Amused, I set him back down gently. My brother would have my head if I accidentally broke his boyfriend. I really did feel so much better to have it all out; to know I wasn’t strange. Or weird. That it wasn’t a fluke. Did I need to sleep on it a bit and get more comfortable with the idea? Sure. But I didn’t feel like my own skin was ill-fitting anymore either.
Jon turned his head like he was attuned and said, “Donovan’s back at the car. You good now?”
“Yeah, man. Thanks.”
He patted my chest, and we turned to walk back. As I kept pace with him, I couldn’t help but ask, “You think it’ll happen again? Me meeting a guy I want.”
“Sure. It might be rare, but it’s not like the possibility is zero.” His eyes were sharp on me again. “Do you want it to happen?”
On this point, at least, I was confident in my answer. “If I could have what you and Don have? I really don’t care what gender my partner is.”
“Smart answer. And that’s flattering, thanks.”
I kept the thought carefully to myself that Don needed to propose. I really liked the idea of Jon being my brother-in-law. With their psychic bond, it wasn’t like they were in danger of splitting up because of a lack of commitment, but still.
We climbed back into the Humvee, this time with me driving to give Jon a break. It wasn’t a quick trip to Arkansas from Tennessee, after all. Although that did beg a question I hadn’t thought to ask. “Hey, Jon? How are you and planes?”
“Like hairspray and a flamethrower,” he answered with a pained sigh. “Too many electronics.”
Yeah, I could see that. “So basically, if you can’t drive to it, you can’t go.”
“Well, boats are mostly okay, if they’re large or manpowered. But planes are straight out.”
“How often do psychics have trouble with electronics?”
“It’s honestly rare,” Jon answered, leaning in between the front seats to converse more easily. “We have to be running pretty high in order to fry anything. I have lousy shields, hence my effect on things. But most psychics handle electronics just fine. It’s only when they’re doing a more intense reading, or are so exhausted or hurt that their shields are kaput, that there are issues.”
Huh. Now that was interesting. I’d heard Jon was basically on high all the time and wasn’t able to turn his ability down. I hadn’t realized other psychics could sometimes be just as destructive under the right (or wrong) circumstances. “What about mediums? Like the guy we’re going to see, does he operate like a psychic?”
Jon hummed in thought. “Yes and no. Technically, a medium is a psychic, but only in the broadest sense of the term. Truthfully, they were put in with the rest of us because no one was sure how else to define their ability. Their talents work a little differently than ours do. To them, spirits and demons are just like people. They interact with them just as I would you or Donovan. They don’t have shields for psychic energy, and they don’t really register as psychic when tested.”
Something else I hadn’t known. “So mediums don’t need anchors?”
“Ah, that’s the sole thing we have in common, actually. Mediums do. Because they can’t always differentiate between human and spirit, they need someone else to help anchor them. They also need an anchor to back them up when they’ve used too much energy and need to be hauled off. It takes a different skillset, you could say.”
Donovan snorted in disagreement and shot his lover a look. “Really? Because I have to keep track of you when you get sucked into reading someone’s lines and haul you into dark rooms to recuperate when you’ve overdone it.”
“Yes, but as we can all agree, I’m not normal,” Jon retorted sweetly.
Yeah, not touching that with a ten-foot pole. “But I’d more or less learn how to back up a medium by learning from Don?”
My brother gave me one of those looks that meant he was contemplating straight jackets. “You’re not seriously interested in going into the spooky branch of the FBI, are you?”
“It may have come up when I was talking to the recruiter,” I admitted. “I’m not easily scared, I think ghosts are cool, and apparently those two traits are not so commonly found in one person. He told me I had to shadow a psychic first, get the gist of what to do, and then we’d talk placement.”
Donovan looked at me like I’d finally lost my grip on sanity.
I shot him a challenging grin. “What? You’re saying you don’t want a ghostbuster in the family?”
He sighed a gusty, mountainous sigh. “At least you’d learn not to drag ghosts home with you.”
“Hey, that was a one-in-a-million thing,” I protested.
“Suuure. You stay at a haunted hotel in an infamously haunted town, but you bringing a ghost home with you was a one-in-a-million shot. Uh-huh. Next you’ll tell me you found the end of a rainbow.”
“Well, actually—” I broke off in a manly yip when he poked me in the side.
“Boys, boys, not while he’s driving,” Jon reproved. “Stop worrying, Donovan. The FBI consultant we’re going to meet is retired, but he’s got a new guy he’s training. With two people, we’ll be able to sort this out sooner rather than later. And then we can enjoy the hot springs and go home, yeah?”
Donovan grumbled something unintelligible.
Personally, I didn’t think sorting out the problem of our ghost was going to be nearly that easy or quick. This had the feeling of taking more than a day to solve. But if I’d learned anything as an adult, it was when to keep my opinions to myself.
3
Crescent Hotel and Spa wore its age well. It was an 1880s build, or thereabouts, and it had the stone façade and tall, gabled roofs of its time period. I seriously loved the architecture on this place, and it had been one of the reasons why I’d stayed there.
As we pulled into the parking lot, I could see my brother start to question every life decision that led him to this point. If not for the love of the little blond at his side, nothing would get Donovan past the city limits, much less through the doors of a haunted hotel.
Before he slid out of the Humvee, I leaned in and offered, “You need me to do a Sipi Tau with you?”
Donovan sighed gustily, still staring at the hotel mournfully.
“Sipi Tau?” Jon questioned from the backseat.
“Tongan battle cry, only it’s got a war dance that goes with it,” I explained. “Traditionally, you do it to get your courage up. Not just battles, but anything you need empowering for. Our parents made sure we learned some of our heritage growing up, so we all know how to do it.”
Jon perked up with interest. “Yeah? I’d love to see that.”
I poked my brother in the ribs again. “You need me to? I’m down.”
Donovan sighed again. “Don’t tempt me. Let’s just get this over with.”
Hey, I offered. Not on me if he chose not to. We pulled bags out of the back, and I carefully handled the well-wrapped snow globe. Better me than Donovan or Jon. Jon wouldn’t actually care, but my brother would not look at Jon juggling a ghost favorably. He was protective of his boyfriend. It was frankly amazing he trusted me to watch Jon’s back while we played detective with the ghost hunters. I mean, my brother trusted me. I’ve never questioned that. But relinquishing Jon into my care? That was huge.