I gasped. “Is your father…” I couldn't convince myself to finish the sentence.

  “Dead?” Liam asked, finishing it for me. “Apparently, but I don’t know for sure. He left my mom when I was little, and I haven’t seen him since.” He gestured toward the corner. “Haven’t heard from him until I guess now.”

  I turned back to the man in the corner. He now had a slight smirk on his face, so I felt I knew the answer before I even asked, but I still did. “Are you his father?” The man nodded quickly. “He is,” I let Liam know.

  “I know,” Liam said. “But frankly, that weirds me out a lot less than the fact that I can hear him.” He looked at me, his eyes searching for answers that I didn’t think I’d be able to give him. “Is this a thing that happens? Can you grow into your powers?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “I was born with mine, but I haven’t found a lot of other people who are able to experience the same thing, so I’m not sure if this is standard or not.”

  Liam looked at me, his eyes hardening with resolve as he worked through his thoughts. “Well,” he said, pulling out his phone, “there is one person who might be able to give us an answer, but I’m not sure if she made it home yet.” He clicked and button and pulled the phone up to his ear regardless. After a moment, he took a step toward me and reached out for my hand, and I happily took it. Well, I thought, at least my aversion to him was one less thing we’d have to work out - who would have guessed that someone else’s trauma would have dampened my own? “Hey Circe,” he quietly said. “Are you home yet? Good. Yeah. Listen, I’m really sorry about this, but I think we have a situation over here. No, no, not with Andi, she’s doing fine. It’s….it’s me. It’s hard to explain.” He listened for a few moments while Circe talked to him on the phone, then nodded. “Right, I can get that set up. 20 minutes? Okay, great, talk to you then.” He hung up the phone and let out a big sigh.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  His eyes finally met mine again, and I could see the confusion royaling in them. “Zoom meeting to set up. Circe wants all of us there. I’ll set it up if you could grab the others.”

  I nodded. More than anything, I thought Liam needed a moment alone, and I was more than happy to give it to him. If I had found out I could speak to ghosts at this age, I would probably be the same way. “I’ll be right here if you need me, just shoot me a text.”

  He nodded, and I turned to go find Caitlin and Liam. “Oh, and Andi,” he said, grabbing my hand quickly as I took my first step. I turned back toward him, and he used my hand to pull me back to him. With his other hand, he ran his fingers through the hair at the nape of my neck, angling my face toward him as our lips met. It was short but full of need, like he was trying to pack weeks' worth of emotion into a single kiss. Then he broke away, both of his hands falling from me. “Thank you for being here for this, and sorry for being a little selfish,” he said with a half smile. “I know you’re probably still uneasy around me, but it means a lot that you’re here anyway.”

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  I grabbed his hand and squeezed it slightly. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be. And let’s circle back to that,” I said, gesturing between us, “once we’re done with this meeting. A large smile started to spread across his face as he turned to leave.

  ***

  20 minutes later, we were all sitting in the living room, turned to face the TV as Liam set up the meeting to cast to the screen. Circe’s face blinked into focus. “Alright, we can see you now,” Liam said, loud enough that it could be picked up in the microphone on his laptop. “If you want to say something,” he continued, looking toward us, “you’re going to have to say it loud. The mic on this thing sucks.”

  “And you call yourself a YouTuber,” Luke joked, shaking his head.

  “I call myself someone who’s not changing my editing mic setup for a Zoom meeting,” Liam answered, sitting back in his chair as Circe waved at us.

  “Hi all!” she said, her voice high-pitched and performative enough that I wondered if she was recording this on her end. I’d done some digging on her since the first time we’d met, and while she didn’t tend to do video of her own very often, she did have some clips on YouTube advertising her services. The most recent of them was several months old, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she was using this as a way to advertise, which, frankly, she probably deserved. I assumed Luke and Liam were giving her some sort of payment for her help, but whatever it was, it probably wasn’t enough. “I missed you all already!” She blew a kiss to the camera, and Caitlin beamed. Luke rolled his eyes, but smiled.

  “You missed us so much in a couple of hours that you had to set up a meeting right away?” Luke asked. “You might as well pack up your stuff and move into our spare room if that’s the case.”

  “There are far too many people living in that house for me to come in,” she said. “Besides, Liam was the one who wanted to call this meeting.”

  Caitlin and Luke turned to look at Liam, then switched to me when I didn’t react. Luke cocked one eyebrow in question, but otherwise they remained silent. I turned to look at Liam, and his eyes met mine. I nodded slightly at him - it was his story to tell, not mine. Liam took a deep breath and then turned his head to look at the others. “Apparently, I can hear ghosts now, too.”

  “You’re hearing voices?” Caitlin asked.

  “You hearing things is going to make our ghost hunts a lot more complicated,” Luke added. “I don’t think our audience would like seeing you just over in the corner talking to yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t be talking to myself, dick,” Liam said, his words sounding a lot more harsh than his tone.

  “He’s telling the truth,” I added, and all of their eyes turned toward me. “We were watching videos, and a ghost walked into the room, and Liam was able to hear what he said.”

  “And it was my dad, which adds a whole new level to how fucked up it was,” Liam said with a shrug.

  “Your dad?” Luke asked, his eyes bulging slightly. “But how can that - “

  “I asked the same questions you did,” Liam cut off, “but that’s why we’re here. Circe, do you know if someone can develop the power to talk to ghosts later in their life?”

  Circe tapped her long fingernails on the desk in front of her. “I’m not sure, but I’ll look into it.” She sighed. “You couldn’t have developed ghost powers while I was still in town?”

  “I’ll try to request that any other power manifestations be on your schedule.”

  “Fine.” Circe grabbed the mouse and clicked a few times. “It looks like the next flight back is in a couple of hours, and since I snagged Caitlin’s card info to comp my last trip…”

  “Hey!” complained Caitlin.

  “...then this one is on you, too.”

  “Whatever, we’ll take it out of the budget,” Luke said. “Let’s just get this figured out so we can get back to normal. I swear, this better not be another demon.”

  “I don’t think it is,” Circe said. “But I guess there’s one way to find out."