“Mmm.” Aiden smiles against my mouth, his hands sliding up the inside of my flannel. “Hi. This is an enthusiastic greeting.”

I move to start nibbling and kissing his neck, keeping him firmly pressed up against the entryway wall of my apartment. I didn’t even give him enough time to get his jacket off, but now I pull it down his arms with a hard tug. Aiden draws in a sharp breath, his pupils dilating.

“I’m so happy that you’re here.” I lick my way up his throat, feel his pulse start to pick up beneath my lips. “It’s been such a weird, stressful day, and all I wanna do is take your clothes off.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” Aiden huffs out a laugh as I yank his jacket the rest of the way off, toss it aside, and push him further into my apartment. “Are you talking about this morning, or did something else happen while I was talking to Eric?” He gently eases me back, takes a look at me. “Did you get yourself into more trouble? And if so, how? Weren't you just working on your plants?”

“Wh-?” I stare at him, taken aback. “How did you know that's what I was doing?”

“Your gardening gloves are sticking halfway out of your back pocket, your hands smell nice, you've got the sleeves of your flannel rolled up, and…”

Aiden touches a fingertip to my forehead. It comes away with some topsoil.

“Oh,” I say, and he lets out another huffing laugh. “Yeah, I was working on those plants I told you about, the damaged ones from the shop? But then - something did happen, actually, something surprising, right before you got here. I saw - well, I didn’t exactly see, it was-”

Aiden's eyes flit between my face and the nervous gestures of my hands. A small, warm smile turns up his lips.

“Jamie. You’re fumfering.”

“I’m not!”

“You are,” Aiden says, touching his thumb to my cheek, “And I’m loving every second of it, but - try again, please? This is just a tiny bit too convoluted for me to follow.”

I hesitate, faltering. I really, really don’t want to tell Aiden about what just happened. I know he’s not going to be happy that I went after Ralph and tried to talk to him, even if I didn’t succeed.

I run a hand over my mouth, and Aiden’s eyes follow the movement. He catches my hand when I lower it, then gives my fingers a squeeze, his expression growing serious.

“What happened, Jamie? You seem really distracted.”

“Distracted? No, I’m just-”

I cut myself off, blinking in confusion as a faint, pale glow appears behind Aiden. I stand on my toes to look over his shoulder, and he makes a skeptical face.

“Yeah, you’re not distracted at all,” he says, then jumps when I let out a startled gasp.

I wasn’t imagining it: there is a glow, and it’s coming from a ghost.

“Jesus Christ!” I press a hand to my chest, my heart hammering. “Will! You scared the hell out of me!”

Aiden turns swiftly on the spot, feeling in his pockets for the glasses.

“Oh - apologies, gents!” Will holds up his calloused hands, then gives Aiden a little wave when he sets the glasses on his nose. “That was not my intention, I assure you."

“Why didn’t you say something, bro?” Aiden asks, and Will shrugs, color rising in his cheeks.

“In truth, sometimes I forget that I can.”

I slowly get my breath back, looking at Will with newfound affection. I don’t know him nearly as well as Kasey does, but the more time I spend with him, the more I see what she sees.

“You’re totally fine,” I say, fixing him with a friendly smile. “Where’s Kasey?”

“She’ll be along in just a min-”

Kasey materializes next to Will, and my heart lifts immediately.

“Kase-face!” God, am I relieved to see her. I know she can’t technically be hurt, but still, I worry. “What happened to you, earlier? You and Will both just disappeared.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.” Kasey cringes apologetically, reaching for my hand. I place my palm on hers, careful not to accidentally put my fingers right through her. “I would have reported back, but we made a discovery at Ralph’s house, and I decided to stick around to confirm it. Will was helping me.”

Aiden and I exchange a puzzled glance. I can’t begin to guess what Kasey means by this, but it stirs a flutter of alarm in my chest.

“What kind of discovery?” Aiden asks, clearly as troubled as I am.

We both blink in surprise when Will answers instead of Kasey.

“Jamie, that fellow you sent me looking for - Grant?”

“Yeah…?”

“Kasey told me before we set out that Grant lives in the house,” Will explains. “So I went searching through all the bedrooms for him. But there was no one there, and in walking around, I noticed something odd, so I summoned Kasey.”

“Yeah, here’s the thing,” Kasey says, crossing her arms. “There are three bedrooms in that house. The first one is empty, so Will and I assumed that it used to be Noah’s. The second one is obviously Ralph’s. It’s the biggest room in the house, and I recognized some of his clothes lying around in there. But the third room, which we have to assume is Grant’s… it’s completely empty, too.”

Aiden and I stare at Kasey, baffled. We twist to look at each other, then back at Will and Kasey again.

“What do you mean, it’s empty?” A concerned pinch appears between Aiden’s eyebrows. “Like - there’s literally nothing in there?”

“There was furniture, but nothing else,” Kasey answers. “A bed with a bare mattress, no clothes in the closet. It looked like a vacant dorm room. Which is exactly how Noah’s room looks, without his stuff.”

“What the hell…?”

“My thoughts exactly, Jamie.” Kasey leans back against Will as she speaks, settling her shoulders against his chest. He blinks down at her, surprised, his cheeks coloring again. Kasey keeps going, unaware. “So - I decided that Will and I should stick around to see if Grant came back later. But he didn’t show. Ralph was the only one at the house, and he basically sat on the porch in silence until it got dark, then wandered off down the road and disappeared for a while.”

That was when he left to bring me my car, I realize.

Will jumps in again. “Then Ralph returned to the house and went directly to bed.”

“At which point we decided we’d seen enough to confirm my theory,” Kasey finishes.

I don’t have to ask her what the theory is. With the information the ghosts have gathered, I’ve already worked it out for myself. A quick glance at Aiden tells me that he understands what this means just as well as I do.

Noah isn’t the only one who made his escape from Ralph.

Grant did, too.

~~~~

No wonder Ralph seemed so desperate. No wonder Grant wasn’t a part of today’s attempt to get Noah back. No wonder I haven’t seen or heard anything from Grant in ages, come to think of it.

In fact… after Noah moved out, when he called Grant to see if he'd help him get his stuff back - the call wouldn’t go through. We assumed that this was because Grant had blocked Noah's number, but - was it actually because Grant changed his number?

I slip my phone from my pocket and pull up Grant’s contact. I saved his number after that threatening phone call he made to me on Ralph’s behalf, right after Noah left. I wanted to be prepared if he called again.

I call his number, then put my phone on speaker.

There are three quick chiming sounds, instead of a ring.

I look up sharply at Aiden, then over at Kasey and Will. The calm, cool voice informing me that my call can’t be connected is further confirmation. Grant has no reason to block my number. This can only mean that he disconnected his, and got a new one.

I hang up my phone, to a deep silence in my apartment.

“Wow.” Kasey lets out a low whistle. “I wonder what the tipping point was, for Grant.”

“I can guess.” Aiden frowns deeply, still processing the news. “With Noosh out of the picture, Ralph needed a new person to take his frustration out on. Grant probably decided he didn’t have to take that shit. He definitely wouldn’t be as used to it - numb to it - as Noah was.”

“Grant must have moved out a while ago,” I put in, realizing as I speak. “Noah tried to call him before Ralph even dropped his stuff off at Raj’s house. Grant’s number was disconnected, so - he'd already left, by then.”

“Something tells me,” Aiden says slowly, “If Grant went to the trouble of changing his number… I bet he skipped town completely. Like - I think he’s probably gone, and not coming back.”

We all take a second to absorb that.

“Ralph did a hell of a job keeping this quiet,” Kasey murmurs. “We had no idea, for so long.”

“Is there a chance that Grant is in some kind of trouble, Aiden?” I ask.

“No. I would have heard it. Wherever he is, he's fine.”

Will narrows his eyes at Aiden, confused, and I abruptly remember that there’s still a lot we have to tell him.

Actually… there’s something I really need to tell Aiden.

“Kasey, Will - can you give us a second?”

Kasey reads my expression, and nods.

“Sure. Let’s reconvene tomorrow night, when you two are done with work? We need to get going on the battery.”

“Bet." I cast her a grateful look. "We’ll meet you at the Ghost Office.”

“Nice work, ghosts,” Aiden adds. “You two make a formidable intelligence-gathering team.”

Will smiles, pleased with the compliment. “Well, being invisible doesn’t hurt.”

“It wasn’t that,” Kasey argues, taking his hand. “It was our incredible stealth skills, obviously. Being invisible has nothing to do with it.”

“Of course,” Will chuckles. “Forgive my mista-”

They both disappear before he can finish his sentence.

Aiden turns to me, his eyes searching my face. I’m having trouble meeting his gaze, so I quickly turn and lead the way further into my apartment.

I cross to the kitchen, pulling my gloves out of my pocket as I go. I set them on the counter, next to the fragile, damaged plant. It already looks a little better, now that it's planted in fresh earth. New ground to work with.

Aiden leans his hip against the kitchen counter, looking at me, waiting.

I stand in front of him, trying to collect myself and figure out where to start. Aiden watches me for a moment, then takes my hand and tugs me to him. I stumble, but catch myself with a hand spread on his chest.

“Keane,” he says, bending to put his nose to mine, “Come on. Out with it.”

“Promise you won’t be mad?”

Aiden draws back to consider, taps a finger against his lip. “Mmm… no.”

I cringe, rubbing my temple anxiously. “Okay, just - you might be pissed off about this, but-”

Oh, god. Aiden looks so good right now, his chestnut hair escaping from his snapback, his sweet blue eyes filled with gentle concern. It’s making everything harder, actually. I can’t tell him and look at him, not at the same time.

I put my hands over my eyes, then blurt out: “So - Ralph dropped off my car, and I, um. Went outside to try and talk to him.”

I let the entire story out in one long rush. I don’t stop to breathe, and I keep my eyes covered the whole time. I’m afraid to look at Aiden, to see how he’s reacting.

I end up also telling him the whole thought process I went through about Ralph. I’m not trying to justify what I did, I just want him to understand my reasons.

“So - yeah, I know I probably shouldn’t have gone after Ralph like that. But I thought it would be good to at least acknowledge it when he tries to do something nice, even if he’s super terrible at it. And now we know that Grant is gone, which means that Ralph is all alone… that must be hard on him, right?”

I wait, but Aiden doesn’t say anything.

“Okay,” I groan, “Look, I know that you’re mad at me, but-”

I stop abruptly, having lowered my hands and gotten an eyeful of Aiden’s expression.

His head is tilted slightly to the side, a smile playing around his mouth. His eyes are warm with love, lingering on my face.

“Honestly, Jamie,” he says, around a soft laugh. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

I blink up at him, caught by surprise. “Wait, you’re not ready to kill me?”

“No.” Aiden traces his thumb over my cheek. “I don’t like you pulling a risky move like that, obviously, but… this is something I love about you, man. Your capacity to see so much in everyone.” He bends forward, presses a kiss onto my forehead. “If you weren’t that kind of person, we wouldn’t be together. I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

He kisses me again, this time on my mouth, holding my chin between his thumb and his curled fingers.

My limbs are all melty by the time he pulls back. My face burning, my heart racing.

“Oh.” I press my hands to my cheeks, willing them to take it down a notch. “Um. Okay. Cool.”

Aiden lets out a quiet laugh, then gathers both of my hands into his.

“Listen.” He speaks very slowly, taking time to choose each word. “I know that you’re concerned about Ralph, but I actually think that this will be good for him. Grant leaving, too - it means that Ralph has to take a look at himself, start trying to figure out why everyone is self-selecting out of his life. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these little attempts at being nice started happening around the same time that both Grant and Noah took off.”

I stare silently at Aiden, surprised again. He falls quiet for a minute, and I wait for him to go on.

“You know,” he continues eventually, “I went through the same kind of breaking point, where I realized I needed to look inward for answers. It’s easier to get better with help, yes, but that process needs to start in here.” He puts a hand to his own chest, over his heart. “So - for now, I think that the best thing you can do is leave Ralph alone, and I’m not just saying that. He needs to spend some time with himself, get a better grasp on who he is. This is going to force him to do it, and he would never do it, otherwise.”

I gaze up at Aiden, a whole sea of emotions swimming in my heart.

“Sweet. Thing.” I break into a giant smile, tap his nose with my finger. “Softy.”

He lets out a loud groan, then swats my hand away. “Stop, please.”

“Mmm… no,” I say, stealing his words from earlier, and he laughs, indignant. I cut him off with a kiss, dragging my fingernails through his increasingly thick beard. “Thank you for the good advice. And for not being mad at me.”

“I’m furious, actually,” he says, backing me up against the kitchen counter. “Can’t you tell?”

“Oh, no.” I lean further into him, slide my hands over his sides. “I’m sorry. How can I make it up to you?”

Aiden takes a handful of my hair, tugs my head back, and teases his lips down my throat. “I do have one idea, actually.”

I laugh, curling my arms around him. “Aren’t we going to explode my apartment?”

“No,” Aiden rumbles. I feel the vibration of his deep voice against my larynx. “I’m starting to get the hang of this. No jogging on the river required.”

His words make my breath hitch - or maybe it’s the way he’s biting the tender skin of my neck. Light and gentle, then a little harder.

“Yeah?” I say softly, into his ear. "Prove it."

Aiden pulls back to look at me, a spark catching in his blue eyes.

A few breathless, gasping minutes pass in the kitchen before we go stumbling backwards towards the couch, where Aiden shoves me down onto the cushions.

He’s right. Sometimes all a plant needs is simply the space to grow, and that’s what Ralph needs.

So tonight, I focus all my attention on my Companion Plant. My favorite plant to tend to, my favorite plant of them all.