Love, Like Ghosts: A Bay City Paranormal Investigations Story

does right now, and what if he doesn’t once he gets to know the real me? The freak? Adrian fought to keep the sudden flash of panic from showing on his face. He drew a deep breath, then another.
Chelsea’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” He nodded at Linda as she passed by on her way to the foyer. “Is that so surprising?”
“Hell, no. I was starting to think he’d never do it.”
He studied Chelsea’s face. If she’d noticed his momentary agitation, she showed no sign of it. Relieved, he shrugged some of the tension from his shoulders. “What do you mean?”
“He’s been drooling over you since day one.” Chelsea pushed open the door of the bedroom the tech group had chosen for equipment storage. “Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed.”
Adrian grinned. “Well, I might have noticed a little bit of interest on his part.”
Chelsea snickered, but didn’t say anything else since Erin entered the room at that moment with two other tech team members at her heels.
Adrian turned to his work with a smile on his lips. For the first time in ages, it looked like he might actually be developing a social life. Sean would be thrilled.
~ * ~
    Adrian hadn’t meant to go to the tower room that night. He had an actual date, with a real live man, in less than twenty-four hours. A date he was bound and determined not to be overly nervous about. Seeing Lyndon again, feeling the spirit’s energy inside him, would only set him back.
    Then he’d seen Greg in full makeup. The startling resemblance to the real thing loosened his tongue, and the resulting “you look exactly like him” set off a chain reaction of questions which ended up with Adrian, Greg and at least six other students climbing the narrow stairs to the little octagonal room which Lyndon Groome haunted.
    At the top of the steps, Adrian paused and took a couple of seconds to calm his racing pulse. Part of him wanted very much for Lyndon to make an appearance. A larger part didn’t want to share, even if no one but Adrian knew the ghost was there.
    Squaring his shoulders, Adrian pushed open the heavy wooden door and walked inside. “Don’t be disappointed if you can’t see him. Not everyone can.”
“But you can.” Erin sidled a little too close, beaming up at him. “That’s so cool, that you can see ghosts.”
Greg insinuated himself between Erin and Adrian. Taking Adrian’s hand, he led him across the floor to the window in a movement that managed to look casual even though Adrian knew damn well it wasn’t. He raised his eyebrows at Greg and got a sly grin in return.
“Why is it that we all can’t see the ghost? I mean, either it’s there or it isn’t, right?”
Shaking his head, Adrian let go of Greg’s hand and turned to face Colin McCormack, one of the other actors. The boy was by far the most obstinately skeptical person Adrian had every met. He suspected the only reason Colin had come up here at all was because of Chelsea, who he put the moves on at every opportunity in spite of her obvious lack of interest.
“If an apparition is fully manifested, then yes, everyone would be able to see it,” Adrian explained. “But if it isn’t fully manifested, then only those who are sensitive to particular…” He fumbled for the right words. “Well, particular levels of energy, I guess you’d say, would be able to see it.”
“And you’re sensitive to those things.”
The transparent scorn in Colin’s voice stung, but Adrian ignored it. After the abuse he’d suffered in middle school and high school, this minor passive-aggressive ridicule was easily brushed aside. “Yes, I am.”
Colin snorted. With a cutting glare at Colin, Chelsea moved to stand beside Adrian. “So, is he here? Lyndon, I mean. The real one.”
Adrian shut his eyes and let his senses seep through the stone of the tower walls. The residual warmth of Lyndon’s energy flavored the air all around, but it felt weak. Scattered. The potential crackled in the atmosphere, but it wasn’t enough. Lyndon wouldn’t manifest. Not right now, anyway.
Feeling strangely relieved, Adrian opened his eyes. “He’s not here tonight.”
“Well, dang.” Susan Richards, one of the actors who’d been particularly anxious to see the phantom, let out a deep sigh. “Oh well. Maybe another time.”
“Or not, since we’re really not supposed to be coming up here at all.”
Adrian shot Greg a surprised look. They didn’t know each other very well, but he wouldn’t