Our Ghost Adventures

“No, that’s okay…Thank you for calling, sir…Maybe I can reschedule with you for sometime in the next few months?” I heard Zak on the phone with somebody when I woke up. “Alright, that would be great, thank you.” He put his phone down and sighed. I sat up and rested my hand on his back. He turned and looked at me briefly. “Go back to sleep, it’s early.”

“What was that about?” I asked sleepily.

“Our next lockdown just got canceled,” he replied with a sigh.

“At least we get to go home sooner,” I said, looking on the bright side.

“Yeah, there’s that,” he murmured as he turned around and pressed a kiss to my lips. “We’ve got some Christmas shopping to do.”

“Yeah, oh and there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you…”

“What’s that?”

“When Carlin and Daren fly out for the wedding…Can they stay with us? I would feel weird asking them to stay at a hotel—especially in the middle of freaking Las Vegas…”

“Sure, we stayed with them in Ireland. It’s only fair.”

“Thanks,” I smiled. “By the way…They wanted to fly out early, so that they can be here for Christmas…Is that okay?” I didn’t want to push any of this on him. But, they were basically my family. And, we spent time with his family all of the time…

“We live in the house I had before I met you, in my town, the way I see it, you’ve given up a lot already. Any time that they want to come in to town, they can. I’m not going to argue with that. I know that you and my mom aren’t the best of friends and you try for me,” he pressed a kiss to my forehead.

“You’re so sweet,” I smiled kissing his lips.

“How sweet?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. I rolled my eyes.

“Very sweet,” I replied. “Wait, what about Nick and Veronique? Where will they stay?”

“With Aaron, I guess...”

***

A few hours later, we were on our way back to Vegas. I was excited to be going back home rather than on the road. I still had a lot of planning to do. Ariel and I were in mine and Zak’s room, just as we had been on the way to Montana.

“What if you got married in the backyard, like you always talked about?”

“You mean like mine and Zak’s backyard? At the house?”

“Yeah, why not? We could do it up really pretty. We could fly Ellie and Molly out early and they could help. You wouldn’t have to do a thing.”

“It would be simple…” I said. “That could be nice—shit I still haven’t gotten a dress! Okay yeah, I’ve got too much other stuff to do. We’ve gotta find a cake and—”

“Calm down,” she rested her hand on my shoulder. Go talk to Zak about doing it at y’all’s house and I’ll call Ellie and Molly.”

“Okay,” I sighed and got up from the bed. Nick was driving, Aaron was napping on the couch, Billy and Jay were at the dining table with their laptops, and Zak was sitting in the passenger seat with his hat over his face. I suspected he may be trying to nap also, but, I came up and massaged his shoulders gently. “Hey honey,” I murmured.

“Hmm?” he asked, sitting up a little.

“How would you feel about having the wedding in the backyard?”

“Is that what you wanna do?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“That’s fine with me.” He reached up and ran his hand through my hair that was hanging down because I didn’t put it up.

“Why don’t you come back to our room to take a nap?” I offered. I knew that he was tired.

“I’m helping Nick with the map.”

“I can do that, you’re worn out. Come on.” He sighed and stood up from the chair. I walked to the back room to tell Ariel that Zak was coming back to nap. When Zak walked into the room, he flopped down onto the bed and sighed. “Sleep tight, sweetie,” I whispered and kissed his cheek.

“You take such good care of me.”

“I know,” I slipped out the door and sat down in the passenger seat.

“Do I take this exit up here?” Nick asked. I looked at the map quickly.

“No, it’s the next one.” We were quiet for a while. I started messing with the radio, trying to find a station with something decent. But, I was trying to keep it quiet so that I didn’t wake Aaron. I finally found a station that was playing Royals by Lorde.

“And we’ll never be royal, it don’t run in our blood, that kind of love just ain’t for us,” I sang along. By the time the song went off, Nick was looking over at me with a look that I couldn’t quiet describe. “What?” I asked.

“You and Zak…I swear,” he shook his head.

“What?”

“I’m just happy for both of you,” he smiled. “I thought Zak would never get married…There always seemed to be some problem between him and whoever.”

“I never thought that I could love anybody after Aidan…” I replied honestly.

“I never thought he would find someone to put up with him,” Nick laughed.

***

When we got back to Vegas, Ariel and I decided to go dress shopping. Zak offered to watch Lorelei and he even let me drive his Porsche! We decided to go to a little dress shop just off the strip. I didn’t even look at the name on the sign as we walked in. “I’m so excited!” Ariel exclaimed. I laughed softly as we went looking for a dress.

“Y’know, I’m thinkin’ it may be a little too late for this whole white dress thing,” I smiled. “I mean I kind of already had a kid with Zak…”

“You wore the white dress the first time.”

“Yeah, but it actually applied then.”

“Well, I’m sure that there are plenty of people that shouldn’t be wearing white to their wedding but do. So, as your maid of honor, I’m telling you to get a white dress.”

“Fine,” I began browsing different styles. Did I want a short, cutesy one? Or did I want a long traditional one?

“Adrina, you have to get this one!” Ariel exclaimed, walking towards me with the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. It was long, only slightly puffy, and the sleeves would only be over part of my arms—leaving all of my shoulders and neck exposed.

“What size is it?”

“A four, I think.”

“Ariel, that won’t fit. I wear at least a six.”

“Just try it on, please!” she begged. I let out a sigh and took it to the dressing room. To my biggest surprise, the dress slid on with ease. I walked out of the changing room to find Ariel with a glass of Champagne in her hand.

“Can you zip it up?” I asked. She nodded and pulled up the zipper, it fit perfectly still.

“Wow, it’s like that dress was made for you!” the store attended said. “Would you like a glass of Champagne?”

“No thank you,” I said.

“Wine maybe?”

“No, I can’t have alcohol,” I replied. “But now I need to find three more dresses, one for my maid of honor and two for my bride’s maids.”

“Okay, do you have any colors in mind?”

“Like a rosy red maybe?”

“I’ll go see what we have.”

I went and changed from my dress and came back out to where Ariel was standing.

“Why is it you can’t have alcohol?”

“Lorelei. I’m breast feeding, remember?”

“Ohh! I didn’t even think about that!”

***Zak’s POV***

I was downstairs in the living room with Aaron, Gracie, and Muffin. Lorelei was upstairs in her room asleep.

“Dude, do you ever get tired of the knowing that there’s constantly spirits watching you?” Aaron asked, referring to the heavy feeling in the air.

“Yeah, I—” Lorelei’s baby monitor sounded. I stood up and went up to check on her. The room was dark and when I turned on the light and I saw this odd, dark, figure disappear. Being as I wasn’t prepared to see it, I jumped. I hurried over to Lorelei’s crib and picked her up and took her back down stairs. Aaron looked at me with nothing but horror. “What?” I asked.

“Dude, while you were up there, I heard something on the baby monitor.”

“What did you hear?”

“There was this voice…It said, ‘die Zak’ so clearly…”

“What? You’re fucking with me, bro.”

“No, dude, I swear. That was what the damn thing said!” I knew he wasn’t just messing with me, he was far too freaked out for that to be the case.

“When I went up there and turned on the light, there was this figure standing there…”

“Nuh uh…”

“Yeah! Aaron, we can’t tell Adrina about this.”

“Dude…”

“I’m serious. We thought that dark figure was gone…It hasn’t bothered us in like months!”

“That’s not good, man.”