Page 30 of Chasing Your Ghost

After exploring Old Town for a bit, she’d found a café to wait for them at, and she handed them each a cup of coffee in thanks for the lift. “Amazing. Miss Markova is the best.”

Noah and Chris looked over their shoulders and gave her disbelieving looks.

“What? It’s true,” she insisted.

“Olivia hates going there,” Noah said while he pulled out of the parallel parking space, and Riley was happy that his fury seemed to have been forgotten. “According to her, Miss Markova is horrible.”

“You call that a pas de chat,” Chris mimicked. “Are you even trying to point your foot?”

“Lower those shoulders,” Noah joined in.

“Yeah, that sounds familiar,” Riley admitted, recalling all the criticism she’d faced during the lesson.

“Still think Miss Markova’s amazing?” Chris asked.

She grinned. “Yeah. She was tough on me, but it’s only to make me improve. Besides, she’s a hundred times nicer than my last teacher.”

Chris’s head spun around so quickly she was surprised he didn’t pull something. “Was your last teacher Satan?”

Riley threw her head back and let out a rather undignified laugh. “Pretty much,” she wheezed out. “She made me cry almost every week.”

Riley had always had a bit of an ambivalent attitude toward ballet, and her old teacher was probably a big reason for that. She loved that ballet brought her closer to her gran, and she generally enjoyed dancing, but she’d hated her teacher and could have gone without the foot pain and blisters that constantly plagued her.

Besides, she’d never been able to attain the stick-thin and flat-chested figure of a typical ballerina, and ballet competitions had only ever made her feel self-conscious of her perfectly healthy, lean, and well-nourished body.

The ballet world was often a cruel one, even to petite girls like Olivia, and Riley had no interest in fully immersing herself in it. She preferred to dip her toes in it instead, making it a hobby rather than a passion she fully dedicated herself to.

For Riley, reading was life. Ballet was just a nice way to get some exercise in. The three lessons a week that Miss Markova had insisted Riley attend would be fun, but even that might start to feel like too much once college classes began.

“Why the hell did you keep going?” Chris asked, looking horrified.

She shrugged. “She was a good teacher, and my gran wanted me to learn from the best.”

Chris grunted and turned back around.

“Is it cool if I just drop you off at the house?” Noah asked, meeting Riley’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Chris is right around the corner from my mom’s, so I’ll have to drop you off first.”

“No problem. How is she doing?”

Riley saw his shoulders droop a bit. “She’s exhausted after the radiation. She’s barely gotten out of bed since Tuesday.”

“Is there anything I can do to help? I’d offer to pick up some groceries for you guys, but seeing as I have no car, that’s not an option. But I could make you some meals that you can just stick in the oven?” she suggested.

“Nah, that’s okay,” Noah replied. “We’re all covered on that front. Someone gave my mom like a dozen lasagnas and casseroles and mac and cheeses on Monday, so the freezer is pretty much full.”

“Woah. That was nice of them.”

“But thanks for offering,” he said, sending her a grateful smile in the mirror. “We should make plans for you to meet her.”

Much as her plan had been to keep her distance from her stepsibling, Riley couldn’t contain her grin. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

As warned, Noah dropped her off, only hanging around long enough to say a quick hi to his dad before he and Chris were off again.

Riley had been spending time with Hugh in the garage on most days, but after her ballet lesson, she didn’t think she had the energy to help him with his latest project, so she went ahead to the pool house. Once inside, she walked directly to the en suite bathroom.

After the sorely needed shower, Riley opened the door to her bedroom and walked out, wet hair hanging down her back and steam pouring into the bedroom ahead of her. Covered only by a towel, she was humming Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle”.

Of all the times to have someone show up unannounced, it was a pretty bad one. Alas, the universe clearly hated her because that was the precise moment Asher’s ghost chose to reappear.

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