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Focus.

The offer. He was supposed to be thinking about the offer.

Sitting still for hours while Nate studied him: mortifying. Being looked at, on purpose, at length, with intent to get it right… that thought was so uncomfortable it downright made him want to squirm.

But.

The town was full of old men who had been young here. And a drawing of Leo could travel where Leo could not.

The shower shut off upstairs.

Leo took up a position by the fireplace, trying to look casual, trying to look as if he’d spent his time thinking about the drawing and nothing else.

Nate’s hair was damp when he came down and darker than usual, curling a little at the neck.

Stop.

“I’ll do it,” Leo said, slightly louder than planned. “For the investigation.”

“For the investigation. Of course,” Nate agreed. His lips twitched. There was that little smile of his. The one the strangers on the internet liked.

Leo looked away. “Where do you want me?”

Nate thought about it for a moment, then he pointed at the window.

“There,” he said. “The light’s good. You’ll look good in it.”

Leo wanted to object. He didn’t.

He went and stood in the light.

Chapter

Twenty-Four

Nate should have coffee and eat breakfast before he started any kind of project, but the light was good and he did like the way Leo looked in it—the way any artist appreciated a subject worth drawing.

And Leo was definitely that.

So Nate grabbed his notebook and set himself up before he could think too much about what he was doing or why he was doing it.

Because I want to, he’d told Leo. That part was still true.

Pencil in hand, he took a good look at the ghost whose image he wanted to capture.

“Stop moving,” he instructed.

“I’m not moving.”

“You’re drifting.”

Leo looked down at himself. His feet were an inch above the floorboards—as they usually were. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that he was leaning to the left. He corrected his posture. Then leaned to the other side.

“I’m standing still,” he claimed. “This is me standing still.”

“Okay.”

Nate found a clean page to draw on. The pencil needed sharpening. He did it with his pocket knife, shavings into his palm, shavings onto the floor, and Leo watched that with open disapproval and said nothing.