with women, she’d had a strong background in trauma recovery. Ghost didn’t know what they thought about it, but he knew they’d guessed some of it. 

“I got sold a lot,” Ghost said finally. “He was the one doing the selling.”

There was no discernible reaction, which was how Ghost knew they’d been expecting it. Church’s face didn’t move. Tobias didn’t make a sound. A long, unsteady silence stretched out among them, only the noise of the video game’s music to break it. 

Then, quietly, Tobias said, “I’m sorry.”

Church cleared his throat. “Yeah, man. Sorry. Do you—”

“Nope,” Ghost interrupted. “Turns out one question is my limit. I’m done.”

“Okay,” Church said. “No problem.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Tobias echoed.

Feeling grossly embarrassed, and even more embarrassed because he could’ve sworn he knew better, Ghost said, “Well, anyway. No barbecue. Are you gonna pick something to watch or not?”

Wordlessly, Church offered him the remote. Ghost stared at it for a moment, cupped in Church’s brown hand, marked with the occasional bruise and cut from his time spent woodworking. Church had strong hands, adult hands. They’d all become adults at some point. Ghost wondered when that’d happened. He hadn’t been looking for it, and he’d apparently missed it, but here they were, the three of them, on the other side. Men instead of boys.

“Actually, I think I’m gonna get a soda,” Ghost managed, and stood up. His limbs felt disjointed. He wobbled more than walked to the kitchen, where he fumbled through Church’s fridge. He sort of missed the days back when Church’s mother had lived with Church and Miller, because there’d always been really good leftovers sitting around. She’d been a good cook, even if Ghost hadn’t known the names of half the shit she’d served. She’d been a weird little mouse, Mrs. Church, but he’d felt comfortable around her almost instantly. He’d recognized her the second they met even though he’d never so much as seen a picture of her. Two strangers in reality, but exactly the same under the skin. She’d recognized him too, because when you were fucked up bad enough for long enough, all the extraneous shit that made you human tended to vanish, leaving only the mess behind, right on the surface. Clear as day, for the ones who knew what to look for. 

He had a soda in his hand, but he didn’t want it. It’d been an excuse. He put it back and went back to the living room.

“All right,” he said, interrupting the heavy conversation Church and Tobias had been having in whispers. “I’m going because I need to see him. I just want to—he’s too big. In my head. And I can’t think of any other way to finally make him smaller than to see him all pathetic and locked up. I’m better. Almost entirely. But I need this. And my shrink is on board—mostly. There’s a good chance I’m gonna have a setback, and I know that that’s maybe stupid to risk, but I don’t care. I need it. Duncan’s coming with me, and I’ll be back afterward and I’ll deal with it. Whatever I feel after, I’ll deal with it. So you can stop making those terrible faces at each other while you decide which one of you has to comfort me.”

Tobias winced, a little shame-faced, but Church only rolled his eyes. “Dude, we’re just worried about you. Like, proud? Because you are doing better. You’re a lot better. But also worried.”

Ghost sank back down onto the armchair. “You should see Officer Justice. He’s so neurotic right now you’d think he was the one about to…he keeps washing the fucking curtains. He actually ironed them the other day.” 

They shared Duncan’s grandmother’s sprawling farmhouse these days. It was a big place, straight out of a postcard or a television sitcom, sunshine yellow and with cheery white trim. Ghost was pretty sure that the curtains in question dated back to the old lady’s tenure. They were filmy white things with eyelets at the bottom, the kind that you hung for decoration rather than privacy. The curtains in every other room had been updated well before Ghost came along. Duncan washed the kitchen curtains by hand, as careful as if he held a newborn baby, and Ghost had never said a teasing word because he knew it wasn’t about the curtains at all. It was about the woman who’d loved them first.

“We weren’t going to try to talk you out of it,” Tobias said. “We were just…”

“We’re coming along,” Church said abruptly, shoulders squaring. “And we’re not going to fight about it. So get used to the idea fast.”

“We are too gonna fight about it,” Ghost replied.

“Nope.”

“Yep.”

“Not gonna.”

“The hell we’re not.”

“Try and stop us. It won’t help. It’s happening.”

“Try coming to Oklahoma with a broken face.”

“Guys, let’s be nice about this.” Tobias gave Ghost a soft smile. “But we are coming along.”

***

The SUV they’d rented was huge, big enough for all four of them to sprawl out without knocking into each other. A necessity, considering they’d be on the road for almost a week. They could’ve made the trip faster. It was only about twelve hours from Denver to McAlester. But Ghost had plotted a course that nearly tripled their time on the road. He claimed it was because he wanted to punish Church and Tobias for being pushy bastards who didn’t understand adult boundaries. He knew this was a lie the second the words came out of his mouth. He hadn’t even bothered to present it as a joke. It was just bullshit, start to finish, and judging from the way Church and Tobias had nodded and played along, they knew it, the assholes.

In his heart of hearts, he wasn’t entirely sure why he was taking such a long route. He only knew that when he looked up from Google maps with the words via Albuquerque on his lips, Duncan’s steady gaze saw right through him as it always did. Ghost thought it would probably seem stupid to ask Duncan for help figuring it out. Excuse me, Officer Justice. Any chance you could explain just what the fuck is going on in my head? You see, I’m a bit terrified to look at it too closely.

He didn’t ask.

He was pretty sure Duncan knew the answer, and that would defeat the whole purpose of denial.

They left at dawn on the first day, Duncan behind the wheel because he still got nervous when Ghost drove, as if he thought Ghost still drove like he was in a car chase. Of course he didn’t. He had a license now, didn’t he? And he didn’t even speed that much anymore, so Duncan could stuff it. But he was too distracted to drive without crashing into a bus of nuns or whatever, so he didn’t bother to argue.

Duncan and Tobias had mutated into good friends over the past four years and they liked talking about Actual Ideas And Shit, so Ghost let Tobias take shotgun and took the back row of seats all for his own, playing Church’s Game Boy Advance until he started to get car sick, and then falling asleep. 

He woke up for lunch, slept some more, woke up in time for dinner, slept again, and woke up in time to help move their things into an adjoining pair of motel rooms. He took a blisteringly hot shower alone and then stood at the foot of one of the beds, weight shifting from foot to foot as he hesitated. Duncan lay on the sheets in sleeping pants and a T-shirt, ever modest, waiting, and Ghost felt something tear inside of him as he said, “Well, good night.”

Then he walked to the other bed and climbed in. He waited for something to explode, but the only thing that happened was that Duncan replied, “Good night.”

Ghost dropped into sleep almost instantly despite having slept half the day away. He woke up again at four in the morning, shouting. He hurried to the bathroom on noodle legs, vomited, brushed his teeth, pushed past Duncan, ignored his questioning gaze, and crashed back into sleep. 

***

The next two days of driving followed the same pattern. Ghost’s body turned to stone, weighty enough that it exhausted him to move. He lost his appetite somewhere around the New Mexico state line. They’d scheduled enough time that there was no need to rush, so they took frequent breaks, stopping to pick through the gift shops that seemed to frequent every diner and gas station. Tobias and Church debated whether souvenirs were a requirement in modern America. Ghost bought Duncan an enormous purple shirt that said I Heart the American Southwest and presented it to him with the sort of gravity usually reserved for rings and positive pregnancy tests. 

It was a joke. Perhaps not even a particularly funny one. Duncan turned pink anyway. And he was perhaps trolling Ghost right back when he proceeded to wear it instead of his usual plain white T-shirt to bed that night. But maybe not. 

Ghost tried to climb in with him. He touched the sleeve of the ugly purple shirt that Duncan was wearing—for him, Ghost knew, always for him—and he tried. He tried so hard. But he couldn’t. His skin crawled. It crawled all through to his bones. He couldn’t make himself sit on the bed. He couldn’t. The idea of a mattress beneath him while someone else breathed nearby made his stomach roil. 

Duncan said, “You don’t have to get in bed with me.”

Ghost swallowed. “I know.”

“Do you?”

Ghost swallowed again. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stop giving me permission to treat you like shit.”

“That’s not what’s happening.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

Ghost’s words were like bones lodged in his throat. It hurt to say, “I’m sorry if I’m hurting you.”

“You’re not.”

Which made Ghost relax a little. One thing he knew about Duncan was that he didn’t lie. He would never lie to Ghost, and that meant Ghost really wasn’t hurting him.

“Can I hold your hand?” Duncan’s dark eyes were patient as ever. “It won’t hurt my feelings if you say no.”

“Can you stand up first?” Ghost asked, even though it was stupid, he knew it was stupid, it was so fucking stupid, and his face flamed red-hot even though he’d lost the innocence needed to blush roughly a decade and a half ago. 

Duncan didn’t hesitate. He stood up, and even walked a few feet away from the bed, leaning against the wall by the closet. He held a hand out, and it reminded Ghost of that moment almost four years ago, when they’d been in a parking lot stealing a car and Ghost had been shot and bleeding and he’d needed help getting into the passenger seat. Duncan had held a hand out then too, letting it be Ghost’s choice.

He’d thought, for a long time, that Duncan was a mind-reader. That Duncan simply spoke Ghost. And that was part of it, in a way; they fit. What Duncan did naturally suited what Ghost needed. If that wasn’t proof that they were meant to be together, Ghost didn’t know what was. 

But it was also both more and less than that. As Ghost had learned over the years in therapy, consent wasn’t a thing that started and stopped in the bedroom. It was a bubble of space that existed around every person, male and female, young and old, at all times. What he’d thought was Duncan getting Ghost had been Duncan simply respecting Ghost’s bubble the way he would respect anyone’s bubble. Duncan’s flawless respect for boundaries, Ghost had eventually realized, was what consent should look like for everyone. And this was what it looked on the smallest, interpersonal scale. An outstretched, waiting, patient hand. Always asking, never demanding, and never once taking it personally if the answer was no.

He put his hand in Duncan’s. Felt his own get dwarfed against that big palm, felt the calluses along his index finger. They stood there for a long minute not saying a word, just touching.

“We don’t have to go,” Duncan said eventually. “Maybe we stay here in Albuquerque. There’s bound to be a museum that’ll interest all of us. Hell, we could go look at cacti. This can be an ordinary vacation, Ghost. Like any other road trip guys go on with their buddies.”

“If I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it.”

“Is it necessary at all? Do you—is this about proving something to him?”

“No. Maybe. I think I need to see.”

“See what? That he’s trapped? He’s never getting out, Ghost. He’s got life without parole.”

“I know.” Ghost shrugged, helpless. “I can’t explain it. I just need it.”

Duncan rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “All right. But if you change your mind—there’s no strength in forcing yourself to do something that hurts you. It’s not weakness to turn around when you realize you’re driving the wrong way.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay.” Duncan’s heavy face—ugly to other people, perhaps, but beautiful to Ghost, so loved, so kind and strong—had begun to show worry. His mouth had gone flat, his forehead wrinkled.

Ghost sighed. “I know I seem like I’m in bad shape. I swear it’s not that bad. There’ve been times when it’s been worse. Much worse. I can take it.”

“Okay.”

“It’s only a setback. It’s manageable.”

“Okay.”

“Stop saying okay. I can take it.”

“I know. I gave up wondering about your limits a long time ago, Ghost. There’s nothing you can’t do. But can’t and shouldn’t are two different things.”

Ghost could sense the wince in Duncan’s words; he hadn’t wanted to say it. Felt disloyal, maybe. Like he was being unsupportive. And he was, in a way. Having Duncan question it made Ghost question it. But questions weren’t necessarily bad. If it was a right thing, it could withstand even the hardest questions, the most powerful scrutiny.

“Maybe I…It might be as simple as showing him that I survived,” Ghost said. “He should know that. I need to know that he knows that. He didn’t beat me.”

Duncan licked his lips. More tentatively than he’d probably ever done anything in his life, he asked, “And if he doesn’t care?”

That wasn’t a fair question either, but then, Ghost hardly blamed Duncan for asking it all the same. Ghost turned into meat sometimes because HE had wanted him to. Why would someone who’d turned children into meat care about what they became later? 

The answer, of course, was that HE wouldn’t. HE wouldn’t. 

Duncan was waiting, watching him closely, and his thumb slid soothingly across Ghost’s knuckles. 

Abruptly tired, Ghost said, “I can’t talk about this anymore. I’m—I can’t hold on if I’m letting it all slip loose.”

“Pick a movie,” Duncan suggested. “Take the bed. I’ll sit on the chair.”

Ghost didn’t move. “I know you wouldn’t.” He hoped Duncan wouldn’t ask him to be more specific. He didn’t think he could say it. He’d never been able to say it.

“I know.”

“It’s not you.”

“I know.”

“I swear. I just…can’t. Right now.”

“Ghost,” Duncan said, so incredibly gentle that Ghost couldn’t stop his eyes from burning. “I know. Don’t worry about me. Do what you need to do.”

“Okay.” He pulled his hand free and went to the other bed, sinking back against the headboard and grabbing the remote. He exhaled, long and slow. More to himself than Duncan, he repeated, “Okay.”

***

Author’s Note: This is the point where the epilogue of Rough Trade picks up. I haven’t replicated it here, but I’ve hopefully added enough context clues that even if you haven’t read it in a while, you’ll be able to keep reading here without being lost. There's a long sex scene at the end that is definitely NSFW. :D

Ghost had been different since they got back from Oklahoma. The three days before Oklahoma had been a hot mess, but most of that had resolved as soon as Ghost had walked out of the prison. In its place, though, was something else. Ghost had simply been different. Duncan couldn’t quite put his finger on the change. Ghost still laughed at Duncan’s jokes and he still argued about what to have for dinner, and he hadn’t blinked at being in their bed. 

But whenever Duncan wasn’t actively engaging his attention, Ghost went sort of…distant. 

Like now.

“I’ll just add ants and gnomes to the list then,” Duncan said, and Ghost nodded absently for the third time. Duncan was sitting at his grandmother’s ancient, scarred dining room table, warm from the sunlight pouring in through the windows of the old farmhouse. He was scratching out the items they needed while Ghost lounged on the sofa in a tiny pair of black briefs, long limbs akimbo, staring at the ceiling and basically ignoring him. “We should probably buy tampons too. And dog food. And a rocket launcher.”

“Do that,” Ghost said, not even blinking.

With a sigh, Duncan balled up a sheet of paper and threw it in Ghost’s direction, careful not to actually hit him. Ghost jolted anyway, staring at him as if he’d suddenly grown another head. Or had maybe forgotten he was there. 

“Hi,” Duncan said. “Remember me? The unfortunate boyfriend responsible for making dessert? A little help would be nice.”

“Seriously, just buy a pie.”

“No.”

“Duncan.”

“I didn’t wrestle pie making duties away from Tobias so I could buy cardboard pre-made pie from the store.” 

“He’s going to make a pie of his own anyway, you know. He won’t be able to stop himself. He’ll feel awful and he’ll spend the first hour apologizing, but there’s no way you’re going to be the only one making the pies for the barbeque.”

“I figured,” Duncan said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep my word.” 

“Your word.” Ghost snorted. “You didn’t swear a vow. You offered to produce dessert for hungry drunk people. They’ll make do with something in a plastic clamshell.”

Duncan blithely ignored him. “Did you offer to bring anything else?”

“No.”

“Are you going to help carry coolers?”

“Depends on what you’ll give me,” Ghost replied seductively, only to ruin the spell by adding a garish wink. “Get it?”

Duncan managed not to laugh, because it would only encourage this kind of behavior and Ghost needed zero encouragement anyway. “Clean the bathroom while I’m gone, won’t you?”

“What is your bizarre obsession with not living in filth?” Ghost asked. “I don’t understand you at all.”

Duncan still didn’t laugh, but he couldn’t hide his smile this time. He grabbed his wallet and keys. “At least pretend you’re going to give it a once-over.”

“You’ll be able to eat off that floor, baby,” Ghost said earnestly.

Duncan sincerely doubted it. Ghost did try to hold up his end of the chores, although his idea of cleaning involved watching a marathon of something trashy and using the commercial breaks to get up and sort of fidget a sponge around in a sink or something. The problem was that by the time the next commercial rolled around, he’d frequently lost track of what he’d been doing, so he’d start with something new. A day of cleaning for Ghost usually meant that Duncan returned to find the house a wreck of cleaning supplies and chemical fumes and balled-up paper towels everywhere, which little to no actual progress made. More than once, Duncan had come home to find powdered cleanser still in the toilet bowl or the floor half-swept, with the broom and a pile of crud right in the middle of the floor.

Even four years into their relationship, Duncan still found it more endearing than annoying, so he’d never complained. Duncan only truly cared that the kitchen curtains were kept in good shape—his grandmother had loved those curtains—and Ghost was incredibly careful with them. Duncan hadn’t even had to ask. 

Besides, Ghost made up for it by being the one who paid the bills, a task he seemed to actually enjoy. He claimed that he liked to draw obscene pictures on the checks to liven up the days of poor, neglected billing clerks, but Duncan had never seen so much as a doodle. He suspected that Ghost simply liked the reminder that the money was there, that the roof over their heads and the food in their cupboards was sustainable.

Ghost had also proved surprisingly adept—even cutthroat—when it came to doing the taxes. Duncan was more than willing to clean out the fridge to get out of wrangling the IRS.

“I’ll be back in a while,” Duncan said, and leaned down to kiss his forehead.

Ghost wrapped a hand around the nape of Duncan’s mouth and dragged him down for an actual kiss, a hey-how-you­­-doing kind of kiss, and by the time Duncan was released, he couldn’t care less about the state of the bathroom. 

“You should buy lube, too,” Ghost added, voice low. “We’re almost out.”

“What kind of pie do you think I’m making?” Duncan asked, and watched with quiet satisfaction as Ghost’s lips twisted into that sweet, goofy smile that he hid from everyone else. 

“You do an excellent job of concealing the fact that you have an actual sense of humor,” Ghost pointed out. “And I’m, uh. I think. I want to fuck later.”

“All right.” Duncan started to get up, then paused. Ghost’s delivery of those sentences had been weirdly heavy. “When you say fuck…”

“I mean I want you to fuck me.”

All thoughts of the grocery store vanished. Duncan went to the wingback chair and sat down, trying not to panic. “Where is this coming from?”

“My brain,” Ghost said, seemingly cavalier. “Also my dick. And a little bit my ass.”

“Is this about Oklahoma?”

It didn’t happen often anymore, the little twitch-jolt that came with Ghost’s natural impulse to lie with his body, to pretend that he was unconcerned when in fact he was the opposite, but Duncan got a doozy now. He sat back, watching, noting the way Ghost frowned like he’d startled even himself with the size of his reaction. Ghost took a long while to answer and Duncan gave him the time; if he was twitching, Ghost was stressed enough that impatience wouldn’t do either of them any good.

“Yes, but not how you think,” Ghost said finally. 

“Because I’m fine with what we do. I like what we do. I don’t need to fuck you, Ghost.”

“Not everything’s about you, Heather.” Ghost gnawed on the corner of his thumbnail. 

“I thought you didn’t want to,” Duncan said, proud of himself for sounding so calm.

“I didn’t.”

“But now you do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Forgive me for not reading that as enthusiastic consent.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to like it. I don’t like it. I think. But there’s a difference between avoiding it because I don’t like it and avoiding it because I’m afraid.”

“What happened when you saw him?” Duncan asked quietly. “You said everything went fine, but this…it sounds like something happened.”

“He didn’t recognize me.”

“Right, you said as much. What else?”

“Nothing else. That’s it.” Ghost shifted on the couch, turning to face Duncan more squarely. “That’s big enough, don’t you think? He was one of the most formative moments of my whole life, he fundamentally altered who I am as a human being, and he didn’t even recognize me. That’s so unequal that I can’t stand it. I’ve given him too much already. I know you like it. Maybe I would too.”

“Ghost, I told you, I don’t need it—”

“It’s not about you,” Ghost repeated. “It’s about me not knowing why I don’t want to. Is it because I legit don’t like it? Then fine, we’ll never do it. But maybe I don’t want to because he ruined it for me. Maybe it’s something I would’ve enjoyed if he’d never crashed into my life. And that’s something I’m not okay with. I’m not okay with him being the reason I’m not giving you something that I want to be able to give you. I’m not okay with him stealing this from me.”

Duncan had to admit that he could see the distinction. “Have you talked to Dr. Ansari about this?”

“Why should I?” Ghost rolled his eyes. “Anytime we do something new it takes the kind of checklist that NASA uses to launch a shuttle. I don’t want to treat this like it’s something big.”

“It is big.”

“That’s what she said.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Duncan muttered, making Ghost snicker. 

“I don’t want to treat this like it’s something big enough to break me,” Ghost said. “Because it shouldn’t be. And it isn’t. We’ve got the tools. I know how to say no. I know when I’m pushing. I trust you. We’ll talk. We can handle this. We don’t need adult supervision. So just…put out already.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Duncan found himself saying.

There was a long silence. 

“That’s a response I didn’t expect,” Ghost replied finally. “Okay. Sorry. For being pushy about it, then.”

“It’s fine.”

“Still. Sorry. Uh, why not, though? I mean. I thought you wanted this.”

“I did. I do. Jesus, I wish I didn’t. It’d be easier.” He couldn’t tell Ghost how many times over the years he’d come with Ghost’s hand or mouth on his cock while thinking about coming in Ghost’s ass, with Ghost’s long legs wrapped around his hips. He’d never mentioned it, not wanting to pressure. When they’d gotten together, Duncan had put intercourse in a box on a dark shelf in his head, a box labeled DO NOT TOUCH, and now that the box was open, his first feeling wasn’t interest, but fear. Duncan tried to make sense of it himself, and while a dozen thoughts swirled in his head, the only one he could nail down was, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I don’t want you to hurt me, either. But we both know you won’t, so what’s really going on?”

“I don’t want to make you go away,” Duncan corrected quietly, because yeah, he could admit that having Ghost turn into a rag doll in his lap four years ago had given him some bad moments.

“Oh.” Ghost chewed on his lower lip for a minute. “I won’t lie to you. That’s a possibility. But I don’t think it’ll happen. I mean, it’s never happened between us since that first day, right?”

“No. But that’s because we’ve been careful.”

“We can still be careful.” Ghost hesitated, clearly picking his words with extreme care. “Me not talking to Abida about this first isn’t a sign that I’m taking it lightly. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. It’s important to me to make this call on my own. I can’t—I can’t be a victim who needs help deciding this. That’s part of it for me. I choose this time. All on my own. I choose what happens and I accept responsibility for whatever comes afterward. Me, and me alone. Well, and you, obviously, but you get what I’m saying.”

“Okay.”

“Which okay is that? The one where you really mean it’s okay, or the one where you actually mean that you think I’m full of shit and you’re going to do whatever you want anyway? Because I can’t—that second okay isn’t okay, you know? Not in this conversation.”

“It’s not that version of okay. I promise. I think I’ve just gotten used to Abida talking us through things in advance. Feels different without that safety net.”

“Sure,” Ghost said. “I mean, me too. But it can’t be that way forever. Isn’t the whole point of all this therapy is to be able to be fully functional? To be able to make good choices for myself? We’re going to do all the things we have to do to make this work, okay? If you need to talk to her, that’s cool. I can wait. I mean, shit, if you never want to do it, that’s cool. But if you are into it, I’m not asking for permission. I’m not getting her feedback on this because I trust myself, finally, to make the call on my own.”

“I trust you. It’s just…I’m nervous.” 

“Me, too. A little.” Ghost crossed the room and bullied his way into Duncan’s lap, making room for himself with a frown like Duncan’s thighs were grossly out of order by daring to take up so much space in the chair. He rested his forehead on Duncan’s shoulder. “I, you know.”

As always, Ghost managed to find a circuitous route to undermine Duncan’s ability to stay matter-of-fact. They didn’t say it often—a few times a year, if that, but Duncan had never doubted it, not for a second since Ghost came back into his life four years ago. Ghost had fundamentally altered the way he coped with the world in order to be with Duncan, and he put effort into looking after Duncan’s needs every day; what could the words be in comparison to actions like those? But it meant that when Ghost did say them, it never failed to make a sweet, hot little pain flare up in his belly. Not that Ghost had said them, exactly. “I, you know, you too.”

“Don’t think I don’t know you’re making fun of me.” Ghost nipped gently at Duncan’s collarbone in punishment. “But I’m going to ignore it for the moment to make my point. At some point you’re going to have to trust me to be able to decide for me. You have to respect that. I know you respect no. Now I need you to respect yes. Can you trust that I won’t be reckless with us?”

Duncan nodded. What else could he say? This might go badly, but it wouldn’t be because Ghost would willingly risk either of them. 

“Good.” Ghost kissed him, soft and slow, for long enough that Duncan lost track of everything besides the wet, hot heat of Ghost’s mouth, drawing Duncan’s lower lip in slightly and giving it a tiny, tender bite. It was the kind of practiced move that Ghost only rarely pulled, and they nearly always broke Duncan’s brain. It’d been a bit of a head-banger for Duncan, coming to terms with the peculiar mix of knowledge and ignorance that made up Ghost’s sexual experience. He had done virtually everything sexual that a person could do, and was more than capable of wringing profound sexual satisfaction out of a partner at any of it. But he’d never felt any of it, and it’d taken countless awkward, hesitant, fumbling moments over the years to build a sex life that they both felt comfortable with. In that way, he’d been a virtual virgin when he’d fallen into Duncan’s life. He’d come to think of Ghost like that, in fact—as an innocent. It still threw him, sometimes, when Ghost pulled out a move that broke his brain in its sheer competence.

But Ghost wasn’t an innocent anymore, not when it came to good, clean sex, so maybe Ghost was right. Maybe it was time that Duncan stopped thinking of him that way. 

Ghost was smiling when he pulled back, his gaze dark and warm. “So?”

“So. I’ll go to the store. And get pie. And lube.”

“And when you get home, we’ll fuck.”

“Uh. Give me a day. To let it settle in. Is that all right?”

“That’s all right,” Ghost said. “We’ll fuck tomorrow. After the barbecue.”

“Tomorrow,” Duncan agreed. “Do me a favor? Do your affirmations while I’m gone? I’ll let you out of cleaning the bathroom.”

Ghost put a hand on Duncan’s shoulder, his thumb rubbing at the line of his throat. Even after four years together, the simple, cautious touch of Ghost’s fingers made his heart jump. Ghost reached out to so few people; to be the one he reached out to the most was precious to Duncan.

Ghost said, “I didn’t mean to fuck you up that day.”

“I know. I’m okay.”

Somberly, Ghost nodded, fingers still stroking his throat. “Affirmations. And then I’m watching the Real Housewives of New York City.”

Duncan blew out a breath. “You’re supposed to be reassuring me of your good judgment, you know.”

Ghost grinned.

*

In the beginning, Ghost had hated the affirmations. They’d made him feel stupid and self-conscious and like he’d gotten stuck in a New Age shop where women with long gray hair who listened to flute music and did crystal magic would want to heal his Chakras or read his aura.

But they’d helped, and after a while, the words had sounded less like nonsense and more like truth. His list of affirmations had been updated regularly as he’d made progress in therapy, dwindling in number as he went, and now he only had three. After Duncan left, he got out his therapy journal—his fourth, although there were plenty of blank pages left in this one. He wasn’t filling them up as quickly as he used to. The affirmations page was the only one he routinely looked at anymore, and he read it over again out loud now.

1) I don’t have to apologize for my anger unless I’m taking it out on someone else.

2) All forms of recovery have setbacks. Setbacks do not equal failure. I’m allowed to be angry and upset at a setback. I am not allowed to blame myself for their existence.

3) I don’t need a reason to say no.

He said the words under his breath a dozen times, and when he was finished, he felt quieter. More centered. 

Centered and quiet enough that it occurred to him that it might not be a bad idea to go back to the beginning for a little confidence booster. He went to Duncan’s office and rooted around in the closet until he found the cardboard box where he stored his old therapy journals. The second one, the one with a magazine cutout of Taylor Swift pasted on the cover, held what he wanted. He found his oldest affirmations near the beginning, the ones he and Dr. Abida had come up with together. 

1) My comfort matters.

2) My pleasure matters.

3) Duncan won’t stop loving me if I need to stop.

4) Duncan will help me if I ask him to.

And there, at the bottom, was the oldie but goodie, the only one that hadn’t changed over the years, the one that formed the crux of everything he and Duncan had ever done together sexually.

5) I don’t need a reason to say no.

***

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Tobias was saying before they were even fully out of the car. “I know it wasn’t my job to bake a pie, but I couldn’t help it. I just—”

“You’re just Tobias,” Ghost said wryly, handing him the Pyrex with Duncan’s pie in it. Then he added in a whisper, “I’ll give you five bucks to ask him which store this came from.”

“What?” Tobias glanced down in bewilderment at the clearly homemade pie, complete with apple gunk overflowing where the crust had burst during baking. “Why? This looks great. No. This is a prank somehow. I’m not participating.”

“Lame,” Ghost told him.

“It’s why your boyfriend likes me best,” Tobias replied primly, and turned to give Duncan a huge smile. Tobias always smiled at Duncan like that, because he was weirdly supportive of their relationship, and also actually liked Duncan, and Duncan smiled back because he actually liked Tobias and appreciated the support. It was all so pleasant and nice and sweet that Ghost had long ago decided not to think about the whole mess.

“I should go find the beer,” he decided, and abandoned the two of them to talk about how to make Duncan’s crust not explode in the oven.

In the backyard, Miller was manning the grill, wielding tongs and an apron that said Hockey Players Grill with Good Wood. Ghost had no idea what that had to do with grilling, but he didn’t pretend to understand Church and Miller’s weird ice skating hobby-thing. He raised a hand in hello and got a nod back before wandering toward the coolers. Church’s mother was there, passing out cans of things, and she gave Ghost a tremulous smile. Her graying hair was pulled back in a barrette and she probably had no idea that her mom jeans were in again, but the overall picture was one of being soundly put together. She looked settled. Content. 

Even kind of happy, if a little nervous around all the people.

She seemed legitimately pleased to see him, which never failed to make Ghost feel both perplexed and like he was holding a fragile china doll in his hands that he didn’t dare drop. 

Maybe it was the days when they’d both been living in Miller’s house, a couple of head cases trying to keep their brains from leaking out of their ears. Nothing brought people together like screaming nightmares, mood swings, and nicotine dependency. Maybe she’d simply been relieved not to be the only broken thing in the house.

Anyway, now he said, “How’s it hanging, Mrs. Church?”

“You can call me Sophia now,” she said quietly.

“Hey, congratulations. Free as a bird, huh?”

“Signed the papers this morning.” She’d put on more weight since he’d last seen her. It suited her.

“Good for you,” he said, really meaning it. “You done the celebration thing yet? I can take you out if you want. Find you a table to dance on. Get you drunk. You like those fruity drinks with umbrellas in them?”

She flushed at his teasing, but her small smile was honestly amused. “Ghost. No.”

“Let me know if you change your mind. We’ll take the big lug for a bodyguard in case we have to start a bar fight.”

Her smile widened briefly, and then faded. “Ghost. I wonder…Abida gave me a homework assignment. I wonder—”

“Which one is it?”

She made a rueful face. “Touching.”

“Ah. Five people?”

“Yes.”

He held a forearm out. “Go to town.”

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“I’d say no if it did.” That’d been a whole other homework assignment actually, where he asked people to first touch his arm, where he was comfortable, and then to touch his face or throat, where he didn’t feel comfortable, all so he could practice saying no, I changed my mind, please don’t touch me like that. 

Her hand sort of crept across his skin at first, tentative, and then her palm cupped his arm above his wrist. She held still for a ten count, only glancing up at him around seven. He gave her a smile, and she seemed to finally relax. She took her hand away. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He snagged a beer. “Duncan will probably say yes too, if you feel comfortable asking him.”

Her eyes flew to where Duncan was now talking to Miller at the grill, towering over everyone as he always did. “Maybe.”

He knocked his beer against the cooler, leaving a trail of condensation there. “I’m gonna get food. You want anything?”

She shook her head and avoided his gaze. Awkward from the touching. He remembered the feeling. It was such a simple thing, so easily overlooked by people who regularly touched others without having it used against them. It could take your knees out from under you if you weren’t used to it, though. When Ghost had done this exercise, he’d chosen Duncan, Tobias, Church, Church’s niece Em, and Miller, in that order. The safest people he knew. It hadn’t occurred to him until this moment that he could be a safe person for someone else.

It was kind of a nice feeling. 

He made a dumb excuse to leave and she gave him a grateful smile without meeting his eyes. It was cool. He got it.

There were other people here anyway. Sullivan and that lawyer chick he was friends with, who Ghost had met once and then actively avoided, because the one thing they had in common was that they’d both been part of putting Walter Wathers in that Winnebago on the day he’d died, and it was hard to look at her. She was holding hands with a bubbly blond in black leather pants. Tobias’s siblings Mirlande and Ruby and Guy were here, currently talking to Raina with an attentive air that made Ghost very happy but would probably terrify Tobias. She was either telling them about the real truth of the modeling industry or the real truth of the private detective biz, and Tobias wouldn’t find either all that appropriate for a girl Ruby’s age.

Ghost approved. Girls Ruby’s age didn’t get enough credit, in his opinion.

Duncan had been given permission to invite Estee and her brother, and they were already chatting with Miller’s sister Shelby and her husband Steve. Nearby were Em and her boyfriend, a climate change activist with thick eyebrows, who watched Em like she was a new, clean form of renewable energy. 

Em took a moment to wave at Ghost. Find me later, she mouthed, and wiggled her cell phone. Probably she’d downloaded that new album they’d talked about. She would no doubt have Many Opinions.

He nodded, looking forward to it.

He wandered through the crowd of people, mildly surprised and pleased, as he was at every gathering, to find happy acknowledgement of his presence from every direction. The ultimate loner had grown a rather substantial circle of acquaintances and—dare he say it—friends.

He was leaning against the house, drinking his beer, considering this, when Duncan found him. “Hey.” Duncan kissed his temple. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Ghost said. “Just people-watching.”

“Want some company?”

“Yours?” Ghost looked up into dark, patient eyes. “Always.” 

***

“Any last words?” Ghost asked later that evening, tearing the plastic off the new tube of lube. Duncan gave him a look, and Ghost’s stomach finally unknotted. 

“I know,” Ghost said affectionately. “I’m an asshole. I should take this seriously. I do. I am. Promise.”

Duncan tugged his shirt off over his head, and Ghost’s mouth went dry. As it always did when Duncan started to get naked. He’d had enough experience with Duncan’s body now to be familiar with every joint and hair and freckle, but Duncan was a modest person down to his bones. He slept in pajamas and he owned a bathrobe and he never took his shirt off during a workout, no matter how hot it was. 

Ghost had asked him about it once, wondering if there was a reason why, and Duncan had shrugged. There didn’t seem to be a motivator. For Duncan, nudity existed only for hygiene and sex, and that was it.

Ghost didn’t mind. It was nice knowing that no one else would ever again see those thick slabs of muscle, the carved edges of his abs, the springy hair on his chest and the sweet curve of his lower back. And as Duncan stepped out of his jeans and underwear, the powerful thickness of his ass and thighs made Ghost’s breath speed. He was still sometimes taken aback by the way Duncan’s body made him feel. The way Duncan remained so much himself in his nudity, and the way that made Ghost want to touch.

“How do you want to start?” Duncan asked, watching as Ghost fiddled with the waistband of his own underwear.

“Fingers?”

Duncan only stood there watching him, and Ghost re-heard his own tone—uncertain. “Fingers,” he repeated, more firmly.

“Yours or mine?”

Ghost hadn’t considered that. Usually, unless a trick specifically wanted to do it himself, Ghost had opened himself up for anal. Which hadn’t usually been that good, if he was honest. He knew how, but there was usually a time constraint with a trick, and that meant rushing. Besides, if Ghost did it, it might feel like work.

“Yours,” he said, and Duncan’s cheeks went a little red even as he nodded. That flush made Ghost happy, and he squirreled out of his underwear and flopped onto the bed with a small smile on his face.

He spread his legs and chucked the lube at Duncan, who didn’t climb up the way Ghost expected. Instead, he set the lube on the nightstand and nudged Ghost’s legs together, making room for himself on the mattress. He crowded Ghost as he lay down, but in a nice way, and then he was kissing Ghost, that same slow, soft kind of kissing they’d been doing earlier. 

“Are we gonna do this?” Ghost mumbled against Duncan’s mouth.

“We are doing this. Kissing is part of sex, remember?”

Ghost had a sudden sour, almost guilty throb in his chest. Right. He was doing that thing he’d done so often in the beginning—skipping the foreplay. Making it a task, an activity to get through. Something you could purchase in a bite-sized chunk as opposed to the natural result of building arousal between two people. Duncan liked to make out and be romantic about sex in the first place, but it was especially true when they were trying something new. 

“Sorry,” Ghost muttered.

“It’s fine,” Duncan murmured. “I’m not mad. Just kiss me.”

That Ghost could do. He rolled closer, let Duncan’s strong arms surround him, let himself get lost in that big, powerful body and Duncan’s quick breathing and thundering heart. They made out for long, tantalizing minutes, and Ghost had lost all track of what was on the schedule by the time Duncan began to kiss his way down Ghost’s body, nibbling at his nipples, which weren’t particularly sensitive, and his hip bones, which really, really were. He stroked Ghost’s dick for a while, licking and sucking, keeping it shallow and slow, a maddening tease, but Ghost didn’t complain. It felt good and it was hot and all of it reminded him that fucking was a thing they were doing for each other, not something he had to do to live.

When Duncan took him deep at the same time that one big, hot palm cupped Ghost’s ass cheek, his legs fell open of their own volition. He fumbled for the lube with one hand, shoved it down toward Duncan, knocking him in the head with the container.

“Whoops,” he mumbled, trying not to thrust into Duncan’s mouth. “Sorry.”

Duncan pulled off and laughed into his hip. “No problem.”

He sat up on his knees to slick his fingers, and in that position, his cock—proportional to his frame—was hard and huge and impossible to ignore. Ghost’s nerves began to return. “Go slow, okay?”

“I will.” 

“And, uh, maybe, uh, suck me while you do it?”

“I can do that.”

“And don’t, um, don’t be too rough. This first time, anyway.”

“Ghost,” Duncan said quietly, and cupped his knee with his dry hand. “Tell me the affirmations.”

“Fuck you,” Ghost groaned, kicking his head back on the pillow and rolling his eyes. But he repeated them anyway, obedient as a damn parrot, even if his voice stumbled a little on that last one: I don’t need a reason to say no.

And then he repeated the older affirmations too, just to prove he could, and he wanted to roll his eyes all over again at the way Duncan’s approving, warm smile made his chest feel. 

“This is dumb,” Ghost said.

“Okay,” Duncan said. 

Ghost narrowed his eyes. “I caught what you did there.”

“Okay.” This time, Duncan smiled.

“It would be easier if I rolled over. Hands and knees.”

“Would it?”

No, Ghost had to admit. Logistically, maybe it would, but being unable to see Duncan would counteract any gain to be had from positional ease.

“Just do it,” Ghost muttered.

“Your enthusiasm is duly noted,” Duncan said, dry as dust, and bent down to take Ghost into his mouth. His erection had started to wane with all of the conversation and nervousness, but it came back fast with a vengeance as Duncan sucked him. And Duncan kept sucking him for quite some time, actually getting Ghost kind of close before he felt that first creeping finger between his cheeks.

He jumped—the lube was cold. But Duncan didn’t push in. He only stroked the tender flesh between his cheeks, lazy circles that sort of felt—well, good.

“Oh,” he whispered, and when he glanced down in surprise, Duncan was looking at up him, his gaze heavy lidded, his eyes warm. 

He half expected to turn into meat when Duncan first slipped a finger inside him, but he didn’t. Duncan went so slow and his mouth kept working, and he was turning kind of pink, his mouth getting a little desperate on Ghost’s dick as he worked. It made Ghost feel soft inside to see Duncan getting flustered by nothing more than getting a finger inside him.

He likes it so much, he thought, and yeah, there was a little guilt in knowing that, in not having been able to give Duncan this before, but he didn’t feel nearly as guilty as he simply felt happy. He felt loved. Because Duncan liked this so much, and he’d still never, not once, pushed. That was how much Duncan liked him. 

Ghost wasn’t going anywhere, he realized. He was going to stay here in his body and it wasn’t even going to be work. Because Duncan was here and there was nothing that Duncan wanted more than for Ghost to be okay, and that meant Ghost was okay. 

Nothing bad could ever happen here, not when it was the two of them. He was safe.

The addition of another finger didn’t even burn, that’s how slow Duncan was going, how thoroughly he was working Ghost open at each stage. He scissored his fingers for endless minutes, taking brief breaks to rest his jaw and apply more lube, and Ghost’s back kept arching, his legs growing restless on the mattress. He hadn’t expected to enjoy the friction, and the fullness was exciting under these very specific conditions, but none of that compared with the way Duncan’s eyes kept getting dragged back to Ghost’s ass, watching where his fingers were inside Ghost, and the way his other hand turned clumsy. 

And then he found Ghost’s prostate, sending a lightning bolt of pleasure up inside him, making him cry out softly. Duncan made a noise in response, rough and low and guttural, and Ghost found himself pressing down, seeking more pressure, because he liked that sensation and he’d really liked that noise Duncan had made, and the stretch was really working for him now, and Duncan obliged, of course he did.

It didn’t take long—Ghost was hard and full and Duncan was rubbing deep inside him, and somewhere in there Duncan added a third finger, and that was even better, the liquid heat inside him making him clutch the sheet and swear, and then Duncan fit in a fourth finger, still rubbing inside him, slow drags of his fingertips as Duncan bent and got his mouth back on Ghost’s dick.

“Fuck,” Ghost whispered. His spine was going liquid, and he felt sweaty and raw and desperate. “I’m gonna come. Now. Now, you should. Uh. Fuck me. Before I do.”

“Yeah?” 

Ghost realized that Duncan was kind of losing it too—he was shaking as he pulled his fingers out, and his eyes were dark and half-wild, and he looked both nervous and desperate as he began to coat his cock in lube. 

“You’re ready?” Duncan checked in, one last time.

Ghost eyed his cock, which was roughly the size of a freaking baseball bat, and that was going to be a rocky entry regardless of the amount of prep they’d done. It said something about how turned on he was that that Duncan’s size didn’t entirely seem like a bad thing, but he knew that wasn’t what Duncan was asking.

“I’m good,” Ghost promised him. 

Duncan lined up and began to push in, and holy God, he was big. Ghost concentrated on relaxing, and it helped that Duncan lowered himself over Ghost so that they could kiss, so that his huge frame kept Ghost warm and comfortable and safe, and Ghost cupped his face and kissed him back and that helped too. 

And then Ghost’s erection vanished. For no reason he could think of, he just went completely soft. Duncan had his eyes on Ghost’s face, and didn’t see, and Ghost waited to feel the sensation of going to meat, figuring that that was probably next on the menu, but he didn’t. He was still here, every bit as much as he had been until now, and he stayed here, even as Duncan slid deeper and deeper inside, in small, slow thrusts. Ghost was even still aroused, on the inside. It felt good, if also really damn intense, and he didn’t want to stop. He didn’t need to stop, even though Duncan’s dick apparently did not have an end to it, and he ended up arching, feeling so full that he thought he might burst. Or choke. Or die. He was kind of afraid to move. Not that it hurt. It seemed like it should hurt, all things considered, but it didn’t. Duncan had been too patient opening him up for there to be anything more than a powerful sensation of stretching. How could he possibly feel this overwhelmed when there wasn’t even pain?

“God,” he panted.

“Do you need me to stop?” Duncan’s words sounded strangled. Like he was clinging to a cliff by his fingernails.

“Nope, we’re good. It’s all good. Keep…fuck…”

Duncan finally settled against him, as deep as he could go, his hips resting against Ghost’s ass, and it was nice to know that his dick wasn’t actually infinite, and as the seconds crept by and he adjusted—as much as one could adjust around something the size of a fucking redwood—he felt strangely light. Like he wanted to laugh. This…this wasn’t the monster he’d thought it would be. He’d kind of imagined having to grit his teeth through this, and while the experience was emotionally heavy and messy, it was also…actually…okay. 

Almost as okay as Duncan, who was trembling and breathing hard and watching him like he was the hottest thing he’d ever seen.

Ghost smiled up at him, but Duncan didn’t smile back.

“Are you okay?” Ghost asked.

“Yeah, I just…I’m holding still.”

“I’m all right.”

“Yep.”

“You can move,” he told Duncan, nosing against his cheek. 

“I know,” Duncan said, but he didn’t move.

“Um,” Ghost said, lifting an eyebrow. “Are you—you know that fucking requires thrusting, right?” 

Duncan buried his face in Ghost’s throat. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Ghost hugged him closer, confused. They’d barely done anything. Certainly nothing that should have him apologizing. “Duncan, what’s the problem?”

“Can I…”

“What?”

“I have to move. Can I move?”

Hadn’t Ghost been telling him to? “Yeah,” he said, wondering what the hell was going on. 

Duncan nodded and, very slowly, slid out, almost to the point of pulling out, and then slid back in, all the way to the hilt. And he made a soft, wonderful noise then that dug under Ghost’s skin, something so needy and desperate and familiar that suddenly Ghost understood, and he couldn’t keep the grin off his face. He lifted his legs and caught Duncan’s hips between his knees. He lifted his hips, too, helping Duncan slide deeper, and the sound Duncan made then had Ghost’s whole body going hot and melty.

“Oh, fuck.” He said it so quietly, barely more than a whisper, sounding shocked, and then he shuddered hard, his big body jerking against Ghost, his mouth panting hot breath against his throat as he went still.

Ghost lay there and considered. Duncan was heavy and sweaty and trembling. Ghost still wasn’t hard, but he felt turned on nonetheless. That last, eager noise Duncan had made would be featuring in his fantasies for quite some time. His dick wasn’t sure, maybe, about how fucking worked, but the rest of him was on board. 

And he didn’t need to ask how Duncan felt about it. 

“God,” Duncan muttered. “That’s embarrassing.”

“You’ll never live it down,” Ghost agreed, amused.

“Because you won’t let me.”

“Yeah, that was my point.”

Duncan lifted his head. He looked half-wrecked, his hair sweaty, his dark eyes slumberous, his mouth soft and apologetic. “I saw that going a little differently.”

Ghost laughed. “Are you kidding? That’s the most fun I’ve ever had in bed.”

Duncan lifted a brow. “Me humiliating myself is your idea of a good time?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

Duncan’s lips twisted up in a rueful smile. “Well, that’s something, anyway.” He leaned in and kissed Ghost, his mouth worshipful, and Ghost had a strange moment of realizing that in this moment, where Duncan was concerned, he was all-powerful. He knew Duncan loved him, knew it to his core, but that was different from this—seeing Duncan helpless to his devotion.  

Except then Duncan sat up and saw that Ghost wasn’t hard, and he went still. “Did I—shit. Did I hurt you? Did I rush? Are you—”

“I’m fine,” Ghost said. “Kiss me again.”

Duncan didn’t move, only stared down at Ghost’s soft cock with an expression of actual fear.

“No, hey, look at me. Duncan. Look at me. Now.” On the last word, he let his voice get sharp, and Duncan finally dragged his gaze up.

“That was the best sex of my life,” Ghost said, grabbing Duncan’s jaw and forcing him to look at that reality head-on. “I’ve never—that was good. I was here. Okay? The whole time. I feel good. Don’t take that away from me by being dramatic. I’d really much rather tease you about the fact that you came faster than a virgin on prom night.”

If nothing else, that last little insult got Duncan’s brain going. “Ha ha,” he said, and moved, letting his dick slide out of Ghost’s body. He grabbed a handful of tissues and began to clean himself off. Then he knelt there, massive and strong and trying to hide his worry, and Ghost’s chest went tight. It almost hurt, loving someone so much. If he’d known what it would feel like, how scary it could be, he might’ve tried harder to fight it. 

But probably not. Duncan was worth it.

“Look—” Ghost started.

“Your criteria is a little fucked up,” Duncan interrupted.

Ghost glared at him. “Oh, is it?”

“If a lack of pain and flashback and some humiliation material is all it takes for it to be the best sex of your life, that’s shitty criteria. Makes me wonder how I’ve been doing so badly over the last four years.”

“I meant the best intercourse of my life, but thank you for the constructive criticism. This is definitely the place and time for it.”

“It is.” Duncan studied him, his gaze picking Ghost apart at the seams, searching for flaws and little pockets of unhappiness. Ghost was sure he wouldn’t find any. He didn’t have any. Not here or now. “You’re okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“Good.” Duncan snagged his ankle with one big hand and got up in the same fluid motion, dragging Ghost to lie flat again, making him yelp.

“You could’ve just asked me to lie down, you know,” Ghost said dryly.

“I know.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Okay.”

“Double asshole.”

Duncan opened the lube and dripped it all over his fingers. He seemed calmer now. Determined. Ghost’s lips began to curve upward. He liked a calm, determined Duncan in bed. It usually meant good things were going to happen.

“Is this your way of saying you want to put your fingers in me again?” Ghost asked.

“It is. If you’re all right with it.”

“If you’re going to suck me at the same time.”

“I was planning on it. You’re not too sore?”

“From the .06 seconds of sex we had? I think I can take more.”

“Funny guy,” Duncan said, his habitual lack of intonation never put to better advantage than in this moment of deadpan delivery. He tossed the lube onto the duvet and got back into bed, kneeing his way between Ghost’s thighs and getting comfortable. 

“I just want to make you feel good. Let me?” Duncan bent and kissed him, and all the pressure in the moment—not that there’d been much—vanished.

“I might not be able to get hard,” Ghost found himself saying softly, and Duncan gently patted his hip.

“I’m kind of not here for your dick this time anyway,” Duncan admitted, a rueful gleam of amusement in his eyes. “Let me know if you need me to stop. Otherwise, just lay back and think of England.”

“What?”

“It’s a figure of speech,” Duncan said. 

“About England? Why would I think of England right now?”

“I can explain it or I can suck you.”

“The latter,” Ghost said instantly. “Thanks.” 

“Then relax. You don’t have to do anything or be anything. If you don’t get hard, you don’t get hard. We’ll try again later. Or never. Whatever. All you have to do is say so.”

Ghost hated this soft, goopy feeling. He hated it. He had to exhale slow and soft so his breath wouldn’t wobble.

“When you put it that way,” Ghost said. 

And then that miraculous mouth was around his dick once more. Hot and wet, and despite his anxiety, his dick responded with alacrity. Duncan’s mouth had already built up quite a lot of credit with Ghost’s dick. It knew a happy place when it found one.

And Duncan wasn’t being shy, either. He was using his tongue and his lips, taking long deep pulls with slow bobs of his head, and Ghost let his eyes fall closed. He was still open and relaxed from earlier, and when Duncan slipped a finger into him considerably later, he didn’t meet much resistance at all. It was easy enough that Ghost told Duncan he could add another one right away. 

That might’ve been enough to make him feel full with any other partner, but Ghost had had Duncan’s dick inside him. Two fingers was nothing. Until they found his prostate, anyway. That was something. Heat rose inside him like a torrent. He arched his back under the sensation, which had the happy side effect of pushing him deeper into Duncan’s mouth abruptly, making him choke a little. “Sorry,” Ghost gasped.

Duncan pulled off and kissed his hip, nibbling a little right where Ghost was most sensitive. “It’s fine. I like it.”

“Oh. Well.” Ghost had to work past the wild beat of his heart to find words. “Come here, I’ll choke you some more.” He felt Duncan’s amused huff of breath on his damp skin and wished he would hurry up and get his mouth back where it belonged. “Come on, Duncan, please.”

As usually happened when Ghost begged for something, Duncan caved instantly and gave it to him. He wrapped his lips tight around Ghost’s cock and sucked, his fingers striking deep inside at the same time, and it was only another minute of so before Ghost was thrusting again. He couldn’t help it. Something about the double-team had him writhing. The hum was building, tightening every muscle in his body, making him reach down and grab Duncan’s shoulder, fingers clenching tight into the muscle. He had to touch him. Had to feel him. 

Mere seconds before he came, Duncan lifted his head, prompting Ghost to kick him lightly in the leg. “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

But Duncan apparently didn’t care about getting kicked. He was already up, stroking lube on his dick, which was massive once again. 

“Okay?” Duncan asked, his voice taut.

“Yeah, whatever, just do something before I die of old—”

Before Ghost could finish bitching, Duncan slid into him again, finding that sweet spot inside him with flawless aim.

And this time, Ghost didn’t lose his erection. He didn’t even lose momentum. He wasn’t worried about what this might be anymore, because now he knew what it was—it was the two of them, and it was right. The size of Duncan’s cock was suddenly working for him, a lot, the way it stretched him, the way it sank deep, deep inside, and he jerked and fidgeted, his knees clutching tight to Duncan’s sides, those huge thighs spreading his own, and it was all so good. Even Duncan’s fist around his dick, caught painfully tight between their bodies, was good. 

“God,” Ghost gasped. 

“Yeah?” Duncan asked, barely moving, giving just small hitches so that he was getting Ghost deep and exactly where he needed it, and he was seriously about to come just from that.

“Yeah,” he gasped.

So Duncan put his back into it. Long, slow thrusts that hit exactly where he needed them to, and then he bent and gave Ghost long, slow kisses that clouded his brain. He grabbed onto Duncan’s massive shoulders like a limpet, feeling the muscles working, listening to the little grunts that Duncan couldn’t bite back. 

There were a dozen practiced phrases Ghost knew would help get a guy off at this time, but he wouldn’t have been able to think of them now if he tried. He couldn’t stop thinking about the heat and weight of Duncan inside him, the growing desperation, the need.

“Fuck,” Duncan muttered. “Fuck, you feel good. Ghost, I’m—”

“If you come before me again I’m going to kill you,” Ghost whispered faintly. He was so close. He was so fucking close. Duncan shook his head, the brisk movement of someone convincing himself as much as someone else. 

And then Duncan’s thumb stroked just under the head of his dick at exactly the right moment, and Ghost came. It was a slow, heavy orgasm, creeping through him in thick waves of pleasure that never quite crested but which took forever to end, and it left him limp and shaken and with a bizarre urge to cry. 

Fortunately, Duncan seemed to have been holding off through sheer teeth-gritting willpower alone, because the second Ghost came, he groaned and followed, that big body shaking.

Ghost still felt rocked by the time Duncan managed to sit up enough to kiss him again. He felt young and stupid, his hands clinging to Duncan’s skin, touching everywhere he could, soaking up the warmth. He was embarrassed by the neediness, shocked at himself for it, but unable to stop.

Duncan had been about to get up, he was pretty sure, maybe to grab the tissues to clean them up, but he took one look at Ghost and tugged him close. “Easy,” he murmured. “You’re okay. We’re okay. You did good.”

“I’m still here.” 

“You did so good.” 

“I did, didn’t I?” Ghost cuddled even closer. Duncan was like his own personal sun, warming him up from the bones out, crucial to his survival. He burrowed closer, pressing the tip of his nose against springy chest hair. Duncan smelled like sweat and sex and lube and he was so, so strong. Strong enough to defeat anything that might come through that door while Ghost’s defenses were down. He didn’t have to be able to fight right now. It was okay not to be able to fight right now. 

“I’m proud of you,” Duncan said. “Every time I think I’ve seen everything you’re capable of, you surprise me a little more.”

“You sound like Edward.”

“Who?”

“Edward Cullen.”

“Right,” Duncan said, mild disdain leaking into his voice. It never stopped being funny to Ghost that one of the few things that reliably managed to make Duncan reveal an emotion in his tone was Twilight. It was a good 28% of the reason Ghost liked to watch the saga so frequently.

“Remember the part where he’s like, surprised Bella’s not fucking inept at something for once?”

“I remember,” Duncan said, sounding like he’d rather get his wisdom teeth removed than have to think about it again. “And this is different. You’re not inept at anything.”

“Some things.”

“Not really.”

“I’m terrible at cooking soup.”

Duncan hesitated, no doubt remembering the time Ghost had left soup on the burner and forgotten it, and only come back when the fire alarm went off because the liquid had all boiled off and left a congealed, blackened mess at the bottom of the pot. “All right, yes, you’re terrible at soup.”

“And maybe some other things.”

“Nothing that matters. Unlike Edward, the bar I set to start was pretty damn high. And you still keep clearing it.”

Ghost hummed into Duncan’s collarbone. “I’m better at life than Bella.”

“Most people are.”

“Thank you,” Ghost said suddenly, although it maybe sounded a little shy and stupid.

“I think that’s my line.” Duncan leaned away now to grab the tissues and began to clean them up. When Ghost clutched at him again, he murmured, “Easy. Just getting this come off so we can pull the blankets up. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay.” Ghost could relax again, knowing that. And then Duncan did have the blankets up and over them and that helped even more. “You don’t have to thank me.”

“I know you did that at least a little bit for me. I’m grateful that you were willing to try, even if it wasn’t necessary.”

“You do shit for me all the time.”

“It doesn’t cost me anything to give to you,” Duncan said, because he really did think that way, the sucker.

“This didn’t cost me anything.”

“It could’ve.”

Ghost had to admit that that was true. “This might be a special occasion thing. I’m not sure how often I’ll want this. It was good. But. It was also sort of…”

“Intense.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t care.” Duncan kissed him, fiercely this time, a different kind of hunger in his lips. “As long as you’re here. I don’t care what we do.”

Ghost believed him. They’d gone four years without Duncan once asking for anal sex. He’d never strayed a hand back there while they were messing around, never once brought it up in conversation in a way that was little more than a series of hints. Duncan wanted it; he wanted Ghost comfortable and safe and happy more. 

“I’m still here,” Ghost whispered, this time to himself.

But Duncan heard him anyway. Of course he did. “You’re still here,” he repeated, and kissed him again.