“You care about him.”
“Yes.”
“You love him?”
“Yes.”
“Fast,” Ghost said idly. “Too fast to know if it’s the real thing, maybe. Or so people say.”
“Maybe. I’m not really up for a semantic debate about the point where infatuation becomes love. I’ve never felt anything like it, I know that much.” He pushed his bag aside. “Love might not be the right word, but it’s the closest one in my vocabulary. Do you care or are you just curious?”
Ghost shrugged. “The second one, probably. It’s interesting.”
“How so?”
“I’ve never been in love.” Ghost played with a pilled fuzzy on the duvet. “I don’t think I’m capable of it.”
Tobias went still. They didn’t talk like this; he’d never heard Ghost say such a plain thing. He wasn’t sure how honest it was, but he couldn’t imagine a reason why Ghost would say something like that if it weren’t true. Not that Ghost needed a reason to lie.
“You mean romantic love?” Tobias hesitated about dropping his towel. While Ghost had seen him naked a million times before—modesty didn’t survive being roommates in a treatment facility—he didn’t think Sullivan would be comfortable with Tobias getting naked in front of another guy. Tobias sure wouldn’t like it if the shoe was on the other foot. He compromised by slipping into the bathroom to get dressed, leaving the door partially open so he could still talk. “Or familial love?”
“Any of it.” Ghost stared at the blanket in apparent fascination. “I think I loved my mother. But it was a long time ago, and I’m not sure. And I’m different now.”
Sometimes Tobias forgot how young Ghost was. He seemed ancient in some ways, but he was only twenty, and on some aspects of life, the four years between them might as well be a canyon.
“It’s terrifying,” Tobias said, coming back into the bedroom. “Falling in love. Knowing that anything that happens to them happens to you. You can’t love someone with your whole heart without being terrified by what it means.”
“It’s a stupid thing to do, then.”
“With some people, you can’t not love them.” Tobias gave him a small smile. “All you can choose is what you do once it happens.”
“How do you know if you love someone?”
“Trust me, Ghost. You can’t miss it. It’ll take you out at the knees.”
“I thought—” He paused, staring thoughtfully into the distance. “I thought there was a possibility. When I first got there, he said... I thought—”
“Thought what?”
“He’s bailed me out a few times over the last few years. He caught Vasily Krayev trying to recruit me, and he kept an eye on me after that, and he always...he told me I was—but what’s the good opinion of a killer worth?”
Spratt. “How did that whole thing happen?”
“She told me to get in his life. I got in his life.” He leaned back and studied the ceiling. “I called him. I’ve had his number for ages. I told him a sob story about getting away from somebody who wanted to pimp me, and an hour later, Tidwell was at my front fucking door. When I was younger, if Spratt busted me, he’d dump me in Woodbury, but this time I said...” Ghost put on his most innocent, vulnerable mien—like everything Ghost put effort into, it was convincing. “I want to stay with you. I always mess up when I try to do it alone. Can’t I stay with you?”
“He bought it?” Tobias always felt weird watching Ghost’s little performances. He did them so frequently and so well that Tobias wasn’t sure which face to believe. Sometimes he wondered if Ghost ever forgot which one was real.
The act fell away, and Ghost looked like himself again—young, tired, worn. “I thought it would finally happen.”
“What do you mean?”
Ghost scoffed. “What the fuck do you think? You think he did all those things to help me? You think it was because he was decent? There are people who want to use you and people who don’t and—” He broke off and his whole body sagged. He pulled his feet up onto the bed, huddling like he was cold.
Quietly, Tobias asked, “Did he hurt you?”
Suddenly weary, Ghost said, “He knew. Almost the moment I walked in there, he figured it out. He’s not stupid. But he gave me a chance anyway. Gave me just enough rope to hang myself, but if I hadn’t tried to sneak out with the USB, if I’d just stayed—who knows what—”
It was by far the most honest conversation they’d ever had, and Tobias wasn’t any less confused than he usually was when they talked. “Ghost?”
It took ages before Ghost murmured, “He didn’t do anything.” He blinked, staring off into space, and repeated, faintly bewildered, “He didn’t do anything.”
“He tied you up in a closet.”
Ghost’s eyes flew to Tobias as if he’d forgotten he was there. Blankly, he said, “Yeah, but who hasn’t done that a time or two?” He cleared his throat, his gaze focusing further. “You’re a clingy thing today. Get out, would you? If I don’t get some sleep I’m going to punch the next person who expects me to do something decent.”
And that was apparently the end of that. Tobias stood. “Do you want your key to the condo back, by the way? I’ve got it on my ring.”
“No. Keep it. Recycle it. I don’t care.” He waved a hand of dismissal that wasn’t quite as carefree as he’d probably planned.
Tobias nodded. “You okay?”
Ghost gave him a blindingly attractive, entirely false smile. “Same as I ever was.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
After an awkward dinner, they got Ghost set up on the couch, and Tobias supposed they would simply have to trust that Ghost wanted the USB too much to take off without it. That video was the sole security he had in the world—short of life-threatening violence, Tobias didn’t think Ghost was going anywhere.
There was nothing else to do then but go upstairs to bed with Sullivan, and with every step, the tension seemed
