that. It’s why he thinks he knows everything.”
Rae snorted and rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s a twenty-two-year-old for you. I’m sure you knew everything at twenty-two as well.”
Fuck. Involuntarily Tucker recalled Damien stealing him out of class so they could go swimming. They’d rented an inner tube and laid down on it, stomach first, their sides touching as they stared into the water and paddled the lazy parts of the American River. Tucker had turned his head, and Damien laughed, so close to Tucker they could have kissed. His hair had been streaked by the sun, and gold flecks had glinted in his brown eyes. I know he could love me. I know he could. If I just lean forward, he’ll kiss me, and he knows about the curse. He’d understand. If I just lean forward and our lips meet….
Tucker had been sure of it. He’d known.
But he’d never tried.
“I did and I didn’t.” He coughed, trying to clear the sadness out of his throat. “Some shit you have to learn the hard way.”
“Yeah,” Rae said, looking at him like she could see what he wasn’t saying. Well, she’d just said she was “witchy.” Perhaps she could. “But Andy used to run down the halls and count the rooms. And the first day he came home all excited—he’d counted eighteen rooms altogether. We were impressed. But he told Ruth the next time he delivered groceries, and she was upset. Seems there were only supposed to be fifteen. So he counted again. Four times.”
Tucker closed his eyes and groaned. “Let me guess.”
“Different answer each time.”
“Oh hell. Angel—how many rooms are in Daisy Place?”
Angel made a clearing-the-throat sound, and Tucker looked behind him. Angel’s sheepish grin and apologetic shrug were not reassuring. “Fifteen the last time I counted?” he qualified.
“Are you shitting me?”
“I didn’t know it was a requirement of relieving the ghosts,” Angel said with dignity.
“Can you go count?” For some reason, not knowing was almost more unsettling than the graveyard.
Angel sighed and sat back so hard he actually thumped against the wall. Rae gasped and dropped her cards and then glared at them both.
“Tell him to stop that!”
“He didn’t do it on purpose,” Tucker muttered. “Angel?”
“No,” Angel said regretfully. “I get… lost.”
“Lost,” Tucker echoed dumbly.
“Yes. I…. You know those movies where the hallway stretches out forever?”
“Oh God.”
“I’m in that hallway, and I can’t find my way to the end.”
“Oh God.”
“The last time I tried, Ruth said I was missing for a month.” Angel looked sorrowful, and Tucker reached out a helpless hand to comfort him.
“That’s awful,” he said, voice husky.
Angel smiled beatifically. “I was nowhere near as brave as you were.”
Tucker’s chest expanded and gave a giant throb, and then Rae interrupted, sounding concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m living in the house from The Shining.” Tucker swallowed and tried to keep it together. “I mean, I could do it when it was finite, you know? But the graveyard, and now this? It’s every horror movie ever made! It’s every haunted house, it’s every carnival ride, it’s—”
“It’s going to be fine,” Angel said, and Tucker, who could have sworn his heart was going to start beating through his ears, heaved a big sigh and leaned back in bed.
He was suddenly exhausted.
“There is no finite room count,” he said, gulping this truth down dry like every other pill at Daisy Place. Then he remembered his restoration job and brightened. “But I have money—my plan still stands. When I get rid of a ghost, I’ll fix the room. Maybe when the rooms are bright and shiny clean, they will stand still enough to count.”
He threw his cards down, knowing he could have won with that hand. “But I can’t do it today.”
Rae cleaned up the cards and smoothed his hair back from his head, acting like a regular mom. “No, you can’t,” she said softly. “But look. My kids are comfy here, and you’re giving Andy a way to get out. You don’t have to do it alone.”
Tucker smiled gratefully but still pulled away from her comfort in favor of healing sleep.
THE NEXT day, Tucker hopped out of bed bright and early and then fought not to fall back down.
“Are you going to make it?” Angel asked from the bed, and Tucker actually jumped in surprise.
“Oh my God, we slept together!” He’d asked for that—he had. But he was still surprised it had happened.
“Well, not in the biblical, coital way,” Angel said, sounding almost sad about that. “But you were afraid, and I stayed.”
Tucker scrambled