New Winslow S7E48
Roman loved his in-laws, he really did. And he’d been over their house in Boxborough since getting out of New Winslow, so it wasn’t like it would be a shock if he showed up with Celine and the kids this time. But Celine was dropping them all off for an overnight with the grandparents where they were going to a concert in the city. And there was so much paperwork to get done for the House of Pizza, so it really made the most sense for him to stay here.
And get as much of it done as humanly possible before she gets back.
The door to his guest room opened as he was typing a typo-filled report at the fastest speed imaginable, leaving out words all over the place. It wasn’t coherent, but he’d be able to fix it later. And if he couldn’t, then revising it was a problem for the future Roman who had already had an entire night alone with his wife for the first time in months.
As soon as Celine locked the door behind her, he closed his laptop, meeting her at the door as she lunged for him. Hands scrabbling for her jacket buttons, he kissed a line down her long throat, running his tongue over her pulse as she gasped, steering them both toward the bed. Not that they hadn’t had sex since he got cleared for it months back, but it was a lot harder to find time (and energy) while living in a small guest room with kids in and out all the time. An entire night to themselves, only getting up to eat, they’d been talking about this for weeks.
He tossed her jacket on the floor as she pulled off his shirt. For a second, Roman was conscious of the small surgery scars on his chest, but as Celine lowered him down to the mattress and gently kissed them, he couldn’t be embarrassed.
And that was when the hammering began upstairs.
“What the fuck?” Celine murmured into his chest.
The rhythm was rapid, frantic, agitated. And just off-kilter enough to drill distractingly into his ears, even as his hand remained firmly on her jean-clad ass. “Who cares?” Roman said, moving his hands to tug on her t-shirt.
They tossed their shirts off the bed and Roman flipped Celine onto her back, pinning her with her arms up over her head with one hand as he fiddled with the button of her jeans with the other. She laughed, deep in her throat, looking at him adoringly. He wanted something extra right now, just to spice things up and make tonight special. But everything was back at the house in their bedroom and the idea of keeping anything here made him nervous. She was down to her lingerie and he slid a hand between her legs, the warmth there making his longing burn even brighter.
“I call upon thee, feel my power and heed my command!”
A woman’s voice, tight and angry, came from somewhere nearby. Roman let his head drop to Celine’s shoulder, and he felt her body shake with laughter as her hand came down to stroke his spiky hair.
“I hate weekends here,” Roman muttered.
Now, her other hand was roaming down his body, and he tried to put his weird neighbors out of his mind for a little while. And it worked. At least until the scent of burning incense flooded the room and Celine shot up from under the covers to check for fire.
“It’s almost worth going home,” Roman said, from where he was propped up on the pillows.
Celine cracked the window, the summer heat not helping the scent dissipate as the room got warmer.
Roman eyed her body, half-wrapped in a towel as she stood in front of the window. The incense smell was starting to fade just a little, but now he could hear music coming from somewhere in the house, a strange piano sound that jangled unnervingly through him.
“That’s not coming from a radio,” Celine murmured as she pulled the sheer curtains closed.
“No, of course it isn’t?” Roman said with a defeated sigh. “God, this is almost as bad as at home, isn’t it?”
“If the Blippi theme starts playing, that’s the only way it’ll be worse,” Celine said.
He wasn’t about to argue with her, not when she let the towel drop and climbed back into bed with him. The piano continued to weave through the walls, and he reached for his phone on the bedside table, turning on some music to cover the eerie sound.
“Return, oh spirits, from whence you came! Please, be gone!”
The same voice was calling a few minutes later, apparently struggling to send some ghosts back to the afterlife. “Not our problem,” Celine said, her head on his stomach.
It was, but not in the way she meant. Still, this was their room, nothing was getting in, and with the deadbolt firmly in place, that included humans too. And neither of them were going to waste an evening all to themselves, even when the lights flickered and ominous footsteps made their way slowly down the hall.
A few hours later, Roman was staring up at the ceiling of the now dark room, his fingers tangled in Celine’s hair as she nestled on his chest. The piano music was back, coming from the walls and floor outside the room.
“Are you going to miss this when we go home?” he asked Celine.
“I won’t be able to get going without three hauntings going on at once,” she replied.
He laughed, running a hand down her back and trying not to show how much he missed home.
———–
————
