“You guys were always close in school,” she mumbled.
“Yeah, but not like you and me,” I said honestly. “You were my best friend.”
She looked up from her magazine and locked eyes with me. “Yeah…”
“Anyway,” I said, breaking the connection and looking toward the window to have something other than the intensity of Fallon’s dark eyes to focus on, “nothing has changed for years at the Oleander. It’s how the Order does it. The age of twenty-five begins the process. Firstborn sons get the honor of becoming a member and taking over the family business.”
“Is that what you want?”
I almost glanced back at her but fought the urge. I didn’t want her to see the truth in my eyes. “I don’t have a choice. It is what it is. My father runs the business really well and has grown it. We aren’t as old money as some of the other Elders, and my father has had to really work hard to keep our coffers full at times. He’s taught me a lot in his own… distant… way. The world of oil is a beast, but we’ve figured out how to tame it. But I think he’s looking forward to passing the stress off to me… but I don’t really know. We don’t really talk about it much.”
We didn’t really talk about much at all.
My father had always been a man of few words, and after Timothy died… he nearly became mute. The only time I really ever saw him talk was here at the Oleander. He’d smile, he’d laugh, he’d act like a man who wasn’t broken and beaten by the Grim Reaper. He was a different man when he wore the silver cloak. He seemed… happy and content. I was envious that he could find that when I couldn’t.
“But, yeah,” I clarified, looking back at her with a forced grin. “I want it.”
I wanted so desperately to find that happiness my father had found in the Order of the Silver Ghost. If it lurked in these halls of the manor, then I would do whatever I could to find it as well. I needed it just as much as my father did, or I very likely could get swallowed up by the darkness that knocked at my door daily.
I didn’t want to become a mute like my father.
I didn’t want to become a shell of a man, and I was nearly there.
So, give me the silver cloak please. Anything to make the emptiness fade.
Fallon closed her magazine—which I was pretty sure she had already read at least once if not twice—but remained sitting in the chair by the fire. Her eyes went to my chest, my arms, my abdomen, and she asked, “When did you get all those tattoos? You didn’t have any in high school, and you never said anything about wanting any.”
“As soon as I turned eighteen, I got the one on my chest for Tim. Just felt right and like something I needed to do.”
“Strength. Love. Honor,” she said softly and nodded in complete understanding. “I think he would have loved it. Knowing Tim, he would have gotten a matching one with you.”
I smirked. “My mother hates them.”
Fallon laughed. “I can imagine. You have them all over your body.”
“An addiction,” I said with a shrug. “When things got really tough, or I was in a bad mental space, getting one seemed to help. It just became a routine in a way.”
She nodded again as if she understood. “I like them.”
I smiled as I went to the closet to get a shirt. “Well, that’s good. Not like I can wash them off.”
There was a knock on the door, and I quickly finished getting dressed so I could be the one to answer it. “I’ll get it.”
“Lunch?” Fallon asked. “It feels like we just had breakfast. I swear I’ve lost all sense of time since being here.”
When I opened the door, I was happy to see an unfamiliar staff person standing before me with the items I had requested to be delivered. I quickly took them from his arms and placed them inside. “Thanks, man,” I said, wishing I had cash to tip the guy, but it wasn’t like I was living in a hotel where I was free to come and go and utilize an ATM.
“Who is it? What is all that?” Fallon asked as she approached the door.
“A gift to help you pass the time away,” I said, opening the boxes so she could see for herself.
Pulling out an easel first, I smiled when I heard Fallon’s gasp behind me.
“Is that— Oh my god!” she squealed.
I quickly opened the next box with paint brushes, and tubes of paint in every color I could think of. There was a larger box that held several different sizes of canvases as well.