the sink and wiped his cheek, and then, carefully, because he was hoping so hard this would work, he took Angel’s hand in his own.
It felt as real and as solid as Squishbeans, and they both gasped.
“I won’t ask you questions,” Tucker promised, Angel’s hand pulsing warm against his palm. “But you can’t surprise me like that either.”
“I’m sorry, Tucker,” Angel said softly.
Tucker took the cloth and wiped his thumb off, closing his eyes against the tenderness of Angel’s skin, flesh, blood, and bones, clasped in his own.
“It’s okay,” Tucker said. “I understand rules and supernatural things and….” The thumb was clean, and Angel’s flesh slid through Tucker’s grasp like Tucker had been cupping air in the palm of his hand. “And things that hurt, things you can’t control,” he finished, voice throbbing.
Angel locked gazes with him and bit his lip.
“What hurt you?” Angel asked softly.
Tucker looked into his eyes, close, so close to telling him. He felt a tickling on his cheek and held his hand up to catch it. His fingers came away crimson, and he stared at the red smear in bemusement.
“Being human,” he said after a moment.
He didn’t have to look up to know that Angel had disappeared again. This time Tucker didn’t call him back.
BREAKFAST WAS blueberry pancakes, and Tucker, per usual, enjoyed the hell out of them. Then he thanked Rae, helped with the dishes, and he and Josh headed out to hop in the truck while Andy took a small used Toyota that they’d apparently bought with the proceeds from the truck.
Before the door closed behind him, Tucker thrust his face into the house.
“Angel, he called. “Angel! Are you there?” His heart fell because he was driving all the way down to Sacramento, and his parents had been killed in a car wreck, and Damien and… and of all people, Tucker knew you had to say goodbye.
“Here!” Angel said, materializing out of the wall between the kitchen and Tucker’s room.
Tucker didn’t scream this time, but he did hold his hand to his heart. “I’m going to my old place. I’ll be back tonight, okay? I left lots of cat food and water for the kitten, so you should be okay while I’m gone.” He swallowed. “Right?”
Angel nodded and then pasted a patently false smile on his face. “We will be fine. Have a nice day, okay, Tucker?”
“Sure,” Tucker said. “You have a nice day without me.”
As he closed the door and went running down the stairs, he could hear Angel’s voice, floating weakly after him.
“Sure.”
Once More into the Breach
RUTH HAD been gone for three months before Tucker had been able to pick up her thread, and Angel had never felt alone.
Yes, he’d known about the ghosts, but it was more than that.
Angel was by nature a solitary creature. He’d wandered the lower rooms, looking out, getting familiar with the ghosts and the objects inside the house; he’d been comforted to know what came next.
And then Tucker had barreled in and blown all of his plans out of the water.
Tucker left, and Angel could barely tell him goodbye, even for a day.
And Angel was so glad to see he was feeling better than he had been the day before.
Angel had worried so much. He’d worried about Tucker getting attacked; he’d worried about Tucker getting better. It wasn’t until Tucker started asking him about the house that he realized he wasn’t worried about the mission—the thing Angel was actually supposed to be worried about. Angel was anxious about Tucker. About whether he was strong enough, about Tucker getting hurt.
About Tucker getting sad, and the secret, scared places inside him that Tucker seemed to mask with sarcasm and activity.
About making Tucker smile, just for Angel.
About maybe not seeing Tucker smile the same way at any other human being.
And then Angel thought about all of the things in this monstrosity of a house, all of the landmines just waiting for Tucker to unleash hell upon himself.
Oh gods.
Why couldn’t Angel have worried like this about Ruth?
By all rights, Ruth knew less about her job than Tucker did—and she’d been very innocent.
But Angel had felt a toughness in Ruth, and while Tucker was strong—there was no doubt—Angel saw a vulnerability in him that Angel could barely face. And he certainly couldn’t walk away from it.
Tucker needed someone. And as much as Angel had distrusted the Greenaways at the beginning, knowing that there was another group of people who had an eye out for Tucker was a big relief. Angel