Page 36 of Ronen (Sweet Alps Legacy #1)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ronen

“I see dead people,” I told Mason.

He stared at me like he was seeing a ghost before swallowing hard. “What now?

“I see dead people,” I repeated calmly. “And talk to them. See and communicate with them. Ghosts.”

“Ghosts,” Mason repeated slowly, his eyes wide.

“If you can be a dragon, I can see ghosts,” I decided, arms crossed over my chest defensively. “Don’t act like it’s weird.”

He looked at me like I had lost my ever-loving mind.

“And…there’s a ghost here now?”

I nodded. “Emily. She used to be a librarian here, in the seventies. She actually died here. She was taking stuff down to the basement–we just use it for storage now–but she fell on the stairs and broke her neck.”

He blinked slowly, looking shell-shocked.

“And she was watching us have sex?” He pulled his duster over his groin, looking around like she was going to materialize in front of him and his dangly naked bits.

“Yeahhhh,” I breathed the word out, wincing. “’Fraid so.”

“Does she do that often?” He demanded. “Watch us…” his hand flopped at his side, “have sex?”

He whispered the last words like he was saying dirty words inside a church.

Rolling my eyes at him, I made a face at Emily, then shooed my hands at her.

“No, not usually. I think this time was just because we were in the library. And you know, it’s been a long time for her. Plus she was up front with me when you came strolling in wearing this–” I waved a hand at what he was wearing, “outfit.”

“Are there other ghosts you talk to?”

“Please stop using that tone of voice with me,” I snapped. “I’m not a deranged lunatic. I just happen to be able to communicate with the dead. And yes, there are other ghosts.”

“Like who?”

“Well, there are ghosts everywhere, but I try to ignore most of them,” I told him.

“Unless they make contact with me, I don’t bother them.

But Gigi is here. She was my Uncle Quinn’s grandmother.

Biologically we weren’t related, but she just acted like me and my cousins were all her great-grandkids.

She was the first ghost I saw. And there is Miss Rose.

She was Gigi’s lifelong friend. She used to own the daycare my Uncle Ryan used to work at, the one Beck’s husband, Wyatt, owns.

And then there is William.” I couldn’t keep the distaste from my tone.

“He’s a new addition, and he can fuck right back to wherever he’s been since he died. ”

“Who is he?” Mason asked, still looking around like he was expecting books to start flying off the shelves at us, or some such nonsense.

“William Sinclair,” I wrinkled my nose at just saying his name. “Technically he was my grandfather. But he died when my dad was ten, so I never knew him. I’ve heard stories though. Not a super great person.”

“You call him by his first name?”

Reaching for my scattered clothes, I started pulling them on. “He wasn’t my grandfather and I’m not going to call him that. Allan Rafferty was the only grandfather I knew, and he earned that title.”

“You’re a very rude young man,” William spat from behind me, and I spun around, shirt half undone.

“And you’re a very rude ghost. You pushed my mate down the stairs! You could have killed him! Go. Away! All of you. Boundaries!”

“Bah,” William sputtered, “he was fine. And it worked, didn't it? Look at the two of you now. All naked and sweaty. In the library! For shame, Ronen.”

When I turned back to face Mason, he was staring at me, wide-eyed. “Pushed me? They pushed me?”

His voice got louder with each word, and I didn’t blame him.

“Yes, they pushed you. I was doing my best to ignore their chattering, and it wasn’t until it was too late that it registered with me what they were going on about. I tried to stop them but I was too late.”

Kneeling between his spread legs, I gave him a small smile. “I’m sorry about that. ”

“So I did hear you yell that day, but I thought you were yelling at me.”

Putting my hands on my thighs, I leaned back on my heels. “Nope, I was yelling at them. I usually do pretty well at not talking to them when there are people around.” I gave him a small grin, “Because then people look at me like you are looking at me. I’m not nuts, I swear.”

Mason held my gaze for a long time, before he said, “I believe you. I’m not sure why I believe you, but I do. How did this happen?”

He still sounded like he was talking to a crazy person, but I tried not to get angry about it. I knew my revelation was a lot, and I was used to the reaction from people. Which is why I had learned to share it with as few people as possible.

“Or were you born with this ability?” Mason asked another question before I could answer the first one.

I shook my head. “I wasn’t born with the ability.

It happened when I was seven. We were all ice skating, my cousins and me, and Matty was skating around, showing off.

He was a teenager, built like our dad even then, and he slammed into me on accident.

My head bounced off the ice hard, and I was knocked out long enough that my parents rushed me to the hospital.

I came to with a mild concussion and the ability to see ghosts. We didn’t know it at the time though.”

“How did you find out?”

“When Gigi passed away a few months later,” I blinked at the sudden burn in my eyes. It still shouldn’t affect me the way it did. I was lucky and still got to see her, talk to her. “She was the first person I remember passing in my life, and it devastated me. I adored her so much. ”

Swallowing hard, I took a sharp breath in, getting a grip on my emotions.

“She was in her coffin, we were all sitting at the funeral, and something made me turn around. And there, in the back of the room, watching all of us, was Gigi. She waved at me, and I waved back, then I realized she was still in her coffin. Still gone.”

“What did you do?” Mason whispered, sounding fascinated by my story.

I snorted. “What any sensible child would do. I screamed my bloody head off in hysterics. No one knew what was wrong with me. I kept saying her name, but she had vanished. They all thought I was in shock, I think. I remember Papa yelling at Dad, saying I was too young to attend a funeral. Later that night, she showed up in my room, and we had a nice long chat. About death, and the afterlife, and that she wasn’t about to go into any light when she had grandbabies to watch over.

She’s a character. My family knows, of course, once I convinced them I wasn’t crazy and could actually see ghosts,” I shrugged. “They’re just used to it now.”

“This is fascinating,” Mason said.

“You think it’s weird though,” I sighed. “It’s okay, you can say it.”

“It’s a little weird,” he nodded, “but I love you, and that means I love all of you. Even your…eccentricities.”

“Oh my gawed! Ronen!” Emily shrieked in my ear. “He loves you! He loves you!”

Ignoring her, because I was pretty sure Mason had probably hit his level of ghosts spying on us tonight, I stared at him in shock. “You love me?”

He gave me a soft look, brushing the hair back from my forehead.

“Yeah, I do. I know it’s probably too soon for me to say it, and you don’t have to say it back,” he told me hurriedly, “but I love you, Ronen.”

Leaning up, I whispered, “I love you too, Mason,” before my lips found his in a kiss that was better than any we had shared before.

It was a sweet kiss, gentle, not full of passion or desire, but one full of love.