Tycho wouldn’t sleep in the bed with me and Aiden last night, eyeing us suspiciously when we patted the sheets to show her it was okay. But she doesn't seem unhappy here, with us.

There’s only been one incident since Ralph dropped her off. Namely, Luna mistaking her for a full-sized dog she could lay down on, as she likes to do. Aiden had to rescue Tycho from beneath Luna's grey fur, where she was scrambling helplessly to try and escape.

She’s spent most of her time waiting in obvious anxiety by the door for Ralph to come back. But by late morning she's finally ventured away from the door to start nosing around the kitchen. Eventually she settles down in a pool of sunlight near the kitchen window, watching me drowsily, like she might take a nap.

All of a sudden, her ears prick up. She leaps to her feet and stands at attention, listening. Before I can turn to follow her eye line, she scrambles off, rushing out of the kitchen to hit the living room.

I follow her out there just in time to see Ralph let himself into the house.

“There is a doorbell, you know,” I laugh, coming to a stop in front of him.

“Oh, yeah?” Ralph says distractedly, not listening. “Cool. Sounds good.”

He looks down at Tycho as she bounces at his feet, up on her hind paws, her front paws scrabbling at him. I’m trying to get a better look at his face, edging a little closer, my socks muffling my steps.

Ralph nods down at Tycho, affectionately scratching her ears as she pants with wild excitement. “Why’s she freaking out?”

“Because she missed you. Why are you freaking out?”

“What-?” Ralph lifts his face to me, offended. “I’m not.”

I raise my eyebrows, taking in his flushed cheeks, the feverish look in his eyes. “Okay…”

Ralph straightens to his full height, his usual razor-sharp glare. Folds his arms over his chest.

“Got something to say, Sharpshooter? I’m listening. Speak up.”

But he can’t shut down that look in his eyes. It’s a hazy heat shimmer, like around an oasis in the desert. Every breath he pulls in seems to make it light up, flicker brightly.

“Okay, Ralph, so that would be very scary,” I tell him, in the same voice I use to give Ellen feedback on her science exercises, “Except that the look in your eyes, and I can’t emphasize this enough-”

“I know, alright?” Ralph cuts in, running a hand over his face. “I can see it, I’ve got a goddamn mirror. The fuck do you want me to do? I’ve got no control over it, apparently.”

“Mkay, I didn’t say you had to do anything about it, I’m just saying it undercuts your overall, um.” I gesture to all of him. “Terrifying vibe.”

“Really?” Ralph looks faintly troubled by that information. “Shit. Better lose it before my meetings tonight.”

“Oh, my god,” I laugh, then nod at the kitchen, beckoning him further inside. “Come on, I just got done icing some brownies.”

Ralph follows after me, walking with a lighter, easier stride than I remember.

“So, what happened that made you like this?” I ask. "What is this, for that matter?"

“That’s my business,” Ralph says firmly. “Mind your own.”

But I think I read the real answer in his voice. I heard the trace of bewilderment.

He doesn’t know.

He goes right to the kitchen sink as I start cutting the brownies, turns the tap to its coldest setting. Lets the water run over his hands, then splashes some on his face.

All to no avail. The burning color in Ralph's cheeks hasn’t gone down at all when he straightens up and lifts his shoulder to dry his face on his sleeve.

“Zero effect,” I inform him.

He makes a face at me that suggests I’m too annoying to even speak to, but accepts the plate with the brownie when I offer it to him.

He sets the brownie down on the counter without looking at it, then leans back, his knee bouncing, his eyes distractedly roaming around. He drops one hand to scratch Tycho’s ears as she sits up on her hind legs again. She presses her face against his leg, her tail wagging harder than it has the whole time he was gone.

“So, what’s up?” I ask, wrapping up a brownie to bring to Aiden during his lunch break.

Ralph glances at me, gently threading Tycho's broken ear between his knuckles. “What?”

“Like - did you want to hang, or…? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I just came to get Tycho back. Thanks for watching her.”

"You - really?" I draw my head back sharply, my heart filling with warm surprise. “I thought you decided you didn’t want to keep her!”

Ralph arches an eyebrow at me, faintly puzzled. “What made you think that?”

“Because - you didn’t say you wanted to keep her, and then you dropped her off at our place?”

“I just needed you to watch her while I went to see Calla. You said you could, didn’t you?”

My baffled expression clears. Everything suddenly makes sense. Ralph was with Calla. That’s why he’s like this. That tracks.

I smile behind my mug of coffee as I lift it to my mouth. Ralph doesn’t see it, thankfully. I’m sure I’m already on thin ice.

“So you want to keep Tycho?” I ask happily, watching her nose her way around Ralph’s ankles. “Really?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Ralph shrugs his shoulders as Tycho stops to look up at him, her ears perked up, silvery-white head tilted to the side. “Figure why not. And Calla likes the idea, so…”

His eyes flash with that vivid heat-shimmer again when he says her name.

He looks - love drunk. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Ralph look like that before. Definitely never so clearly. Never shining out so brightly from his eyes.

“My head is spinning, man,” he says abruptly, pushing his blonde hair out of his eyes. “I don’t even know what to do.”

I furrow my eyebrows at him, taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” Ralph twists his fingers through his leather wristbands, his knee still bouncing. “Calla keeps - saying stuff, and um, stuff keeps happening to me, where I’m like - okay, so how the fuck am I supposed to process that? But - in a - good way?”

“Doesn’t sound like the worst problem to have,” I tell him, suppressing a smile.

Ralph lets out a baffled little laugh and rubs his elbow, eyebrows knotted in confusion.

“Yeah, man. Exactly. I’m not used to this shit, I’m…” He shrugs his shoulders helplessly, folding his arms over his chest again. “Trying to - recalibrate.”

I press my fingers over my smiling mouth.

“Well, I’m sure you can do it,” I answer, quickly taking another sip of my coffee. “You’re a fast learner, Ralph.”

He makes a face at me, then slips his phone out of his pocket and looks down at it, checking the time.

“Gotta go drop off some prerolls for Angie,” he says, straightening up. “Doing an in-kind trade for her to check up on Tycho. Make sure she’s okay.”

"The Warlord himself handles transactions on this scale, huh?” I murmur, half in disbelief. “That's wild, now that I think about it. Kinda seems like if the person you thought was the flight attendant was actually the CEO of the whole airline, personally bringing you your drink.”

Ralph shrugs, fixes me with a small, crooked smile. “Isn’t that the last place you’d go looking for the big boss? The last person you'd suspect?”

I stare at Ralph with wide eyes, wondering how many steps ahead he really sees. And he acts like my vision is special.

“And don’t ever go comparing me to a CEO ever again, alright? You’ve been warned.” Ralph straightens up from the counter, stretches his arms over his head. “Anyways, I gotta roll. Guess I’ll max out the AC in the car, see if that’ll…”

He gestures to his still-burning cheeks. I drop my head to hide my expression, start wrapping up another brownie.

“Since you’re going, can you take this brownie to Angie for m- what the fuck?”

I gasp and take a staggering step backwards, crashing loudly into the kitchen cabinets. The feeling that just took over my body is probably something akin to what I’d feel if I turned around in the woods and saw an angry grizzly charging straight for me.

The dark, terrifying expression instantly drops from Ralph’s face. His eyes widen with alarm, startled and staring at me.

“Jesus Christ, Keane! I was just trying to get my business face back!”

“You - you did it,” I stammer, pressing a hand over my chest. A displaced box of tea bags falls from the edge of the shelf I crashed into, bounces gently off of my shoulder, and lands by my feet. “That - that was good. Scary again.”

“Shit, Jamie!” Ralph crosses to me, his eyes full of concern. “You’ve seen me make that face before!”

“Yes, but not directed at me, not for a while!” I blush in embarrassment as I swing down to scoop up the box of teabags, which I then somehow manage to drop again on the way up. “My fucking life just flashed before my eyes!”

“Alright, alright,” Ralph laughs, then surprises the hell out of me by hooking an arm around my shoulders, reassuringly messing up my hair, and letting me go again. “You’re fucking fine, man. Relax.”

I calm down pretty much instantly, startled into silence. Then I stare at Ralph with wide eyes and arched eyebrows, trying to think if he’s ever done anything like that with me before, but - no, he definitely hasn’t.

“You’re in a good mood today, aren’t you?” I push my fingers into the pockets of my jeans, cracking a grin at him. “You want to tell me about your date with Calla, dude?”

Ralph’s opinion of that idea is very clear in the face he makes at me. “Yeah, think I’ll pass.”

I make a pouty face at him. “Come on, you need to tell me everything!”

Ralph laughs at me, shaking his head.

“I don’t need to do shit, man. And I - I gotta like, think first... find a way to even take in everything that, um...”

He stops, some warm memory moving through his eyes. Then he cuffs my shoulder, scoops up the two wrapped brownies, and heads for the door, Tycho trotting at his feet.

“Later. Thanks for the brownie. And the dog.”

“You’re welcome.” I smile warmly at him, leaning my hip against the counter. “Go take that good mood for a ride.”

Ralph glances at me over his shoulder, breathes out another soft, faintly confused laugh before he slips out of the kitchen. I catch sight of Tycho’s little white tail wagging as she follows after him.

Yeah, I'm pretty certain that Ralph doesn’t realize he’s love drunk. He seems beyond confused about it, and if he knew what it was, he would know that the AC in his car isn’t going to help him.

I know that from personal experience. I’ve been love drunk nonstop for like an entire month, at this point.

The fire in my heart has been burning so fierce and wild, with Aiden. After what we went through, seeing each other in the past, the talks we had, that breathless moment in my car at the beach… I've felt him so close to me, every second. Regardless of whether or not he’s by my side.

It feels so good, to have your heart blaze as bright as this.

I’m happy to see Ralph getting a taste of it, too.

~~~~

“I’m tired,” Aiden murmurs, resting his head on my shoulder.

"Mmm." I close my eyes and stretch my feet out towards the fireplace. Taking a deep breath of him, of vetiver. “I am, too.”

“I want to take your clothes off, but I can barely make myself move," he complains. "Goddamnit."

“I think we might have thoroughly worn each other out, Callahan. Not tonight, I mean, all we did was make out a little - just - lately-”

“I know.” The deep rumble of Aiden's voice vibrates through my chest, through the whole couch. “We went on an unintentional marathon again, didn’t we?”

“We did,” I laugh, burning color rising in my cheeks.

Aiden stretches out his muscled body, his legs loosely apart. The red glow of the fireplace climbs up his jeans, dances on his bronze skin, catches in the fathomless blue of his eyes.

“God,” I mutter. “I want to take your clothes off, too. It’s like I literally can’t make myself do it.”

Aiden huffs out a tired laugh, the fire flickering in his eyes. “Think our bodies might be insisting we take a break.”

“Mmm, that’s okay.” I snuggle up to him, resting my head on his chest. “I love this part just as much.”

Aiden winds his arm around me, presses an affectionate kiss onto my temple. We cuddle up close together, toasty warm in the soft firelight.

“Night off,” Aiden says happily, after a moment. "No work, nothing we need to do."

I smile warmly, tucking my head beneath his chin. “Delivery food? Carne asada tacos, elotes, the works?”

“Oh, yes,” Aiden sighs with obvious delight, reaching for his phone. “Want to watch a horror movie, or something?”

“Oh, yes,” I answer, my happy voice a perfect echo of his.

He ruffles my hair as he stands up. “Pick one, Keane.”

I start scrolling through the options while Aiden heads into the kitchen to call in our order, but my phone starts buzzing before I get too far. I pick it up, smile when I see who's calling.

“Floyd, hey! Thanks for calling me back. I was just gonna tell you that our friend wants to keep Tycho.”

“Oh, that’s absolutely dynamite, thank you, Jamie!” I can practically hear Floyd beaming through the phone. “Listen, though - I think I’d better come see you tomorrow regardless. I’ve found some information that you and the ghosts will want to hear about our case!”

I freeze in surprise, then drop the remote onto the couch. “You got info on the case, Floyd?”

“Yes! I’ll confess I haven’t slept in, oh - let me think…”

“Floyd!” I sputter, then put my phone on speaker as Aiden leans back into the room, arching his eyebrow. “If you have to think about it, that's too long! Go to sleep!”

“Yes, absolutely! But tomorrow-?”

“Yeah, come by, just don’t sleep deprive yourself over the case-”

“Ah, sometimes sleep is the price one has to pay for glory!” Floyd answers emphatically, then pauses. “God, I am tired. Did I just say something strange?”

“You said something very sleep-deprived,” Aiden puts in, suppressing a laugh. “But no, that’s far from the strangest thing we’ve heard you say.”

“I’m sorry, boys, my synapses might be slightly fried from so much nonstop research. But my dopamine receptors are working just fine, I assure you! They most certainly registered the find I made!”

He lets out a delighted cackle. A laugh we only hear from Floyd when he’s made a discovery, unraveled part of a mystery.

Aiden and I exchange a wide grin. I get up and go over to him, lean my shoulder against the firm warmth of his chest.

“Alright, Floyd, come by tomorrow. This is perfect timing, actually! We think we might be able to take one of the ghosts out of town soon, so they can help us when we go to Port Sitka for the investigation.”

“Wonderful, wonderful!” Floyd says, his voice heavy with exhaustion but bubbling with excitement. “Can they see things we can’t?”

“Actually, Jamie can see the most out of everyone,” Aiden rumbles, bending to speak into my phone. “We can supercharge his Vision.”

“Oh! Have you used that before? Did Jamie find anything at the collapsed farmhouse?”

Aiden and I stop, staring at my phone, then look at each other. We used my supercharged Vision by accident at the abandoned convenience store, where we saw the ghost of a moment. A memory of Rose and Leyla.

I don't think it even occurred to us to go back and use my supercharged Vision at the farmhouse.

“Floyd, you’re a genius,” Aiden says.

There’s no answer from Floyd, but a few seconds later, a quiet, peaceful snore.