Ghosted

Chapter Ten

‘Can I ask you a question?’ Callum says, holding two pizza boxes out in front of him. ‘If George haunts this place, do you think he ever spies on the guests?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Like, if someone’s showering. Do ghosts watch people shower?’

‘I suppose if a spirit is pervy in life they could be pervy in death.’

He chuckles. ‘I love how matter-of-fact you are about that.’ He puts the pizzas on the end of the bed. ‘What do we need to go over from today?’

I stand awkwardly in the middle of the room. Is this what we do, go on as if nothing has happened, as if we didn’t just have a huge confrontation that had be brewing for years? I have no idea about this stuff.

‘Holly, is everything okay?’

‘I don’t know. Is it?’

‘Yeah, I hope so anyway. I feel like a weight’s lifted. I’m glad we got all that out. Said what we needed to say. We couldn’t go on pretending things were fine.’

I probably could have , I think.

‘It’s going to be a while though, until I stop feeling ashamed of myself,’ he says. ‘If I ever do.’ His brow creases. ‘I’ll just leave you a pizza and head back to my room. Give you some space.’

I drop to the edge of my bed. ‘No… stay. I want you to stay. I don’t need space.’ I’ve had years of space . ‘But would you mind if we just watched TV? I’m kind of wiped out.’ And that way I don’t have to think, and we don’t have to do any more talking .

‘Whatever you need,’ he says, then he looks me up and down. ‘Cute look, by the way.’

I’m in leggings, an oversized hoodie and chunky grey socks, and my hair is wet. I glower up at him.

He laughs, then says, ‘I got us something else,’ and disappears into his room again. When he comes back, he has a bottle of red wine and two glasses. ‘I thought we might need this?’

‘God, yes.’ I’ve never needed booze so much in my life.

He flops onto my bed. I glance sideways at the totally empty ugly striped couch, then with a resigned sigh, wriggle up next to him.

He passes me a tumbler, and wraps his hand around mine as he pours wine into my glass. ‘Don’t want to spill it on this beautiful bedspread.’

‘Honestly, I don’t think it would even show.’

He chuckles, slowly releases his grip on me and asks, ‘What are we watching?’

I take a very, very large gulp of wine and hand him the remote. ‘You choose,’ I say, then reach forward and grab a pizza box. ‘Hey, have you thought any more about Rosing not telling us that Edward Western was out here yesterday?’

‘Yep. My first instinct is, weird. But I guess if he was gone by the time we got to town…’ He flicks through the TV channels. ‘Not much choice. No premium cable.’

‘Do you trust him?’

‘Rosing or Western?’

‘Either. Both.’

‘Can’t say about Western. Not sure about Rosing. But next time we see him we can shake him down for info.’

I laugh. ‘Shake him down? What, like good cop bad cop?’

‘Ooh, will you be bad cop?’ He takes a sip of his wine, his lips twitching around the edge of his glass.

I look away, pull a piece of pepperoni off my pizza and toss it in my mouth.

‘And what about the spirit you saw at the house?’ I ask manoeuvring us back onto safe turf. ‘Can you describe her to me?’

His humour quickly disappears. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. I must have got caught up in the moment. Just overexcited. It was probably only a shadow or a reflection.’

‘But the window exploded !’

‘It was probably a gas explosion or something. The house is old .’

‘Callum, seriously?’

‘What can I tell you? You didn’t see anything, so I couldn’t have. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it. We’re watching TV, remember? Your idea.’

I side-eye him. That’s some next-level avoidance, and that’s coming from me. He’s scared; I don’t need to be psychic to figure that out.

‘Hey, Alien 2 ,’ he suddenly says, pointing the remote at the TV. ‘You wanna watch this? I think the second Alien movie is the best one, it’s got more action.’ He looks at me, waiting for my answer.

I decide to let his bullshit slide for now; I’ll call him out about his ghost sighting another time. We’ve both had enough confrontation for one night.

‘Sure,’ I say.

‘Right, I remember now, you like action movies, but not horror.’

‘Unless the ghost is getting it.’

‘I like slasher horror better anyway,’ he says.

‘Me too. Stabby is way better than spooky.’

We look at each other and laugh.

‘How about that,’ Callum says, ‘we agree on something.’ He raises his glass to clink against mine.

By the time the movie finishes, we’ve drunk the wine and started on the old-school minibar. We’re still lying on my bed, but now we’re both a little tipsy.

‘When did you know you could see spirits?’ Callum asks, rolling onto his side to face me. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever talked about how it started for you.’

I twist my head to look at him. His long lashes cast spidery shadows on his cheeks. His eyes are almost unnaturally green again, and his skin is flushed with a pink glow.

I’m silent for so long he gently taps my foot with his and says, ‘Earth to Holly.’

I blink, pull my gaze away from him, and take a sip of vodka from my tiny bottle.

‘I was eight, and sleeping over at a friend’s place.

I still remember it so clearly, standing in the hallway in my pyjamas pinned to the wall by a screeching man.

I told my friend’s mom what I saw. But of course, there was nothing there.

I was so upset, she called my parents and they took me home.

It was awful, especially because no one believed me.

After that, it kept happening, but no one wanted to hear about it.

My parents thought I wanted attention because Maggie had made the school gymnastics team, and that was taking up every weekend.

But it wasn’t that. I liked watching Maggie’s gymnastics.

It was the fact that people no one else could see kept yelling at me.

After a while I realised they must be ghosts. They just looked dead.’

‘I’ve never thought about how horrible it must be for you.’

I shrug. ‘I’ve learnt to deal with it. But it was rough going for a bit.

When Mom died, I lost my anchor. Dad and Maggie had always been tight, and very anti my ghost thing, whereas I was closer to Mom.

She’d started to listen to me too. She might have even believed me.

When she was gone, I lost that, and it felt like I didn’t have anyone anymore.

’ The memories come flooding back and I have to stop for a moment to chase them away again.

Callum waits patiently. ‘Anyway, after that Dad sent me to a paediatric therapist for a while. I don’t blame him for it; we were all going through a lot, and he was really worried about me.

But that’s when I stopped talking about everything – it was easier that way.

It got pretty lonely at my place though.

I was so happy when my grandmother invited me to live with her.

Even happier when I discovered that she really did have a psychic gift.

Maybe that’s why Mom listened, because deep down she knew the truth.

My grandmother’s gift wasn’t quite like mine – hers was more gentle and helpful.

She could read people and sense things about their lives and their futures.

I just have angry dead people up in my face all the time.

Grandma Jenny saved me, really. I don’t know where I’d be if it wasn’t for her.

Maybe nowhere.’ I shake my head. ‘Sorry, I’m talking too much. ’

Callum nudges my shoulder gently. ‘No, you’re not. I want to know. I’m interested. Like, when did you discover you could do whatever it is you do now?’

‘Oh,’ I laugh lightly, ‘that was mostly Celeste, and a lot of experimentation. She and my grandmother both told me to trust that there’s a reason I’m like this. That made me determined to find out what that might be. Turns out it’s helping people who are haunted like I am.’

He gives me the softest smile, and it tingles right through me.

‘Celeste was a good friend,’ he says with a drawn-out sigh.

‘She really was. I found a cute photo of her in my phone the other day. Want to see it?’ I grab my phone and pull up the photo of me and Celeste in Central Park.

‘When was this?’ he asks, looking over my shoulder.

‘The day I met you, actually. We stopped and ate in the park on the way. She’d just got that haircut. Do you remember?’

He chuckles. ‘I remember she wore a hat for two weeks.’

‘I know. Crazy, right? The cut looked so good.’

I smile at her beautiful face smiling out at me, swallow back an ache that never seems to shift, and close the photo again, dropping my phone.

Callum studies me, and I’m suddenly worried he’ll want to talk about what happened the night Celeste died. I know he’s aware of the details, because I know he spoke to Max. He just doesn’t know how I carry it with me.

But he doesn’t ask, he just gives my hand a quick and gentle squeeze, then rolls off the bed.

‘You must have been one tough kid,’ he says, as he goes to the minibar. ‘Last two.’ He holds up the tiny bottles.

‘Our bill is going to be massive.’

‘Western’s bill is going to be massive.’ He grins, cracks the top of the miniature brandy bottle and hands it to me.

‘What about you and your family? Is it okay to ask how your folks died? We’ve never talked about that either.’

‘Yeah, it’s fine,’ he says settling back onto the bed.

‘They died in a car accident when I was five. We were living in California and my parents left me with a neighbour while they went to an art show opening, and they never came back. Head-on collision with a drunk driver. They were the same age as I am now.’ He shakes his head.

‘Anyway, the next day, Aideen swoops in and takes me home with her to New York. My dad didn’t have any family, he was an only child, and both his parents were gone by the time he was in college, so it was just me and Aideen.

’ He knocks back his tiny bottle of whiskey.

‘Until she died, I’d assumed she’d left everything my parents owned back in California.

But she had a storage unit, and I found boxes and boxes of their stuff in there.

Mostly junk, but also a few things I’d have loved to see as a kid.

I guess Aideen had it all packed up and sent over at some point but couldn’t face going through it.

I get that; I still haven’t gone through all the boxes either. ’

‘But don’t you want to know more about them?’

‘Sure, but the time just never seems right. It’s a little overwhelming, to be honest. What if I don’t like what I find?’ He cocks his head. ‘But who knows, maybe you’ve inspired me. Maybe after this job I’ll finish them off.’

He screws the cap onto his empty bottle and tosses it across the room, neatly landing it in the wastepaper basket. He lifts his arms in triumph, then turns back to me and smiles.

‘Does your family still avoid the ghost thing?’ he asks.

‘Completely. We mostly just catch up for birthdays, Christmas, the anniversary of Mom’s death, that kind of thing. That’s okay, I guess. I’d hate for them to know I’m involved with anything like what happened last night. It would scare the shit out of them.’

‘It scared the shit out of me.’

‘Me too. Let’s not do that again.’

‘Deal.’ He studies me for another long moment, long enough to make me squirm, then he leans in closer and whispers, ‘You know, I was really looking forward to that date we never got to have.’

His eyes shimmer in the light from the TV, and his tiny freckles pop enticingly against the blush of his cheeks. His breath is warm on my face and his lips within kissing distance again and I have to quickly look away in case I close the space between us.

Flushing, I glance at my hands and fidget.

His shoulder presses against mine, his warmth seeping into my skin, and the tiny hairs along my arms stand on end, balanced on top of tingling goosebumps.

I need to say something. I need to fill the empty air.

I take a deep breath and force myself to meet his teasing gaze.

‘Do you want to watch something else?’ I fumble with the remote. ‘Or would you rather call it a night?’ I try to sound casual, but I sound awkward.

Callum’s gaze stays on me for what feels like an eternity, then he smiles again and rolls onto his back.

‘Well…’ He stretches out his long legs with a satisfied hum and pats the mattress. ‘Your bed is comfortable. I vote for another movie.’

The low murmur of the TV creeps into my consciousness. What time is it? My head is fuzzy, and my neck aches from resting awkwardly on… Oh my god!

I push myself off Callum and jolt across the bed as if a couple of hundred volts of electricity just shot through me. Callum stirs and rubs the back of his hand across his eyes.

‘Oh shit. Sorry, Holly, I crashed out. Hey, I think you left a little drool on my shirt.’ He smiles at me sleepily.

I wipe my mouth. ‘I did not.’

He chuckles. ‘It’s okay, I won’t hold it against you. What time is it?’

I reach for my phone. ‘Just before six.’

Callum rolls off my bed, wincing as he puts his hand to his injured side. ‘I might take a shower and grab a couple more hours of sleep. Wake me for breakfast?’

‘Sure, because I’m your secretary now.’

He yawns, waving a hand behind him as he shuffles to his room. ‘Okay, okay, I’ll set an alarm.’

I roll over with a groan. My head is pounding.

I should get up, take a couple of painkillers and change into my pyjamas.

But instead, I crawl under the covers fully clothed.

My bed is still warm from where Callum was lying, and I can smell his scent on the pillow.

Like a sweet shampoo, mixed with a hint of his cologne.

I inhale deeply as tendrils of desire spread through me.

I sigh, warm in a way that has nothing to do with my bedcovers.