to me and I prop myself up on my elbows, pushing my sunglasses to the top of my head. “Where’s your drink?” I ask him.
“I finished it at the bar,” he says.
“You know, if you put the flag up, they come bring it to you,” I say, telling him what he already knows.
“Yeah, but then I can’t parade past the people by the pool.”
I laugh. “Your ego is out of control, mister.”
He shrugs. “Only cuz I’m with you, baby,” he says with a grin, teeth white against his skin, so handsome it hurts.
My heart skips several beats in response.
You’d think that things between us would be strange after the whole possession thing, but it’s only made us closer in ways I can’t even explain, because we were already super close. I think it’s given Dex an idea what it’s like to be me, to think my thoughts, to be in this body, to feel things as deeply as I do. And it’s certainly made me realize that I have nothing to fear in sharing my feelings with him.
And while our relationship and marriage has strengthened, other areas of my life have too. Granted, it’s only been a few weeks since we rescued Max and got rid of Samantha and her demon, but I’m taking every little improvement as a win.
I’ve seen the psychiatrist Dr. Chan. I’m not on anti-depressants yet, he’s going to have another session with me when I get back, but it seems promising and he’s a cool dude. I think he’s just a regular shrink, nothing like Lana, but even so, he’s easy to talk to.
I’m still seeing Lana of course, working through a lot of things from my childhood, as well as dealing with my mother’s death and afterlife. Even Pippa. Apparently I have a shitload of grief connected to losing her in my life, even if it was always in such a cryptic way. It helps that Lana already knows every single thing about me, which makes working though things easier.
Ada has been doing fine.
So has Maximus.
Actually, when Ada went back to Portland, Max went with her. As much as we loved to have him in the den for a week, and as much as Dex misses fighting with someone all day long, Maximus found himself back at his old apartment in Portland. He’s over at the Knightly’s a lot now, since he actually used to be friends with Dawn and Sage back in the day (I know, there are so many twisted webs here), and of course he knows Jacob. He hasn’t been able to get a hold of Rose yet, so I know that’s weighing on him, but he’s been keeping busy.
The last I talked to Ada, it seemed like Jacob was having Max train her instead. I think their training started when we left for Hawaii, so I haven’t been able to check in with her too much, but I assume it’s going okay. At least her and Max have a lot of history together and they seem to get along great. Sometimes I worry that they might get along too well, but I trust Ada to keep her head. There’s no way she’s over Jay yet anyway, and also I would murder Maximus if he touched her in any way. So would Dex.
My father seems to be doing well too. He texts and calls me now if he sees my mother, and she’s still repeating the same thing, almost like she’s stuck. I’m not always sure how the worlds work between the Veils, but I told him it’s possible that this is a message she’ll keep repeating until something budges. What that is, I don’t know.
But the good thing is, he’s doing better and gotten closer with Debbie (Deebee) from down the street, and we’re both checking in with each other more often.
Then there’s Dex, my husband, who is currently taking the Mai Tai from my hand, complaining that I’m drinking too slowly, before he quickly sucks back the rest of it.
That Dex is doing just fine. Better than fine. He’s talked about using the vacation as a reset button and that when we return home, we’ll list the apartment, start looking for a new house, get a Jeep, start back at work on the documentary. He even mentioned Lana joining our little paranormal investigator team, saying we could probably use an actual psychologist in our midst when dealing with ghosts.
Not to mention a witch.
I’m not sure about that yet. It