Page 66 of The Curse of Redwood

“But you didn’t finish,” I pointed out.

“I’m no longer in the mood.”

My sternum ached, like someone had grabbed on to it and gave it a hard tug. “Did I do something wrong?”

Shit. I had been too clingy and scared him off. That’s the only reason I could think of for why he’d waste a perfectly good boner.

He stopped fidgeting with his collar and moved his gaze to me. “No. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why’d you get so weird on me? You not wanting to finish fucking me definitely makes me feel like I did something to turn you off.”

Zeke came back over and sat beside me. He took my hand in his and stared at his lap. “It’s not anything you’ve done. It’s me, I assure you.”

“Oh, come on.” I pulled my hand from his grip and flew off the couch, snatching my skinny jeans from the floor. “‘It’s not you, it’s me.’Really? That’s the oldest line in the book. Spoiler alert, it’salwaysa lie.”

“Not this time,” he said, staring at me as I pulled on my clothes in an angry fit. When my arms got trapped in my hoodie, I grumbled and flung around. There was a pressure on my back. “Here. Let me help.”

“No.” I yanked away from him. “I can do it myself. I’m not a kid.”

“You sure are behaving like one.”

Once my clothes were in place and no longer trying to choke me, I spun around to him. “Why don’t you ever tell me anything?”

He looked taken aback. “I tell you many things.”

“Not the things I really want to know,” I said, wondering how he could be so calm when a storm was raging inside me. “You talk about your favorite books, and you shared a small story about your mom when you first showed me this damn sunroom. But that’s it. Sometimes, I feel closer to you than anyone else. And other times?” I shook my head and took a step back. “I feel like I don’t know you at all.”

“I told you about Charlie, didn’t I?” Zeke’s body flickered as lightning flashed above us. “That was not easy for me to do.”

“Ah, yes. You told me all about the guy you fucked once upon a time. How romantic.”

“Stop this,” he growled, materializing inches from me. “You’re being unnecessarily cruel.”

“I’mbeing cruel? You’re the one who stopped fucking me, got all weird, and won’t even tell me why.”

“Because you reminded me of Philip!”

As his voice boomed around me, the chaise lounge near the window skidded a few feet and the table toppled over. I flinched as a chair flew across the room, the air rustling in front of my face as it passed me.

And when I looked into his eyes… I didn’t recognize the man staring back at me. For the first time since we’d met, Zeke looked like a true ghost. Lifeless. Haunted. His blue eyes paled even more, and he looked so… dead. His skin became transparent, losing its solidity. The grief that then spread across his face, along with the ghostly wail that fell from his lips, gave me chills and made tears spring to my eyes.

“Z?”

He drifted over to the window, and the anguished wailing continued. The humanity he normally had was gone. There was nothing human about him now. Not his body or his mind.

“I told you this is no place for the living. It’s a graveyard for dead things.”

Tears fell down my cheeks as I recalled his words. My beautiful Z. He had become one of those dead things; a shell of what he used to be. Regret and shame slammed into me for how I’d behaved. I had made him like this: broken.

“Zeke?” I cautiously approached him.

He didn’t register my presence. He just stared outside and quietly whined. That’s when I noticed what he was looking at; the place that used to be his garden. The place he had sat in my vision and read stories to an unknown man.

Philip.

That’s the name he’d said—the man I reminded him of.

When I touched his arm, my hand passed through like he was made of smoke. I couldn’t talk to him, couldn’t touch him. My vision blurred so much I couldn’t even see him anymore.