Chapter 4 Casper the Friendly Ghost
Casper the Friendly Ghost
August
Love at first sight? Bullshit. I don’t fall. I recognize what’s mine… and I go after it. Give me ten minutes and a decent suit and I can talk my way into a boardroom, a seven-figure deal, or a woman’s good graces. Same instincts. Different stakes. That whole eyes met across a crowded room thing?
Marketing.
You take the spark—yeah, the one you feel when somebody fine walks by—dress it up, throw a little meaning on it, and suddenly it’s destiny. I know the game.
Hell, I help sell it.
So explain to me why I’m lying here at six in the morning, staring at my ceiling… stuck on a woman who checked me in a park, called me an asshole, and looked at me like she meant it.
I drag a hand over my face, exhaling slow.
Because that didn’t feel like a game.
And that’s the problem.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand. The blue light hits my eyes.
Notifications everywhere.
I ignore them.
Looking for the one I want.
Harlee.
Saved as Casper because my petty. Unmatched.
I stared at that unsaved number for ten minutes the night I got home, then finally caved and gave it a name so I’d stop pretending I wasn’t thinking about her.
Her thread is empty. Just my own face at the top of the screen, waiting for me to make a move.
That’s what gets under my skin.
Not that she’s gorgeous. I grew up watching beauty from all angles.
My mother, the Manhattan princess who traded country clubs and trust funds for a two-bedroom walk-up and a Dominican line cook with big eyes and bigger dreams.
My tías in church basements and cookouts, smelling like coconut oil and Flor de Mayo.
Cousins who hit that lip gloss and hoops era and never looked back.
Beauty is baseline.
It’s the way she slammed into my chest at the park like the universe body-checked us together. The way she stood there—all five-three of her—talking about lawsuits and calling me a giant asshole like she hadn’t just bounced off me at full speed.
The way she snorted when I told her it’s good to have tall friends if you ever need a shelf hung.
All that softness wrapped in I’m just trying to get my run in without getting trampled; mind your business, giant.
She didn’t simper. Didn’t preen. Didn’t angle herself so I’d get a better view. In fact she was ten toes down ready to square up with a man almost a foot taller than her.
She was just… herself.
A little stressed.
A little chaotic.
Lotta mouth. The perfect combination.
And she looked right at me like she wasn’t impressed.
That’s new.
People notice me. I’m not confused about that.
I spent the first half of my life invisible—too broke, too skinny, clothes two sizes off, hairline fighting for its life. Then the money hit, the barber got me right, and the gym started doing what the gym is supposed to do.
Somewhere along the way the doors changed.
The same rooms that used to look through me started opening.
Now I walk into a place and people clock me before I even say a word. Not because I’m special.
Because I look like someone who belongs there.
And belonging gets you access.
Women smile a little longer.
Bartenders slide the good bottle closer.
Security stops asking questions.
I’m not mad at it.
But under the packaging? I’m not the hit-it-and-quit-it archetype people assume.
If anything, I lean the opposite direction.
I don’t know how to want halfway.
I like routines. Shared playlists. Toothbrushes sliding next to mine.
I get comfortable fast. Start rearranging my life around a woman before I even realize I’m doing it.
That went great for me…
Until it didn’t.
So now I lean into the image: slick CEO, Dominican playboy, always moving, always busy.
It’s easier to let people assume I’m allergic to relationships than explain why I’m not volunteering to go all-in on anybody again.
Still, this thing with Harlee isn’t that.
Not yet.
It’s not deep.
It’s just… inconvenient.
My brain has better things to do than replay how she threatened to sue me with her whole chest.
Or the way her eyes lit up when she talked about data like it was a love language.
I thumb over to her empty thread again, staring at the blinking cursor.
First text.
Keep it simple.
My thumbs move.
Me: So… about those shelves?
I stare at it. It’s stupid. It’s nothing. It’s also honest. That’s where this part of whatever-this-is started: two people on a running path, half arguing about lawsuits, half flirting about how it’s good to have tall friends when you need a shelf hung.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I hit send.
The text bubbles into existence and my heart does this annoying little kick.
“Relax, man,” I mutter, tossing the phone onto the pillow beside me like it’s hot. “It’s a text, not a proposal.”
There’s a spark here. I’m not stupid; I feel it.
But it’s not love. Not fate. Not that rom-com bullshit I sell for a living.
It’s curiosity. Stubborn, buzzing curiosity that refuses to die. About the way her brain works. The way she side-eyed me like my usual charm was background noise. The way I wanted to keep talking when I should’ve kept walking.
“Tranquilo,” I tell myself, closing my eyes as the city hum threads in from outside. “It’s just a girl. It’s just a text.”
The next thing I register is my house system dragging me back to consciousness.
“Good morning, August. The current time is 6:30 a.m. Today’s forecast is partly cloudy with a high of seventy-eight degrees. You have three meetings scheduled. Would you like me to list them for you?”
I groan and flop an arm over my eyes. “I’m good, Echo. Thanks.”
The automatic curtains slide open with a soft whir. Morning light spills across my bedroom, catching on dark wood and the clean lines of furniture. Downtown wakes up beneath me, moving headlights and glinting glass.
My dick is very awake.
Of course.
“Jesus,” I mutter, adjusting myself under the sheets. “You are down bad, hermano.”
I give it a minute. It doesn’t go away.
Fine.
I pad into the bathroom. The walk-in shower kicks on to my presets: hot enough to unknot muscles, strong enough to beat sense into me.
Water hits my shoulders, pounding a rhythm down my back. I brace a hand on the slick marble, letting the heat soak into bone.
It’s been a minute since I needed to get off this bad. Not since I was barely legal, hiding in my grandparents’ bathroom with the water running so nobody would hear. Embarrassing then. Somehow more embarrassing now.
I try to think about something else. The Peterson account. My mother’s last text about dinner. The west-coast expansion Kelley won’t shut up about.
My brain serves up Harlee instead.
Hazel eyes sharp with annoyance when she crashed into me. Mouth twitching when I teased her. The way she talked about grad school like she actually loves it.
I wrap my hand around my shaft with a low curse.
“Get it out of your system, James,” I mutter.
I don’t build some epic fantasy. I don’t whisper her name. I just work the edge until my stomach goes tight and my breath turns harsh, and then I’m coming hard against the marble, jaw locked on a groan.
For a second, my head clears.
For a second.
Then the same question creeps back in.
What is this woman doing in my head?
“You’re thirty-two, not sixteen,” I tell the empty shower as the evidence swirls down the drain. “Fix yo shit.”
By the time I’m dressed, the worst of the edge is gone. Cognac slacks, white dress shirt, sleeves shoved to my forearms. No tie. Watch on, phone in pocket, mask in place.
The smart coffeemaker hisses to life as I hit the kitchen. Dark roast, rich and familiar, cuts through the last of the sleep haze. Floor-to-ceiling windows pour in light. The lake flashes in the distance, trains thread through the city, steel and glass stacking up to prove a point: you did it.
Not bad for some kid who grew up counting change for bus fare.
I take my first sip and make the mistake of checking my phone.
No response.
My one little green bubble sits there, pathetic. So, about those shelves?
“Cono,” I mutter, locking the screen and flipping the phone face down.
A white envelope on the counter catches my eye. Abuela’s handwriting loops across the front. I slide a finger under the flap.
Mi nino,
She gives me the usual: neighborhood gossip, who stopped by the restaurant, a reminder that Mrs. Rivera still prays for me louder than everybody else. Then she pivots, like she always does, into memory.
Tu papá nunca se callaba con tu mamá, she writes. Always, “Mira qué bella es mi mujer.” Even when he was sick. Even at the end, when he could barely talk, he still asked for her first.
That little twinge hits my chest. That’s the blueprint burned into my brain: my white socialite mother and my Dominican immigrant father slow-dancing in a cramped kitchen, looking at each other like the world stopped at their feet.
We don’t talk about how he died. Where he died. Who was there and who wasn’t.
Abuela’s tone shifts.
You shouldn’t have to avoid your own mother because of that man. No hay peor ciego que el que no quiere ver.
Carver.
I fold the letter and slide it back into the envelope with more care than I’ll admit to. My appetite for food and feelings both take the same exit.
“Enough sentimental bullshit,” I tell the room, rinsing my mug. “You’ve got an empire to run.”
Work is simple. Work doesn’t ghost you. Work doesn’t leave you alone in a room with tubes and machines and a clock you can’t stop.
By the time I step into the elevator, CEO mode is sliding into place. By the time the doors open into the JWM lobby, my expression is smooth, shoulders loose, stride easy.
The lobby itself looks… wrong.
Like a festival line leaked into my building. Crop tops, tiny shorts, lashes you could land planes with. Somebody in glitter heels is arguing with Security about the elevators. The volume is all the way up.
“What in the actual fuck,” I mutter.
“James, welcome back!”
The receptionist beams at me like none of this is chaos.