"Okay, so we've got a open-faced cod smørrebrød for Thor, cornbread muffin for Sas, porridge on toast for Nigel, Patience and Issac— sure you don't want some maple syrup on that, Patience?"
"Nay, sir, t'would be an indulgence in gluttony."
"Fair enough—eggs on toast and fresh fruit for Alberta, Flower, Pete and Trevor, custard tart with whipped cream and fresh fruit for Nancy–"
"Bitchin'."
"Thank you, always nice to be appreciated—And to top it all off:–" Hetty's eyes widened eagerly as Sam set the plate down in front of her, "Champa's khichri with variations for the Victorian palate, also on toast since we can't use spoons."
"Oh my. You know kedgeree was very popular as a breakfast food among the elites when I was alive, but I was always too afraid to try it," Hetty marveled, peering down at the mixture of lentils and rice, topped with the (to her) more familiar eggs, flaked fish and sultanas.
"A gilded-age white lady too scared to try even the blandest version of Indian food, I'm shocked," Jay joked; Hetty chuckled and tucked in like she hadn't tasted something so good in—well, a century and a half.
"This all looks delicious, Jay," Sam said mournfully, looking over the spread as she nibbled on a cold poptart.
"Sorry babe, you know I would if I could. And for me–" he picked up the final piece of toast-and-toppings, "–Ghost Toast with bacon and eggs."
"Well, I suppose you can't die from a heart attack twice," Isaac quipped, lifting his porridge-on-a-shingle to study it appreciatively. Jay shot him a flat look.
"It was a spontaneous artery tear, Isaac, thank you."
Sam rolled her eyes good-naturedly, and then pulled out her phone as it started to trill an alarm. "Sorry, everyone, the press never sleeps," she sighed. "We're really slammed on local history pieces right now, so the editor wants me in the office every day this week."
"What's he so bothered about, you've got all the local history you could ever need right here," Alberta snorted. Sam bit her lip and put her phone away.
"I know this isn't super convenient, but would you guys, um, mind eating breakfast to go today? I need to help Jay with the dishes before I go."
"Seriously? We just got here," Nancy complained.
"I know, I'm sorry."
"Very well; everyone, we shall take our breakfast 'to go,'" Hetty announced, rising elegantly from her seat with her toast in hand. "Isaac, Thor, what would you say to a morning stroll around the grounds?"
"Change in schedule! Very exciting, Thor approves!"
While the rest of the ghosts filed out of the room, Sam began to pile the dishes in the sink; as soon as they were settled firmly in the metal basin, the food on top vanished, leaving the plates as sparkling as ever. "That really does look amazing," she added, eyeing her husband enviously as he ate his last bite of breakfast.
"Babe, I swear, being a ghost chef is like the best gig in the world," Jay answered, slightly muffled by the mouthful of bread-and-bacon. "I could make toast dry and these guys would give me five Michelin stars."
"I guess not having any food for several decades makes for really easy customers."
"No kidding." He checked the time on the microwave clock and whistled. "Speaking of, I'd better get over to the restaurant for the second breakfast rush. Y'know believe it or not, it's way easier to cook for the basement ghosts and the British than the others; all I've gotta do is help Freddy set up the world's biggest oatmeal bar every morning."
"Yeah, we're lucky he came back to work here once we explained the whole 'ghost' situation…"
"No kidding. Love you babe, have a great day at work." He gave her a peck on the cheek that, of course, she couldn't feel, and headed for the door, not seeing as her face turned anxious behind him. He was nearly about to walk through when Sam finally broke:
"Jay, wait." He turned back, surprised, to find her anxiously twisting her fingers together. "Um– can we talk about something? It's kind of important, that's actually why I sent the others away…"
"Uh– yeah, okay, sure." Jay sat down in the nearest pulled-out chair, and then frowned when she didn't do the same. "What's up?"
"Well I mean, nothing's up," she said with that little snort-giggle she gave whenever she was trying to brush something off. "It's not that big a deal."
"Ri-ight, which is why you needed to speak to me alone," he said with a teasing smile, and then furrowed his brow in mild bemusement when she didn't immediately reply. "C'mon, Sam, what's going on? You can tell me anything, you know that."
"It's nothing," she insisted, and then: "Just, um—you remember Kevin, right?"
His eyebrows rose. "Kevin Danburry, the guy who's delivered our water cooler bottles for the last twenty-five years? I know I'm dead, babe, but I'm not senile."
"Right, obviously," she said with another nervous laugh. Jay frowned, concerned.
"Sam? Is everything okay…?"
She sighed. "Okay, um, the thing is—Kevin also brings the water for us at the paper, and yesterday when I went into the office he was there. And he…asked me out," she said uneasily. Jay blinked.
"O-oh." He heard his voice break slightly with surprise and cleared his throat. "Really?"
"Yeah, I mean, he knows it's been a year since you died, and I guess he thought the timing was right."
"Right, sure, that…makes sense…"
"Yeah, I mean obviously I said no, I just thought it would be wrong not to tell you," Sam began to babble. "But I didn't know how to bring it up and–"
It wasn't fair, Jay reminded himself. It wasn't fair for his stomach to be suddenly filling with hot, bubbling anger; it wasn't fair to Kevin to want to punch him in his stupid handsome delivery-man face. He was dead; Kevin had no way of knowing Jay'd stuck around to haunt his widow. It wasn't fair to be mad at him for doing the perfectly normal thing of asking a beautiful, brilliant, badass single woman out on a date.
And it wasn't fair to Sam, either.
"I think you should do it," he interrupted. Sam blinked.
"You…do?"
"Yeah," he said with a nod, swallowing hard, and then cleared his throat again and added nonchalantly, "I mean, y'know, you're technically a widow, and I know you think he's cute–"
"Jay, I don't–"
"C'mon, Sam, you had a little crush on the guy even when I was alive." He gave her a smile, hoping it didn't look as forced as it felt. "Look, the way things are right now, you and I can't be…together, the way we used to, so…"
"Jay…"
"I think you should do it," he said, standing and putting his hands on her shoulders—or, well, hovering a bare milimeter above her shoulders. "Really, Sam. Go live your life; one of us should."
"Jay, I don't want to do anything that would hurt you," Sam said seriously.
"Are you kidding?" he said, with a faked laugh. "Sam, I'm dead, I don't really have a lot going for me right now. Your being happy is what makes me happy."
Sam peered up into his face, as if trying to search something out of him. "And this would make you happy," she said dubiously.
"Yes! Obviously. I mean what kind of terrible husband would I be to not want my wife to enjoy her life?"
"Jay–"
"You should go. I mean it," he insisted. Sam bit her lip, and then nodded.
"Yeah…okay. If– if this is really what you think is best."
"I do," he said, and smiled again, and tried to make himself believe it. "I really do."
At first, the most surprising thing to Jay about being dead was how little his life had changed. Aside from being able to walk through walls but not pick up objects, being a ghost hadn't affected his routine that much. The main constraint, being bound to the place of his death, had turned out to be a non-issue: he had lived in this house for twenty-five years; raised kids in this house; gone gray in this house. So while not being able to leave the property boundary was occasionally annoying, it didn't affect his day-to-day as much as he'd thought. He had never really liked dealing with the B&B's (frequently irritating) customers, preferring to leave that to his more level-headed wife, and being invisible to them was a net plus. And since his ghost power had turned out to be cooking food the other ghosts could actually eat, he hadn't so much as lost his job at the restaurant as become the personal chef for the most grateful customers he'd ever had.
But there had been one major drawback, and that was his new inability to touch things. Namely…well, namely Sam.
They had tried, of course, a few weeks after the funeral. It had been an extremely frustrating experience, to say the least. To say the most, it had been… depressing, every fumbling attempt at intimacy making even more apparent what they'd lost. In the end they'd just given up and gone to bed; Sam had brushed a feather-light kiss against where his cheek should have been but wasn't, and had said, with her painfully encouraging smile: "It's okay; we'll try again next time."
After that, Jay had lain awake for hours long after she'd fallen asleep, staring up at the ceiling and trying to ignore the ache in his chest. Given what he'd been told about "ghost sex," he'd been prepared for a less-than-satisfactory experience himself, but he'd hoped that at least for Sam… Well, either way, there hadn't been a "next time." Neither of them seemed to want to broach the topic again, and honestly, he was grateful. It was easier not to talk about it.
At least, it had been, until now.
"Alright, Hetty, the vampire lord has seen you inside the vault and is probably about to call for the guards," Jay announced to the table later that evening, privately relishing in the panic-stricken expressions of his players. Whether dead or alive, Dungeons and Dragons was always a reliable escape from the problems of reality. "What do you want to do?"
"Hm." The Victorian peered over the map, one finger raised pensively. "Considering the circumstances, I think …yes, I believe I would like to swing my club, let out a bellow of barbarian rage and attack the lord?" She glanced around the table, to affirmative nods; the DM rubbed his hands together.
"Alright, that sounds like the start of combat to me! Trevor, Sam, if you could go ahead and roll everyone's initiati–"
The doorbell rang, cutting him off and causing the other ghosts to look up. "Water delivery," Trevor recalled, reaching for the dice, and Jay felt a prickle run up his spine.
"Five-o-clock, right on time! That Kevin sure is a punctual fellow," said Peter. Sam glanced at him, an apology in her eyes.
"I'll, um, I'll go get it. If you're sure?"
"Yeah. No, sure," he answered, with one too many nonchalant nods. "I mean, I'm sure."
"I mean, if you want to come with–"
"No, no, psh, you go. Have fun," he added, and immediately wanted to kick himself.
"Um– right." Sam stood up and headed for the door. As he turned back to the table, Jay saw that everyone was either staring at him or trading baffled looks. For the first time, he longed for the old days when only three of the ghosts were willing to play with him, instead of the entire upstairs population (with Nigel and Nancy to boot). 'Have fun? ' Trevor mouthed to Sasappis, who shrugged.
Jay cleared his throat, forcing himself to look down at the map instead of towards the hall into the foyer. "Uh, so, Trevor, if you could just roll those dice we can get started–"
The creak of the front door opening had never seemed so loud; had the house always echoed this badly? "Hey, Kevin."
"Hi Sam. So that'll just be forty bucks, per usual."
"Shouldn't we wait until Kevin is gone?" Nigel pointed out with a frown. "Samantha is supposed to be home alone; the clattering of dice could draw suspicion."
"Right, yep, good– good point, Nigel, thanks–"
"Listen, Kevin, I um, I gave it some thought and—I actually would like to go out with you on Friday."
The table went dead silent as every ear strained to listen. Not for the first time in either his life or afterlife, Jay silently cursed the boredom and consequent gossipy nature of the B&B's most perpetual guests.
"Really? You're sure?"
"Yep, we– I mean, I– I think it's…for the best."
"Wow. Okay, um– that's great, Sam, I'm really looking forward to it. Pick you up at six?"
"Sounds great, Kevin, thanks."
The door closed. Sam's footsteps could be heard walking back. Jay wondered if ghosts possibly could sink through the floor, if they wanted it enough.
Sam reappeared in the doorway from the hall. "Um, so!" she said trying to hide her fluster as she sat down again. "Where were we?"
"We were poised to slay an unholy abomination," Patience answered, eyeing Sam suspiciously.
"Yeah, but now I think we've got something much more interesting to discuss," Alberta agreed.
"Uh, Sam? Wanna explain why you're 'going out' with Kevin on Friday?" Trevor said, with a raised eyebrow. As Sam flushed, Jay realized they should have known they wouldn't be able to keep this to themselves. Damn it. He was going to have to explain, wasn't he.
"Okay, guys," he began, "not that it's any of your business, but–"
And then Flower, of all people, cut him off, and cut to the chase. "That's easy," she told Trevor brightly. "He's their new third!" Pete snorted across from her.
"C'mon, Flower, he's obviously not their 'third.'"
There was a beat of silence, in which every eye swiveled to the couple at the head of the table. Sam opened her mouth as if about to say something, and then hesitated.
Alberta, naturally, was the one to fill the silence. "Oh, my god. Flower's right?"
"Well he's not– I mean–" Sam was stumbling over her words. "It's just one date."
"But you are planning to sleep with him, correct?"
"I don't know, Isaac, we haven't really discussed it."
"Well if no one else is going to say it, I will: this is a terrible idea," Hetty piped up. "Sanjay, really, speak up for yourself! Are you just going to let your wife go and cuckold you with another man?"
"Let her?" Alberta countered with a frown, turning to face the other woman. "Since when does Jay let Sam do anything?"
"It is a sin before God," said Patience sharply.
"Thor not understand why this is big deal; just because Jay cannot go to orgy does not mean Sam should not."
"I'm not going to an orgy, Thor," Sam interjected, bright pink in the face.
"Why not? Sounds like a great time to me; heyyy, maybe we should all have an orgy here! The basement's definitely big enough!"
"How the heck do you know that? –You know what, never mind; I don't want to know."
"Frankly I'm with Hetty, this feels like a stupid idea."
"Okay, but are you saying that because you really think that or because you wanna get laid tonight?"
"I can do things for multiple reasons, Sas."
"Okay!" Jay said loudly, standing up and planting his hands on the table. "Thank you everybody for your input, but Sam and I are perfectly capable of managing our sex life on our own." Sam's whole face had gone red and she wasn't meeting anyone's eyes, so he continued: "This is private business; if we want your opinion, which, I promise, we won't, we will come ask you directly. Alright? All good here?"
There was a beat of silence in which everyone looked around at each other, before it was broken by Nancy snickering to herself. "Heh. Private business."
The table broke up prettly quickly after that, with Jay wrapping up the game early and the ghosts hurrying off to their own evening pursuits—or, more accurately, away from them. "Well that was…awful," Sam sighed once the room was empty.
"Look, I get that the afterlife gets boring, okay, I sympathize now! But they have got to learn to mind their own business," Jay huffed.
"Totally," Sam agreed, and he snorted and shook his head. And then the silence descended. He tried to steal a glance sideways and found she'd done the same; both looked away quickly, Jay coughing, Sam fidgeting with a lock of hair. "Jay," she began again, darting another glance up at his face, "are you sure this is what you want? Because if you're not comfortable with this–"
"What? Sam, come on, I am totally comfortable with this!" He forced a laugh into the response, and thought it sounded pretty authentic. "I mean what kind of selfish jerk doesn't want their spouse to have a good sex life?"
"Oh– well, yeah, no, for sure," Sam said with shake of her head, clearing her throat as she looked back at the table. "And I-I guess that means that if there's a ghost in the house who you, you know, think is attractive–"
"Oh, uh– yeah, I guess." Even as he said it the idea seemed far-fetched. He'd always been a one-woman kind of guy, and for the last three decades that woman had been Sam. Besides, even if the other ghosts weren't nearly all in relationships of their own, the thought of dating any of them was just… no. Too weird to even think about.
"So, um, is there anyone?"
"What?" he said, still lost in the disturbing hypotheticals.
"You know," Sam said airily, "another ghost. Because I'm your cool wife, who's totally fine talking about you being with other people!" She tried to nudge him with her elbow, but it passed right through his arm.
"Uh– no, not– not yet."
"Oh," she said, with an awkwardly polite little nod, and then gave him a smile somehow both anxious and sympathetic. "Well– you know, give it time."
"Right, yeah. Time," he agreed with a nod. They stood there in silence for another moment, and then he coughed again. "Uh– well, we better get this cleaned up."
"Right! Yes, obviously. Can't have a messy dining room table at a B&B!"
"Yeah, I mean we don't have any customers right, now, but it's good to be in the habit–"
They cleared the table, chatting loudly all the while—or, more accurately, Sam did, while Jay showed her where to put his materials on the desk in the library. "So, um, bed I guess?" she said when they were done.
"Oh, uh– actually I thought maybe I'd just do some planning, for the next session. Down here," Jay added, unnecessarily.
"Oh. Right, of course. Um, do you need me to write anything down for you, or–?"
"Nope, no. You know me babe, this mind's a steel trap; got it all right here." He tapped the side of his head with what he hoped was an easy smile. Thankfully Sam seemed to buy it.
"Right. Well, um– goodnight then."
"Night." They hesitated, and then Sam gave him a kiss that neither of them could really feel and headed upstairs. Jay took a seat in the chair behind the desk, and then sat alone in the silence of the library for a long moment, staring sightlessly down at his notes and trying to convince himself that the nauseous feeling creeping up from his stomach was just the lingering effects of his heart attack.
—That was, until he heard the telltale rustle of taffeta skirts, clinking weaponry and leather moccasins just beyond the door. He rolled his eyes. "Guys, you can't spy on me like that anymore; I can hear you now, remember?"
There was a soft gasp of "oh dear" from Hetty and the sound of many feet scuttling away. He sighed. Damn nosy ghosts.
With several excuses and one well-timed genuine emergency (thank the universe for dramatic ghosts with centuries-old interpersonal drama), he was able to make sure he and Sam didn't go to bed together for the next several days; by the time he got in each night, she was either asleep or doing a very good job of faking it. If it was the latter, he didn't push it; he wasn't sure how to interact with her in the privacy of their own room anymore, without the other ghosts to buffer the awkwardness.
This shift to his sleep schedule might have affected another cook's performance, but Jay had been a professional chef for decades and knew how to leave personal matters at the kitchen door. If anything, work was the perfect distraction: there were in total about thirty ghosts on the property, and feeding them all was no small task even on an ordinary day, but now—for no particular reason, he was fine, this was all fine —he'd set himself the semi-impossible task of making each of them their favorite meal. He never felt more alive than when he was cooking, and between the search for substitutes to long-inaccessible ingredients, trying to work around the limits of ghost-object interaction (he had died with only a spatula tucked into his apron pocket and his santoku knife in hand, which made sauces and soups tricky), and shooing off the curious ghosts crowding his kitchen (they really couldn't seem to remember that he could see them now), he barely had time to talk to Sam all week.
Which was fine. They were fine. He and Sam were fine.
–And besides, it wasn't like he was getting much sleep at night anyway. Mostly he stared up at the ceiling for hours, trying not to think about anything that could lead back to the idea of Kevin and his wife walking hand-in-hand down main street together. Stupid Kevin, with his stupid hands that can hold things and touch things–
Jay huffed out a breath and rolled over on his side with his back to Sam, annoyed that the bed didn't creak when he moved, annoyed that the hot water bottle she made for him every night since he couldn't used the blankets had gone cold, annoyed that he couldn't wake her to ask her to heat it up again the way he usually would have done. Annoyed that he didn't want to think about why this was annoying him.
It wasn't like he had any right to be, he knew. He was dead, Sam was alive; to demand she abide by a promise she'd made before they even knew ghosts existed, let alone he became one, would be possessive, jealous—maybe even controlling. Anyway, it wasn't lke open marriages were unthinkable anymore. In fact, a few months before he'd died—when they'd still thought they had decades of life together ahead of them—he and Sam had visited their old friends in the city, deciding it was time to reforge some connections now that the last kid was out of the house. They'd known that they had grown apart from city friends during their decades away in Ulster County, but Jay hadn't realized just how much until, halfway through drinks at Katie and Carl's place downtown, Carl had checked his phone and stood up.
"Damn. Sorry, guys, I've gotta go or I'm gonna be late for my date with Shaelin," he'd announced, picking up his coat and giving Katie a kiss on the cheek as he'd headed out the door.
"That was funny," Sam had said with a giggle once the door closed; Katie had raised her eyebrows. "Well—just the way he phrased it, it sounded like he was going on a date- date."
"He is," Katie had said frankly. Sam had blinked, and Katie'd explained: "Recently Carl and I have been feeling…a little stifled, so we decided to open up our marriage."
"Wow, that's…big." Sam had sat down on the couch with her glass of rosé, peering at Katie. "What's that like?"
"It's actually really great?" Katie'd said with a nod and a shrug. "I mean we're still super committed to each other, obviously, but now we're able to pursue other people and be spontaneous too."
"Really?"
"Yeah, it's actually been a huge relief to not be completely responsible for each other's happiness. Honestly, I think people maybe weren't meant to be with just one partner their whole lives; who could live up to that kind of pressure?"
By the time they'd left Katie and Carl's apartment and begun the long drive back up to Ulster County, Jay hadn't been able to help feeling a little old-fashioned, out of touch. "Wow," he'd said as they crossed the bridge. "Open marriage, huh?"
"I know, right? I didn't realize they were into that kind of thing."
"It just sounds so complicated."
"Yeah. But I mean, I guess they've got it all figured out…" She'd trailed off and gone quiet, focusing on the road, and in that silence a tiny seed of anxiety had sprouted in his mind. He'd turned to look at her in the seat, a pinch in his brow.
"Sam– you're happy in our marriage, right? Like, you're satisfied with just me?"
"What?" she'd said in surprise, looking over at him. "Oh, god, Jay, of course!" He'd exhaled in relief, and she'd shaken her head, looking back at the road. "Look, Katie and Carl can do—whatever they want to do, but us? We're rock-solid."
"Yeah?" He'd grinned. "Well—good. I think so too."
"Yeah, obviously." And then she'd winked at him. "Besides, you know that I am very satisfied with our relationship."
They'd burst into mutual snickers at her (paradoxically adorable) bad attempt at flirtation, and the little seed had fallen dormant, submurged under the insulating snow of their life together at Woodstone. But three months later, watching at Sam's side as the paramedics had covered his own face with a sheet and rolled him out the door on the gurney, his anxiety had sent out little feelers again, and taken root.
Now it was in full bloom, and Jay was faced with the task of uprooting it alone. You are not going be some posssessive jerk who treats his wife like property, he told himself firmly as he closed his eyes. Sam's her own person, she can do what she wants. And apparently what she wanted to do was Kevin. Damn it. No, he was fine, he just needed some sleep… Been running on fumes for days…
But the images appeared behind his eyelids anyway, no matter how he tried to put them out of his head. He could picture himself, sitting at the library desk, looking over his plans for the next game. He'd hear the door open and force himself not to rush out into the hall, instead walking calmly to the door, seeing Sam in her dress, maybe her hair still mussed, maybe her face still flushed.
"Hey, you're back," he'd say, trying to be nonchalant. "How'd it go?"
"Oh, yeah, it went great. Thanks again, Jay, for being so understanding."
"Hey, well, that's me," he'd reply with a little laugh. "Your super-understanding husband, who is totally cool with all of this."
"Really? Jay, I'm so glad you feel that way," she'd say with sincerity, and then gesture to the open door behind her. "In fact he's so great that I brought him back with me!"
"What?"
"Oh you're going to love him, Jay, don't worry! Come on in, Kev!"
"Kev?" Jay repeated, and then looked past her to see Kevin Danburry, delivery man of his wife's dreams, walking through the door in all his fifty-five-but-looked-forty-glory. He winked at the offended husband.
"Hey, Jay, how's it going?"
"Kevin and I are just going to go up to our room," Sam said eagerly, looking up at the newcomer. "You don't mind, do you Jay?"
"Mind? Of course I mind, I– whoa, hang on, are those suitcases?" he demanded, suddenly noticing the luggage that had appeared in the doorway behind the happy couple.
"He's moving in!" Sam declared. "Isn't that great?"
"What? No, it's not great! This is my house, you're my wife!"
"Well," she chuckled, looking up at the chisel-jawed delivery man, "I mean I'm also his wife too, so…"
"What?"
"We got married!" She flashed the ring, and as the diamond caught the light and she and Kevin started to laugh together, alive in their happiness, the perpetual tightness in his chest grew sharper and stronger until he was grasping at his apron, his vision blurring, breaths cutting short as he tried to brace against the wall and then–
He surfaced with a gasp of air and sat up, breathing hard. It took him several moments of looking around in a panic to realize that he must have somehow drifted off in his exhaustion; Sam, thankfully, was still sleeping soundly next to him, her quiet snoring filling the room, chest rising and falling in rhythm under her soft pink pajamas.
It was just dream, man. Just a stupid nightmare. You've got to stop overthinking this. But even as he tried to calm himself down, the sharp pain in his chest pulsed like the worst heartburn of his life, refusing to subside back into its ever-present ache. In the desperate hope that stretching his legs would settle his nerves and help him get back to sleep, he ignored the phantom heart attack (it wasn't like it could kill him again, after all), got up and padded quietly across the room to the door.
The kitchen was empty when he got downstairs, but the light over the stovetop was still on, casting a dim gold glow over the table and giving him just enough light to see the trio of bottled waters on the opposite counter. Through trial-and-error, Jay had found that his power seemed to follow the same set of inconsistent nonsense-rules as the rest of ghost physics: he couldn't touch utensils, bowls or cups, but if the food typically came in a carton or can, he could create a copy of it, container and all, without spilling it all over the floor.
He grabbed one of the bottles (the spectral replica pulling away from the real object with a taffy-like tension for a moment before snapping free) and twisted off the cover, sitting down at the kitchen table in a dour mood. One year as a card-carrying member of the undead had given him a lot more sympathy for the ghosts than he'd ever had in life—and highlighted just how precarious their situation, now his situation, really was. He would have preferred a calming mug of chai to the lukewarm water, and it was technically possible; unlike ghosts themselves, ghost-food didn't phase through dishes, possibly operating on a similar principle to whatever stopped him from falling through floors.
But while he could pour the milk and water, grab the tea and spices by groping around through the door of the shut cupboard, and even heat it all up on the stove by sheer force of will (And why did the the pot had to be on the stove, even if the stove itself was off? Where was the logic in that?), he was powerless to transfer the tea into a mug, or even to get the mug out of the dishwasher. Those were tasks that Sam alone could do. He hadn't realized until he himself had come to rely on her, in so many little ways, just how much she really did for the other occupants of their house.
Their house. Well really, he reflected, it was Sam's house now. She could do whatever she wanted with it. The dead, it turned out, didn't have legal rights.
He was broken from his reverie by the sound of someone phasing through a wall and looked up. "Oh. Flower, it's just you," he sighed, trying not to sound as fatigued as he felt. "What're you doing up?"
"Hm? Oh, I couldn't sleep," she said with a untroubled shrug. "It's the full moon after all."
"Yep, sure, that tracks," he mumbled.
"Mm? What's that?"
"Nothing. You want me to make you anything? I can't do tea, but I probably figure something out."
"Oh no, I'm good, but thak you Jay." She smiled warmly at him. "You know, you're really sweet. I'm glad you died here."
Jay lifted the water bottle in a tired toast. "No problem, Flower." He watched her head for the wall into the living room, humming to herself, when an idea suddenly occurred to him, startling him back to wakefulness. "Wait, Flower," he said abruptly, and she paused, looking back. "Have you got a moment?"
"Huh? Oh yeah, of course!" She came back to the table and sat down opposite him. "What's up man?"
"Uh– okay, I don't really know how to ask this," he started uneasily, "but…you've got some experience with, like, seeing multiple people at the same time, right?"
"Oh I can see lots of people at the same time! Don't worry," she said with a wink, and then tapped the side of her pink spectacles. "These aren't actually prescription."
It took him a moment to work this out. "Wh– no, Flower; I meant like dating people."
"Ohh!" she realized. "Well yeah, sure! That's what free love is all about! Unlimited affection, openness to new people and new experiences…"
"But how does that work? Don't people ever get jealous?"
"Sure, sometimes," Flower replied with a shrug. "But jealousy is just a sign of an insecurity that needs to be worked through."
"Insecurity, right. Okay," he muttered to himself, taking a deep breath. "So how do you work through that?"
"Well in my experience, having multiple partners works best when you make sure that everyone is getting their needs met," she said cheerfully. "It's really all about balance and communication."
"Right, hah, balance. Totally. But like, just between us, you definitely had a favorite right?"Jay wheedled. "Like someone who meant more to you than the others?"
"Hm. Well some people prefer to have a hierarchy, but no I always tried to love all my partners equally," Flower reminisced, absent-mindedly lacing her fingers together.
"Oh. Cool. Cool, cool," he nodded, frowning. "And none of them were ever bothered by that…?"
"Mm? Oh, no! Polyamory is all about making sure everyone is happy and fulfilled! Which is why, until I decided I was fine being monogamous with Thor, I made sure that all of my partners were always comfortable with the egalitarian nature of our relationships."
"Right! Yes, exactly," Jay said fervently, and then frowned again as something occurred to him. "And, uh, what if they weren't comfortable with it?"
"Oh, well, then we just weren't compatible and broke up," Flower said with a shrug.
He felt like his stomach had dropped out of his incorporeal body and through the floor. "Oh. Right, yeah, makes– makes sense." He tried to rally: "Uh, let's get back to this 'hierarchy' thing. That was all like, just sex, right? Like for those people it was purely physical?"
"Mm, well sometimes yes, from what I saw," she replied with a pensive frown, as if trying to recall through the haze of time and being perpetually stoned. "But there are also people who have a primary partner but are very emotionally close to their secondary partners!"
"Oh," Jay said weakly. "Great. That's…just great."
Something in his tone must have finally broken and given him away, because Flower tilted her head, peering at him through her tinted glasses. "Aww, Jay," she said kindly as she figured it out. "Are you worried about Sam going on her date on Friday?"
He blew out a breath, cheeks puffing. "Okay, I swear I wasn't going to say anything, but– yeah, honestly, I kind of am. But I'm being crazy, right? Like this isn't a big deal!"
"Jay, you have nothing to worry about," Flower insisted. "Sam having an intimate connection with someone else doesn't mean she doesn't love you. It just means she has enough love in her heart for multiple people!"
"Right. Yeah." And what did that say about him, he wondered, that he didn't, and that he didn't want Sam to either. Possessive. Insecure. "Sam's– she's amazing, she's got such a big heart. Of course she's got enough room in it for me and…Kevin."
"Exactly! And you love Sam, so if someone else is making her happy, then that should make you happy too, right?"
And her smiling face radiated such expectant faith in him that Jay, feeling somehow worse than before, had no choice but to agree.
The conversation meandered into a discussion of basketball history for several minutes, before Flower apparently noticed the moonbeams shift outside the window, informed Jay that it was too good an opportunity to miss and invited him outside to "commune with nature." "Wow, what a tempting offer," he pretended to muse, standing up, "but I should really be getting back to bed."
"Oh no worries, man, you do you. Maybe next month!"
"Hah, sure, maybe." Not a chance. "But uh, you have fun Flower."
"And you have fun sleeping!" she replied, with apparent sincerity. Jay raised a hand to wave her off, and Flower stepped towards the wall for a moment before turning back and setting a hand on his shoulder. He blinked at her, surprised. "Just so you know, I think you should be proud of yourself," Flower said earnestly.
"I should?"
"Of course! Realizing you aren't able to provide for all of your partner's needs and freeing them to find fulfillment elsewhere is a big step!"
"Oh. Right, yeah. Thanks, Flower," he sighed. "I feel…really proud."
She gave him a smile and waved goodnight, and then wandered off through the wall, humming to herself. Jay watched her go, and then climbed the stairs back up to the bedroom alone. When he phased through the door into the dark and quiet, he found that Sam was still fast asleep.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, watching her for a long moment and debating with himself whether to wake her up, and then exhaled through his nose and lay down, clasping his hands over his aching chest as he stared up at the ceiling in utter exhaustion.
He didn't sleep a wink the rest of the night.
The day of the date arrived with gorgeous autumn weather, a high blue sky and sunshine that promised to turn pleasantly warm around midday and fade into a crisp chill by sunset. It was, Jay estimated, the perfect weather for a first date (unlike his and Sam's own first date, which had been on an overcast day in a chilly November).
If he'd thought the atmosphere around the D&D table three days ago had been awkward, it was nothing compared to the tension at the breakfast table. Instead of serving everyone at once the way he usually preferred, Jay plated the food for Sam to hand out as he cooked, keeping his back to the rest of the ghosts as they filed in and sat down. Sam, for her part, didn't even bother with her morning poptart, instead making to leave as soon as the last plate had been set on the table. "So, um, I'll stop by the store after work and grab some frozen pizzas to make you guys tonight," she announced as she picked up her purse.
"Frozen pizza? We got the world's best ghost-cook right here, why do we gotta eat frozen pizza?" Nancy scoffed.
"Not sure whether to feel flattered or used," Jay called dryly over his shoulder.
"With Nancy, is usually both," Thor rumbled back, to general agreement.
"I just thought Jay might want a break from cooking tonight," Sam said lightly, folding her jacket over her arm.
"Why?" Nancy snorted, and then, in what was probably supposed to be a respectful whisper to Trevor as she figured it out: "Oh, is it because he's depressed his wife is screwing another guy?"
"Frozen pizza sounds great, babe, thanks," Jay said loudly as half the table shushed the cholera ghost, making even more noise themselves. Sam winced and gave him a kiss on the cheek that felt to him like a brief gust of air.
"I'll try not to stay out to late," she promised.
"Stay out as late as you want, have a good time," he said breezily, repressing every stupid, unevolved instinct that was screaming at him to shut the hell up. He forced himself not to look at her expression either, focusing instead on scrambling the eggs for his toast; she'd been worrying about him all week, he knew, and making her feel guilty about the situation was the last thing he wanted. This is what's best for everyone. Don't make it harder than it has to be.
"Right. Um– love you?"
"Yep, love you too."
He thought he saw her hesitate a moment out of the corner of his eye before she left, but with his focus on the eggs he couldn't tell. "Well," he heard Hetty cough behind him as he spatula'd them onto a piece of phantom sourdough, "I, ah, notice it is a lovely day outside; who would like to accompany me on the veranda for breakfast?"
"Eh actually I'm pretty comfy in here–"
"You're going, Nancy. Sanjay, dear?" He glanced over, which was a mistake; Hetty was giving him a look both nervous and deeply sympathetic. "Would you like to join us? I'm sure the British can wait half an hour. –Only if you desire to, of course."
He realized she was giving him an out either way—to be distracted by his friends, or deal with the situation in private—and though he recognized the kindness of the gesture it only made him feel worse; of all the people in the world he'd want to be, not only pitied by, but empathized with, Hetty Woodstone was last on the list. "Nope, no, thanks Hetty, I'm good," he declared. "Gotta get over to the restaurant."
"Such devotion to duty; very well, as you wish. Everyone?" As Hetty half-shepherded, half-shooed the other ghosts out of the kitchen, he saw her briefly reach out as if to awkwardly pat his shoulder, and then, as if she'd thought better of it, retracted her hand and vanished into the hall.
The rest of the day passed in a haze; he threw himself first into setting up the oatmeal bar with Freddy (who did a remarkable job of noticing his invisible invisible coworker's mood and keeping to himself, despite not being able to hear, see or physically sense Jay's presence in any way), and then into checking off the rest of the ghosts on his list. Jenkins' preferred dish of colonial stuffed cabbage took so much time and focus that by the time the afternoon rolled around, Jay had almost forgotten about the date.
Almost.
"Alright, Pete, my man!" he called as he walked through the outside wall into the kitchen; Peter was reading a copy of the newspaper that Sam had left out on the table the night before, and jumped a little when his friend suddenly appeared in front of him. "You're up, buddy, hit me with it."
"Hit you with what?"
"Your favorite dish, man, come on!" he said with a little laugh, pretending not to notice how it sounded a bit off-kilter even to him. "What do you want, pizza bagels? Hot pockets?"
"Are you just listing foods from the '80's?"
"Anything you want," Jay vowed. "Say the word, Pete, I'll make it happen."
For some reason the other ghost hesitated. "Jay—are you feeling okay?"
"What? I'm doing great, Pete, I'm on a roll!" He pointed his spatula at the man and added, "And I just had to do some extremely weird things to a cabbage, so you'd better not turn me down."
Pete wavered a moment more and then gave in. "Aw, what the heck. Y'know what I'd really love is a plate of penne alla vodka; my mom used to make it all the time when I was a kid, but Carol didn't like the taste."
"Italian-American, classic," Jay agreed, already grabbing things ingredients of the cupboards on muscle-memory alone.
"You need any help, or–?"
"Pete I got this; just relax, read your paper," he waved absently, already dicing an onion.
"If you say so…" Pete sounded worried, but then again when wasn't he? Jay brushed it off. Soon enough the smell of onion, garlic and tomato paste was rising fragrantly from the pan as he stirred the bubbling sauce with his spatula. He couldn't be absolutely sure, but he thought it smelled right; better than alright, actually, since he'd only had vodka cream sauce once before and hadn't liked it, on…
On…his first date, with Sam.
The memories flooded back in as the scent wafted around him; the dying November sunlight through the restaurant windows, the candlelight on her hair, the way her voice had sounded when she'd laughed. Sam, tucking her hair behind her ear, smiling up at him through her lashes. She hadn't liked her food. He'd volunteered to switch with her; their cook had been terrible and totally botched her dinner, not that he'd mentioned it until after they left the restaurant, and that was how they'd gotten onto the subject of his fantasy of having his own restaurant someday. She'd been intrigued by his passion, and he'd been intrigued by her passion for journalism. She'd been the first person to ever listen to his dream as if she believed it were possible, and he'd silently vowed in that moment to support hers as well.
All oft it came back in a rush that billowed in front of his eyes and dissipated like a cloud of steam as he dragged the spatula through the sauce, leaving little red furrows that quickly filled themselves in and vanished. Their first date. His last first date, thirty whole years ago.
And now she was going on another one. With Kevin.
Unbidden and very much unwanted, his brain—mind? soul? who even knew anymore—conjured up images of how the night would go down. They'd be laughing over a glass of wine at the restaurant, the food not quite as good as what he used to make her, but acceptable for a first date. The waitress would come, asking if they wanted desert; Sam would, of course, but she wouldn't ask for it, not wanting to run up the tab, years of counting pennies as a small business owner subconsciously influencing the decision. Maybe he'd encourage her. Go on, get one. My treat. Or maybe he wouldn't. Check's fine. What do you say we get out of here?
Oh, um– and go where?
Back to my place. I mean, only if you want to.
Couldn't be their place, of course. Not with Jay here. Too awkward. So they'd walk out into the cool night and she'd say something like Wow beautiful weather, huh? and he'd make a polite joke and she'd laugh because she'd be able to see underneath it that he was nervous, I mean who wouldn't be nervous, she was a knockout, and she liked nervous nerdy guys who were trying their best. And he'd drive down the quiet streets of the town to some cute little cottage house or maybe a modern apartment, trendy, no ghosts no customers no spectral dead husbands, and she'd say Wow it's so quiet here, not like my place and he'd be confused since her place is supposed to be empty, it's the off-season right, and she'd laugh it off and give some strange little answer and change the conversation.
And there'd be more conversation, and more wine, and more laughing as the night wore on and they got comfortable and then he'd kiss her. And honestly, Jay couldn't blame the guy, because she'd be gorgeous, her cheeks flushed from the wine, the candlelight flashing in her eyes. And she'd be startled, and he'd say sorry I should have asked and she'd say no, it's– it's alright, it's just been a while. And then the scene would move to the bedroom, and here imagination mixed with memory. He knew how it would happen, he knew every move; if she was enjoying it, she'd say something in his ear, in that soft breathless voice that had always made Jay's whole face burn with pride. If she was really enjoying it, she'd make that expression, the one he had seen on her hundreds of times over the course of their decades together, the one she'd made the first time a little less than a year into their relationship when she'd blushingly told him afterwards that was the best I've ever–
The smell of something burning yanked him back to the present. "Aw, damn it!" He instinctively tried to pull the pan off the burner only for his hand to pass right through the handle, and then willed the heat lower instead. The sizzling quieted and then stopped, and he was left staring at the burnt mess, the sauce browned to a crisp at the edges.
"Everything okay?" Peter called from the table.
"…I overcooked it." His voice sounded wooden and far away, even to him; the ache in his chest was coming back, with a vengeance. He saw out of the corner of his eye as Peter stood up and walked over, and felt an irrational stab of anger that turned his voice into a snap: "It's ruined, Pete, there's no point."
"Come on, there's still some good bits in the middle in there!" Pete declared encouragingly, peering over the pan, and for some reason that was the last straw. "We can pour it over the pasta and–"
"You know what, fine, go ahead! Enjoy the results of my failure, someone may as well!" He yanked his apron off over his head, threw it down on the table as he stormed out through the nearest wall, let out a noise of frustration as it reappeared half a second later and sat down on the couch, dropping his head into his hands.
There was a beat of pause, and then the quiet, strange noise of someone phasing through the wall. "So…how're you doing there, buddy?" Pete's hesitant but unfailingly kind voice inquired from somewhere up above him, and Jay exhaled heavily; the pain in his chest was as bad as he'd ever felt it, he was barely breathing through it.
"My wife is gonna sleep with another guy tonight. So yeah, Pete, I'm not doing great."
"Oh." There was a rustle as Pete sat down next to him. "So you do care then."
"Yeah, man, of course I care," Jay sighed, looking up. "But what am I supposed to do?"
"Well that's easy," Pete replied with a frown. "Tell Sam you don't want her to go on the date."
"What? No, Pete, I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"Why not?" He let out a laugh as he stood up, without really knowing why. "Because! Because I– I love her, okay, and I'm not, I'm not going to be that selfish controlling guy who– who won't let his wife have sex with other people!"
Pete's frown deepened as he peered up at him. "Jay, it's not 'selfish' or 'controlling' to not be okay with your wife having an affair."
"What? No. That's not– this isn't an affair, we agreed, I told her to go for it–"
"But why–?"
"Oh come on, you know why!" Pete shut up, and Jay shut his eyes, and forced himself to unclench his hands, trying to calm down, trying not to start yelling at the poor guy when there was nobody less to blame for this situation than Peter Martino. "Look we tried, okay, and– and it didn't work." He sat back down, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't even know why we thought it could work," he mumbled. "We're on two totally different planes of existence."
"Yeah, long distance is a real pickle," Pete sighed.
"I just– I love Sam so much, she deserves to be fulfilled and happy, and right now I can't do that for her. Letting her be free to find that with someone else is the only thing I can do."
But Pete's frown had turned pensive as he appeared to run these last few sentences through his mind. "Jay," he said slowly, "don't take this the wrong way, but—have you been talking to Flower about this?" At Jay's surprised look he added, "Oh don't get me wrong, she's great! Speaking as an optimist myself, the woman's a ray of sunshine with a heart the size of the Hudson Valley! But her love life was also a mess for sixty years—and yes, as I say that I'm remembering that my marriage imploded, but that wasn't my fault," he recalled. "Point is, she's a bit insensitive when it comes to infidelity; she told me I should be grateful Carol cheated on me when I first found out."
"Wait, for real?" Jay asked, momentarily distracted from his own woes. "Jeez, that's messed up…but I don't know, man, she had some good points!" The troopmaster gave him a dubious look, but he insisted: "I'm dead, Pete; I can't give Sam everything she deserves in a relationship anymore! Maybe Flower's right, maybe– maybe it's better for her, for both of us, if she gets what I can't give her somewhere else." He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to convince himself even as he said it: "Maybe this is what she needs to be happy."
"Jay, you're my best friend, so I say this with love," Peter said earnestly, setting a hand on his, and then finished: "That is the biggest load of hooey I've ever heard."
Jay gave him a flat look. "'Hooey,' Pete? Really?"
"Look, I know that this situation is all kinds of crazy; believe me, I get it! But Sam loves you, and I know she'd never want to hurt you. So if seeing her with another man like that is going to hurt you, then you should tell her!"
"But what am I even supposed to say," he argued, "like 'Hey, Sam, I know we literally can't touch each other, but I'd really like you not to sleep with other people even if it means you don't have sex for the next twenty years?'"
"Well I think that'd be a good start, sure."
"Wh– come on," Jay said with an incredulous laugh. "I can't say that, I'd be the most selfish guy in the world! I can't make Sam miserable just because I'm insecure!"
"First off, you're not 'insecure,' you're in love with your wife! And second off, who said anything about being miserable? I was faithful to Carol for forty years after I died; obviously she didn't return the favor, but I wouldn't say I was miserable. You can live a happy life—well, in our case afterlife—without having sex."
"Okay, sure, but sex is typically a pretty important part of a relationship, Pete."
"Not more important than love and fidelity! If you were still alive and were sick in the hospital, would it be okay for Sam to cheat on you?"
"That's different, come on!"
"Is it? Plenty of living couples end up in situations not that different from this, and their marriage vows don't just go out the window, do they?"
"Yeah, except those vows are until death do us part!" Jay insisted, and then sighed and looked away. "...I'm not her husband anymore, okay?" he admitted, and his voice sounded so defeated that even Peter's face fell. "I'm just the dead guy she used to be married to." And wow, he hadn't thought it would hurt that much to say it out loud. His chest was so tight it felt like his heart was seizing up again.
"...Are you sure Sam thinks that?"
Jay looked up in surprise; his friend's face was as firm as he'd ever seen it. "She still wears her wedding ring, Jay," he insisted. "You have dinner together every night, you run the B&B together, you even still sleep in the same bed! Sure looks to me like she thinks you're still married."
"Yeah, okay, we do all that," he said hopelessly. "But there's some stuff we can't do. I can't ask her to stay faithful to me when I can't even touch her. She's a widow, Pete."
"Except she's not," Pete said softly. "Her husband is right here." He gestured to the spectral wedding ring on Jay's finger, and the latter's eyes widened as he glanced down at it. "This isn't normal widowhood, Jay, it's not even a normal haunting. Sam can see ghosts, and we both know the reason you haven't moved on is because of that. Sure, if you'd gotten sucked off it would be different, but you both agreed that you would stay here and wait for her." Jay looked up again, and Peter gave him a rueful smile. "It's not unfair to ask her to do the same for you."
They paused and looked over as they heard the front door open; the footsteps that came down the hall were Sam's, he'd recognize them anywhere, but instead of announcing her arrival as she usually did, he heard her duck briefly into the kitchen and then head up the stairs. Avoiding everyone, he realized. Avoiding me.
"I know you and Sam are in a tough situation right now," Pete said quietly behind him, and Jay turned back. "But I've watched you two have a wonderful marriage for the last twenty-five years, the kind of marriage I wish I'd had. Take it from someone who knows what infidelity does to a relationship, it's not worth the risk." He nodded towards the hall. "Go talk to your wife, Jay. Work things out."
And somehow with Pete's permission, it was as if a great weight had been lifted off him and let him breathe again; Jay staggered to his feet. "Yeah. You're right, Pete– I need to go and– thanks–" His mind was already five steps ahead of his feet, and he left the room with a head buzzing full of thoughts and sudden determination, barely hearing it as Pete called a slightly bemused "Always happy to help" behind him.
He hadn't meant to run, but by the time he reached the top of the stairs he was taking them two at a time. Their bedroom door was first on the right, still open, and he darted through it, making a beeline for the bathroom. "Sam, wait!"
She turned as he phased through the door, and he was suddenly struck dumb by the sight of her. Sam was her in old black-and-white pencil dress, standing half-turned towards the mirror, her arms up to fasten a simple necklace around the back of her neck; silver-shot golden curls tumbled around her face, framing the laugh lines on either side of her gray-blue eyes, now open wide in surprise.
"Jay?"
Selfish. Possessive. Insecure.
And suddenly, he realized—he didn't care. He didn't care if he was any of those things; Sam was his best friend and he wanted her to want him back, the same way he wanted her. He wanted her to know he loved her, just her, only her, and he wanted her to love him the same way.
He wanted to be enough for her. No matter their insane circumstances.
"Look I know, I know how selfish this is, but–" He squeezed his eyes shut and summoned his courage: "But I don't want you to go on that date! And I know I said I was okay with it and pushed you to go for it in the first place, but-"
"Oh thank god!"
His eyes flew open, startled. Sam's face had filled with relief. "Sam…?"
"Jay, I didn't want to go either!" she insisted. "I just thought it would make you happy!"
"Me?"
"Yes! Y-You were so miserable after we tried and it didn't work, you were obviously beating yourself up about it and I thought- I thought if this was what you needed to not feel so guilty about our situation then…" He was so stunned that he couldn't speak; Sam took the opportunity to step towards him, looking too nervous to fully close the distance: "Look, I-I know that the vows were 'until death do us part' and all that," she continued uncomfortably, "but the thing is, death didn't do us part! And I-I feel like those rules are to stop people from hurting each other, and we still can hurt each other, so–"
"Sam–"
"I don't want anyone else, Jay. I just want you." She sniffled and wiped her eyes. "And if I can't have all of you right now, then– then I'll wait until I can."
"But– Sam, that could be decades from now," he insisted. "Are you sure?"
"I agree, it's not a great situation," she sighed, and then rallied: "But it could be worse! I mean look at the ghosts, some of them have been waiting centuries to get sucked off. I think I can manage a few decades without– well." She half-shrugged sheepishly at the obvious pun, and despite himself he let out a small, choked laugh, his own eyes misting over.
"I love you so much," he said hoarsely and then stepped forward. Sam hugged him back; it wasn't perfect, but there was just enough tension, the slightest friction in the air, that they could stop themselves from phasing through each other.
"Love you too," she whispered, sniffling again, and suddenly the whole last week came into perspective; how had he not noticed she was just as unhappy with the idea as he was?
"Man, we really should have talked about this earlier, huh," he joked, and she gave a watery laugh and nodded.
"So," she said with a teary smile, pulling back to arm's length, "you're really not interested in any of the other ghosts?"
"Oh god, don't even joke about that," he groaned. She laughed again and stood on tiptoe, and when he kissed her it felt like kissing the wind.
The gray Honda Civic pulled up the long gravel driveway and around the fountain as the pair watched, parking in front of the main door. As Kevin Danburry got out Jay whistled and murmured under his breath, "Damn, I would kill for that jawline."
"Murder by a jealous husband? You know that's the kind of thing that gets you haunted, right?" Sam teased out of the corner of her mouth.
"Aha, you're funny," he said dryly, and she had to repress a chuckle as Kevin approached the steps.
"Hey," he said with a warm smile. "Wow, you look…amazing." Sam smiled despite herself. "Ready to get going?"
"Actually, Kevin, I was going to call," Sam admitted, "but you were on your way and I-I thought I should say this in person, so–"
His face had fallen, but to Jay's reluctant admiration, he didn't look too surprised, already nodding with an understanding expression. "We're not going out tonight, are we?"
"I'm really sorry," she insisted. "You're a great guy, and I'm sure you'll make some other woman really happy. But…the truth is, I'm still in love with my husband." Her eyes flickered just slightly towards Jay in that way he knew so well from the other side, and his mouth quirked upwards. "And I don't think that's ever going to change."
"Well, I'm…obviously disappointed, but I can respect that," Kevin said with a nod, and then a rueful smile. "Jay was a really lucky guy."
"I am," Jay said softly, unheard, and Sam smiled.
They waved off Kevin's car as it drove away, and then turned back inside. "So," he said as they headed towards the kitchen. "Frozen pizzas for dinner?"
"Mm. You know what I miss almost more than the sex?" Jay raised his eyebrows, and she chuckled, pushing the door open. "Your cooking! I can see you make all these amazing things for the ghosts, but I can't taste any of it!"
"Well, why don't I help you make something?"
"Really?" she said, amused, but he shrugged. C'mon, Jay, you know I'm a terrible cook."
"We'll start simple," he reassured her. "Homemade pizza, nothing fancy. And if it goes wrong we can just start over and try again."
She eyed him, but he could tell by the uptilt in the corner of her mouth that she'd already agreed. "Fine—but if this goes badly, you're explaining it to the ghosts."
Making the pizza, in fact, turned out to take longer than they'd expected, what with Sam's lack of experience and Jay's perfectionism, but by the end of it—the kitchen a mess, both of them laughing upon discovering that Sam's dress had ended up dusted with flour despite her wearing Jay's old apron—neither minded. "And that's it?" she said, looking over their work with pride as she pushed it inside the oven and closed the door.
"Yeah. Now we just wait."
"Ooh, the hardest part," she hummed. "What do you think, should we make a salad while it bakes?"
"Mm, I don't know," he said with false gravity. "Salads are pretty difficult, babe." She rolled her eyes fondly and got the head of cabbage out of the refrigerator. "Okay, cut it in half, and then cut little wedges to get the stem out there, then start chopping it really thin."
"Like this?"
"Eh, not quite. It's something you kinda need to get the feel for, here…"
He stepped in behind her and, with a moment's inspiration, matched his version of the knife to hers. The real blade and the ghostly copy seemed to want to stay in sync, like two magnets drawing to each other, and Sam was soon able to match her untrained cuts to his steady slices. Their hands seemed to meld and phase together as they fell into the same rhythm, and Sam let out a quiet hum of contentment.
Jay raised his eyebrows at the noise and failed to fully repress a smirk. "Okay, there is no way I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." Even from behind he saw the blush dust her cheeks. "What was that for?"
"Nothing," she said with a nonchalant shrug, and then, turning her head back and glancing up at him through her eyelashes with a coy smile: "Just that this is pretty romantic—taking cooking lessons from my ghost husband and all."
"Yeah? You wanna try pottery next?" he joked, and she laughed outright, setting down the knife and turning in his arms to face him. Their eyes met, across a bare foot of distance and an entire planar boundary.
"Start over and try again, huh?" Sam said softly.
"I guess, but…what if it doesn't work," he exhaled, glancing away. "What if it never works."
He looked back as she bit her lip, and then reached up and laced her fingers behind the back of his neck. The pressure of her hands was insubstantial enough to go unnoticed, but he appreciated the gesture all the same. "We'll figure this out," Sam promised. "And even if we don't, that's okay. We'll find a way to make it okay. Because…honestly, Jay, I'm the luckiest widow in the world." Her mouth quirked upwards: "I've still got you."
Jay found himself smiling ruefully back. "I've got you too, babe," he vowed, and leaned in.
They were an inch away from another ephemeral kiss when someone phased through the closed door, startling them both. "I smell pizza and it's not the frozen kind," Sasappis declared as the others tramped in around him, and then noticed Sam. "Hey, aren't you gonna be late for your date?"
"I called it off," she answered, and then looked back at Jay with a smile. He grinned back. "I've got everything I need right here."
There was a chorus of "awws" from around the room. "That's so sweet," Flower beamed.
"'Sappy' you mean," Nancy scoffed, crouching down to peer into the oven. "When's this bad boy done?"
"So just to confirm, no orgy?" Thor whispered loudly to Hetty, who just patted his shoulder.
The timer dinged, and Jay rolled his eyes good-naturedly as he and Sam separated. "And on that note, dinner's served everyone. Sam, could you–"
"I got it," she declared, grabbing an oven mit of the counter. "Can you get everyone's drinks?"
"Mead!" Thor roared, directly in Isaac's ear.
"Indoor voices, Thor—but to tell the truth, I think a pint of ale would pair nicely…"
"Ah, do we have any of that cola they used to make with cocaine? Also, and just hear me out, we could mix it back in."
"Hetty, once again, we do not have access to cocaine. Plus I don't even think it counts as food."
"Oh very well, Samantha; I suppose copious amounts of sugar will have to suffice..."
With the addition of alcohol (and in Hetty's case sugar), dinner soon turned into a small party; someone suggested they finish the D&D encounter, and Sam obligingly grabbed the materials from the library. As the rest of the ghosts debated attack strategies through mouthfuls of pizza, Jay sat back, crossing his arms over his chest and observing the bickering with a grin. The ache was still there, he noted—probably it always would be—but it quieter now, manageable. The evening was drifting on towards night, and as he caught sight of the falling sunset beyond the window, he had a brief image of what this must look like from the outside—Sam sitting at a table alone, smiling to herself, talking to no one.
"Jay?" her voice said, softly enough that the others couldn't hear, and he glanced over; of course, she'd noticed his distraction, and had tilted her head in mild concern as she watched him. "You okay?"
He looked around at the friendly, familiar chaos, and then back at his wife, and nodded. "Yeah," Jay agreed, taking her hand as best he could, watching their fingers intermingle. "Just…happy to be together.