Our Ghost Adventures

I spent about an hour telling Zak about by past. About my husband, my daughter, and how I’d lost them, how they died in a car accident and I was there to hear his last words. My daughter, Caelyn, died on impact but Aidan made it to the hospital where I was working. His proclamation of love did throw me back. His mother had told me that I had to tell him about my past and everything and it worried me about how she knew. I got the sense that she didn’t really like me too much. I didn’t know what it was, but she seemed intimidating.

“I just can’t figure out how she knew about this…I mean I told Stephanie that I lost them, but I didn’t go into detail…” I said. I was sitting on Zak’s lap (oddly comfortably) with his arms around my waist. I couldn’t believe how safe I was feeling and he was so warm. He tightened his arms around me before resting his chin on my shoulder.

“Baby, I don’t want you to feel scared or intimidated about how she knows this stuff. That’s just what my mother does. She finds info on people and nobody even knows how she does it. She was even worse when Steph met Oliver. She found everything down to when he got a detention in the 6th
grade-they met in college mind you-She’s just…over protective.”

“Is she trying to split us up? I mean does she hate me?” I didn’t know why I cared so much, Aidan’s parents loved me. But if I would go for long-term with Zak, I wanted her to like me.

“Not at all,” he said with confidence. “She just wants what’s best for me, and that’s it. She wants you to be honest with me to protect me. That’s just how she is.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you myself,” I said, realizing that I should have. I shouldn’t have allowed us to date for months without him knowing my past.

“Don’t be,” he kissed my shoulder lovingly. “And guess what?” he asked.

“What?” I asked.

“I still love you.”

“You do?”

“Mm hmm.”

“I love you too,” it felt great to say it. I just didn’t know if my words still measured up to his. When he said it, his voice was loving and it was so obvious that he meant that he loved me. “So what happens now?” I asked.

“I don’t know…” he said.

“I mean with the party, not with us,” I clarified.

“Well, if you still want to go home, we can. I can give you your present early,” he suggested.

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to leave early because of me, Zak. This is your mom’s Christmas Eve party. I can’t ask that of you.”

“And I can’t ask you to stay because of what she’s done. So, c’mon,” I couldn’t really argue. I still kind of felt bad, if it weren’t for me, he would be staying at the party and maybe even have some fun. But thanks to me, we had to leave.

“Alright.” He smiled and took my hand before leading me through the house and towards the front door. We almost slipped away, but had to stop when we heard a familiar voice.

“You’re leavin’ already, bro,” Aaron said.

“Yeah man,” Zak said, offering no explanation.

“I’ve never seen ya leave one of Elise’s parties early. What gives?”

“She said some things to Adri and we kind of just want to head back to my house.”

“What did she say?” Aaron asked me, his brows knitted together.

“I’ll explain later, okay? I don’t really want to do this right here. How about when we get back on the road again?”

“Alright, sis,” he decided, pulling me into a hug. I smiled. He was a lot like the older brother I never had. The GAC was a family like that. We all kept each other safe and looked out for one another, it was nice, since I didn’t really have any family except for Carlin and Daren. “Bye, man,” he said to Zak, as they did their ‘manly’ hug thing. I never understood why guys did the handshake and then went in for the hug…

***

“I’m going to go shower,” I announced when we walked into Zak’s house.

“Maybe I should go with you, make sure you can get in there okay,” he said.

“Mm, I’m sure that’s why you want to come to the shower with me.”

“It is, I’m completely innocent. I would never, ever have other motives.”

“Mm hm, I’m sure that’s all it is,” I grinned. “But, no I can shower on my own.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, looking at me seriously.

“I am,” I laughed. “Actually, I do need you to unzip this damn dress though,” I did have him zip it before we left, this wasn’t an excuse to have him help me, it really was at an odd angle. But, the way he grinned, made me roll my eyes. I knew that he wouldn’t be completely innocent about it, but maybe I didn’t care. Maybe I wanted him to be the flirt that he was.

As he unzipped the zipper, his finger ran down my spine in a seductive fashion. “I hate wearing dresses,” I complained, trying to hide the affects of his gentle touch.

“Do you?” his face was close to me, his lips close to my ear as he asked. He pressed a kiss to my neck.

“Yes,” I replied. “Thank you,” I said, walking towards the guest room, holding up the front of my dress with my hand so that it didn’t fall down. I turned around to see the look on his face; it was one of slight shock, and confusion. I grinned over my shoulder and kept walking.
Before I could make it to my room, I heard the distinct jingle of dog tags before I noticed a flash of white fur at my side. I bent down and patted Gracie’s head before continuing on my way.

***

I didn’t come out of my room until about a half an hour later. It took a while to wash off the make up and to get the hairspray out of my hair. Zak wasn’t anywhere upstairs, I had even opened his door to his immaculate room and his bathroom was open. I went downstairs and I didn’t hear the TV and I didn’t see him in the kitchen, so I assumed that he was in his office. My suspicions were confirmed when I heard the hum of music as I got closer to his office. I assumed that Gracie was in there because I hadn’t seen her anywhere else in the house. She frequently stayed close to Zak and whenever he was in his office, so was she.

Rather than knocking, I simply opened the door. It wasn’t like he would’ve heard me anyway. His back was to me when I opened the door and he was ferociously typing on his laptop keyboard. Gracie was lying by his feet and her ears shot up when I opened the door. I put my finger to her lips and crept up behind him.

“Hi Adri,” he murmured.

“Dammit, how’d you know I was here?” I asked.

“I saw your refection in the computer screen.”

“Well, what’re you doing?” I asked, leaning my head on his shoulder and running my hands down his chest.

“Working,” he said.

“On Christmas Eve?” I asked.

“Well, our first lockdown is going to be January 12th,” he replied, looking back to his screen.

“That soon?”

“Yeah, we’ve gotta start early for next season…We’ve got a very spread our schedule this time around. Last time y’know we were one right after another. But now, we’ll have a while between each one…”

“Oh.”

“Mm, and I got an email from Travel, we need to go to a meeting there on the third, which means that we need to fly out to New York soon. They do want to renew your contract. And the rest of us are signing one too.”

“Good, I’m excited to keep working with all of you.”

“Yeah, and Billy will be in all season this time. Oh, and guess what they got us?”

“What?” he clicked on another tab of his computer and pulled up his email.

“Is that an RV?” I asked, leaning closer to the computer. He nodded.
There was a huge black RV that looked very spacious and it would be nice for traveling.

“It’s got two bedrooms, and a pull out couch. Only one bathroom…but it seems like it’ll be better than the van. And we’ll have our own space-even if it is small, rather than having to jump from hotel room to hotel room.”

“Mm, and I assume I’ll be bunking with Aaron?” I asked. He turned and looked at me with slanted eyes. I grinned and kissed his cheek. “Just kidding.”

“You’re an ass…”

“Aw, were you jealous?” I grinned.

“No!”

“Mm hm,” I pressed a kiss on his cheek. “I still love you though,” I then pressed a kiss to his neck.

“Are you sure you don’t love Aaron now instead?”

“Nah, he’s my brother,” I said. “I adopted him.”

“You’re a dork,” he laughed.

“But you love me anyway,” I stood and flipped my hair for dramatic affect. He turned around in his spinney chair and put his hands on my hips. He was wearing his black rimmed glasses, which I hadn’t noticed before, meaning that he was no longer wearing his contacts. Even his hair wasn’t in its faux-hawk, it was flat against his forehead and he looked kind of boyish, it was cute, actually.

“I do love you anyway,” he said. We’d both said that a lot today…We meant it though, so it was okay.

***Zak’s POV***

I couldn’t keep the smile off of my face. I pulled her into my lap and she let out a slight squeal of surprise, but nevertheless, she didn’t pull away.

“I have an idea,” she said.

“What kind of idea?” I raised my eyebrows at her. She slapped my chest-not hard, but in a flirty way.

“Not like that you perv. About a lockdown…Maybe we should go to King’s Island…”

“Where’s that?” It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it…

“Ohio, about thirty minutes from my house, actually. And, they’re closed right now…so I’m sure you could get someone to let us do a lockdown...”

“Is it haunted?”

“Yes!” she turned the chair around and sat facing forward on my lap, rather than facing me. She typed into google on my computer and pulled up different articles. “Supposedly there’s a little girl that hangs out in the water park area/where all of the kiddy-type rides are. There’s also some guy named Johnny that fell off of the Eiffel Tower-on Friday the 13th! And I know that it had a cemetery…I’ve never walked back there but I’m not sure if it’s still there or not…But still! C’mon! I’ve always wanted to do an investigation there, but they wouldn’t open it to me and my friends.”

“And you think they’ll do it for me.”

“Yes! You’re a big strong TV dude. Duh they’ll let you do an investigation.”

“Wait, didn’t Ghost Hunters do an investigation there?” I asked, I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I was pretty sure that they had.

“I think they may’ve…But we’re Adventures, so we’re better,” she laughed.

“I don’t want to do kind of a “repeat” thing. Sure we’ve done the same places before, but I try to avoid it.”

“C’mon Zak…If we go in May-and do the lockdown on a Sunday-then it can be my birthday present and I can show y’all the park before we get locked down. I’ll be the tour guide.”

“How many times have you been there?” If she could be a tour guide, I had to assume it was a lot.

“Too many to count. That’s what you do where I’m from. You go to King’s Island in the summer. That’s all I did pretty much every summer.”

“Really? So I take it you’ve rode everything there?”

“Yep, and I’m not scared, either. So c’mon, please…”

“Alright,” I agreed. She kissed me quickly-in fact so quickly that I didn’t even expect it and by the time I realized it, she pulled back. “Well, I don’t know when they’ll let us do it; it may not be in May, okay?”

“Okay, but this October, I’m taking you and the guys to the Halloween thing that they have.”

***Adrina’s POV***

Don’t ask me how it happened, because I don’t know. All I knew was Zak’s lips were on mine and my T-shirt was somewhere in the room. Things had escalated quickly after we finished our conversation. As bad as I may feel to think about how I had loved Aidan and that he was the last man that I had ever even kissed, I couldn’t think about him now. Zak was the only thing on my mind, the way his warm hands touched my cold sides and back.

“Let’s go to your room,” I panted, pulling away from his lips for a moment.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his normally dark blue eyes were even darker now.

“Yes,” I said confidently. He nodded in reply. As I started to stand, he decided that he was going to carry me up the set of stairs and into his bedroom.