Lee stood in the middle looking hesitant and unsure, so I said, “You call him King, too?”
Kingston’s gaze turned from his grandfather to me. “What do you mean, too? No one else calls me King.” I felt my cheeks warm, and for the first time all morning, I saw Kingston’s eyes twinkle. He snorted. “Excuse me, I meant, no one called me King that I was aware of.”
Well, I sure wouldn’t be telling him that I primarily called him King during my sexy-fantasies. Like, how embarrassing. I definitely wouldn’t be admitting that tidbit out loud in front of his pops. I cleared my throat. “Why don’t I head inside so you two can talk?”
Kingston’s hand tightened on mine. “I’d rather you stay, if you don’t mind.” He put his back to his grandfather and mouthed,For moral support.
Me? He wanted me to stay? Hell yeah. I knew I should probably be inside twenty-questioning his gran because, from the sounds of it, my life was about to have even more of a transition than Kingston’s, but I wasn’t giving up any opportunity to be by his side.
Even if this new spiritual track we were on was apparently going to involve us having to spend lots of time together—at night, hopefully—I wanted more than paranormal geek, ghost-obsessed Kingston.
I wanted the whole man. The one who wore goofy pajama pants and who wandered into his gran’s kitchen with bedhead. The one who spent too much time behind his computer and needed reminders to eat. I wanted to take walks around the pond and text each other all day. I wanted to call his grandparents Gran and Pops without it being weird for him.
I bumped my elbow gently into his side. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Chapter
Fourteen
Kingston
Pops smiled at me lovingly,if not a touch warily. “I guess you have questions.”
I glanced down at Skylar where he sat next to me on the log, nodding his head reassuringly. Then I looked back to the man who’d always been larger than life in my mind.
Not because I really remembered him all that well—I’d been too young when he passed—but because Gran had candid family shots in cheap thrift store frames displayed all over the house.
It wasn’t uncommon for her to stop next to one, pick it up, and smile off into the distance as she told me the story of the day it was taken. It was only now that I realized that maybe when she seemed unfocused or lost in thought, she’d really been speaking to him, looking at him.
There were so many things I didn’t understand that I almost wasn’t sure where to begin. But…there was one thing that I wondered more than anything else.
My pops sat back, watchful, letting me collect my thoughts. Understanding at a base level that this was more than I’d everhave expected—to still have my grandfather after all these years. My flesh and blood, the Black side of my heritage.
After clearing my throat, I asked, “Did my mom…did you, uh…”
Pops leaned forward, clasping his hands between his long legs. “Are you wondering if she passed on to the other side?”
I gave one jerky nod of my head, and Skylar’s small hand landed on my knee, squeezing reassuringly.
“She did,” he said somberly. “With your father by her side.”
I blew out a stuttered breath. “Did you see them? Get to say goodbye?”
He smiled softly. “I did. She sought me out as soon as her spirit realized what happened. She brought your dad with her.” He chuckled. “That poor man. He felt so guilty for all the insults he’d hurled our direction once he saw me still by my Rosie’s side. Saw with his own two eyes that she could see us. After that, he was mighty happy to leave you with your gran.”
“He was?”
“With death, and your mom still by his side, he was able to allow his mind to expand past all those self-imposed limitations. You have to understand, King. His family were small thinkers and racist, on top of that, so they were only willing to accept your mama if she abandoned her own family.”
He growled in the back of his throat. “They had the nerve to tell her they thought they could pass her off as her family originally being from Italy as long as she kept up with her hair and no one met us.”
His lips pulled into a grimace. “Your daddy cut them off so fast…I guess that’s why your mom stopped practicing her own skills and kept some distance from us. He loved her fiercely, but he’d loved his family, too. And he missed them, but he wouldn’t bend, and they never did, either.”
“So Mom didn’t want to risk it becoming all or nothing with you two since he thought Gran’s magic was crap?”
He nodded. “Exactly. Unfortunately, we didn’t know all of that at the time. Most of that came to light after they were gone, and he realized how wrong he’d been and explained himself. It gave your gran some peace. Or as much as you can have after losing your husband and daughter so close together.”
“Why didn’t Gran ever tell me that you were still with us? She just offered to do a spell for Chance so we could see all the ghosts wandering around here. Why didn’t she do that in our home?”
