The Dead Romantics (81)

His fingers twitched, and he curled them tightly into fists. “You are perfect,” he said again. “I like admiring the view.” Then, “Close your eyes.”

I did.

“Imagine the scene. I would pull my fingers through your hair; I would rake my teeth across your skin—I would undo that pretty lace bra of yours and caress your nipples with my tongue. I would slip a finger inside of you—two, and you would be so wet and I would pleasure you so slowly, as slow as you wanted—”

“I would drive you crazy,” I commented.

“Florence, you already do.”

I laughed, and opened my eyes, only to find his hands over mine. I turned around, and finally looked at him—truly—for the first time, and pulled my shirt back up onto my shoulders. “It’d be a good scene,” I said, and my voice broke a little, my fingers buttoning my shirt back up. “Corny, but in a good way.”

“I like corny,” he agreed, his gaze lingering on my lips.

My alarm went off, making both of us jump. I quickly stepped away from him and hurried across the room to turn off my phone. And reality crashed back in, because today was my father’s funeral, and I still had two things to check off his will. “I—I’m sorry. I have to finish getting dressed. So much to do. So little time.”

“Can I help?”

I tilted my head, and smiled. “No, you just being here is enough.”

“Can I, then?” he asked, sitting up a little straighter, his hands curling into nervous fists. “Can I stay? Like this—with you?”

My heart leapt into my throat. But what about Ann’s last book? I thought, but I didn’t want to voice it. I didn’t want him to change his mind because—“I’d like that.”

Because people always left. If they had a choice—they left.

And Ben wanted to stay.

I cleared my throat, tucking my shirt back into my skirt. “I better hurry up. Dad won’t bury himself,” I added, and went back into the bathroom to brush my teeth, but my blood rushed with the thought of all the corny moments I could have with Benji Andor. Even though he was dead.

It didn’t mean he was gone.





31





Bring Out Your Dead


ACCORDING TO MOM’S text, we were all going to meet at the funeral home before walking over to the cemetery. And I, in true Florence Day fashion, was miserably late. My siblings were already outside, about to leave for the cemetery.

“Sorry, sorry!” I cried, hurrying up the stone path to the porch. “I lost track of time.”

“We figured,” Carver replied. “The flowers are already at the gravesite. A few guys came by to take them there this morning.”

“And Elvis has the program list,” Alice added. “We gave him the list of songs you left last night. Almost couldn’t read them because of your chicken-scratch handwriting, but Dad’s handwriting was just as bad.”

List of songs . . . ? I put the question away for later. “Thank you, guys. And the crows?” I asked Carver hopefully.

He sighed and hefted up the empty cherrywood birdcage. “Yeah, didn’t catch a single fucker.”

“I told you to use your Rolex.”

He gasped, stricken. “Never!”

Though I figured the murder didn’t leave the rooftop of the inn last night, since Ben hadn’t left, either. That was . . . just slightly my fault. Not that I’d admit it. Alice cocked her head and looked up into the old willow tree. Beneath it, Ben was standing with his hands in his pockets. He looked up, too. She nudged her head toward the murder of crows perched in the tree. “Do you mean those bastards?”

“Imagine that,” Mom said. “You know, your father used to say they only showed up when—”

“Ben’s under the tree,” I supplied.

“Well that’s our lucky break,” Carver said. “Do you think we have to catch them?”

“Nah, they’ll follow,” I replied, and gave Ben a wink. He rolled his eyes. I told my family to go ahead without me, that I’d catch up in a moment. I still had to put on my makeup, and I wanted to do one last round through the house. I waited until they were down the street before I climbed the steps to the funeral home, and peeked inside.

I took a deep breath. “Dad?”

My voice echoed through the building. I waited patiently, but there wasn’t a reply.

“I know you’re here. I didn’t leave Alice any song list.” I paused. “But you did.”

The house creaked in reply.

“Everything dies, buttercup,” he once said as we sat on the front porch, watching a storm roll in. Carver was toddling in his play pool, and Alice was gurgling on his knee. “That’s a fact. But you wanna know a secret?”

And I had leaned in, so sure it was a cure for death, a way to bat it away—

“Everything that dies never really goes. In little ways, it all stays.”

Not in the horrific way Lee wrote it. Not with moaning ghosts and terrifying poltergeists and living dead, but in the way the sun came back around again, the way flowers browned and became dirt and new seeds bloomed the next spring. Everything died, but pieces of it remained. Dad was in the wind because he breathed the same air that I breathed. Dad was a mark in history because he existed. He was part of my future because I still carried on.