Page 52 of Haunted Ever After

“I don’t always drink it.” His stomach churned at the thought. “Usually I’ll grind up just a little. Brew up a cup or two, enough to keep him happy.”

“You’re very good to your ghost,” she said primly. Her hand slid down his arm to catch his.

Nick threaded his fingers through hers and held on tight. “I try.”

This was so nice. Everything felt easy with Cassie now that they’d cleared the air. Which was why Nick couldn’t explain how, once they’d cut through the break in the seawall and made their way back to the sidewalk, his shoulders began to tense up. That tight feeling in his chest, which had been easing all evening, suddenly made itself known again.

“You okay?” Cassie’s voice was concerned.

“Yeah.” But he was gripping her hand tighter, his whole body practically radiating tension. He didn’t get it. They’d cleared the air. They were starting over. No pressure. No strings. That was what he wanted, and she was fine with it. There was absolutely nothing to be nervous about.

His steps slowed as they approached Cassie’s house and she opened the latch at her front gate. He couldn’t get enough air around the boulder that had set up residence in his chest. Cassie went through the front gate and though he tried to follow, he didn’t get far. The static in his head was back, growing with every step until it was an almost unbearable din, filling him with an anxiety-fueled anger. It was just like last time, just like…

He stopped walking, watching her start up the front steps. She was halfway up before she turned around.

“Hey.” She went back down the steps to where he stood on the front walkway. “You okay?” She’d asked that twice in, what, two minutes? He needed to get it together.

“Yeah,” he said, when everything inside him said no. There was a hell of a lot of emotion coming from that house, all aimed at him with the delicacy of a firehose. There was no way he could step foot in that house. “I think…I think Mrs. Hawkins doesn’t like me much.” He spoke carefully; the last thing he wanted to do was spook Cassie. Make her think her house was threatening, when she had to go inside and live there. She couldn’t see what he could, didn’t feel what he did. It was like the house was threatening him personally.

“Still?” Cassie gave an annoyed sigh as she looked over her shoulder at her house. He tried to see it through her eyes. The porch lights were on, as well as the light in the upstairs windows. The house looked inviting, serene. Except for the buzzing in his head. The buzzing told him that there was something under the surface of all this serenity. It was like a malevolent force reaching out, asking for help. It all felt very Anakin Skywalker, asking him to turn to the dark side.

He wasn’t going to do that. He took a step backward, then another, till he was back on the sidewalk on the other side of her front gate. Then he reached for the gate, swinging it closed. The buzzing didn’t stop, but it quieted down, like the volume had been turned down. The tension in his chest eased, and he could breathe again.

Cassie followed him but stopped just inside the gate, a barrier between them now. “Did she say something to you?”

“No. Not in words.” He looked up at the house again, at its inviting glow. He hated that it didn’t apply to him. “It’s emotion, and it sounds like static. Or a really loud buzzing noise. Or…” He trailed off with a frustrated shake of his head. “It was like that the last time I was here too. When I…”

“When you went off for no reason?”

“Yeah. She’s really angry about something, and she seems to be angry at me.”

“I don’t get it.” Cassie looked over her shoulder at the house too. “Nan didn’t say anything about her being angry, or vengeful, or anything like that. Maybe I can try to talk to her. Get her to knock it off.”

“No, it’s okay.” Nick held up a placating hand. “Ghosts are allowed to feel what they feel, and—”

“I don’t care.” Cassie crossed her arms, looking like a petulant teenager. “I’m doing my best to help her out here, and the least she can do is let my date into my house every once in a while.”

“Every once in a while?” Nick’s attention snapped back to her. The hell with the angry ghost in her house; this was much more important. “You saying you want to see me again?”

Cassie huffed a stray lock of hair out of her face, and when she met his eyes, Nick felt it in his gut. “Of course I do,” she said. A smile teased around her mouth. “You said you’d talk to Elmer for me.”

His heart dipped, then soared again. She was teasing him. He liked it. “But what about when Elmer’s not involved?” He grasped the slats of the fence with both hands, leaning toward her. “Or Publix subs? What if it’s just me?”

Her hands were warm against his, holding on to him while he held on to the gate. Nick caught his breath as Cassie stretched up onto her toes to meet him over the barrier. “I kinda like it when it’s just you.” Her voice was a murmur just before her mouth brushed across his, and she took his gasp into her mouth. Oh. He’d forgotten how good it felt to kiss her. How much he wanted to sink into her softness. If only there wasn’t this damn fence between them. If only there wasn’t all this buzzing. If only Sarah Hawkins didn’t hate him so much.

Cassie pulled back way too soon, laying a hand on his cheek, rubbing her palm across the scruff of his beard. “I’ll talk to Sarah,” she said. “Because believe me, I’m going to want to have you inside the house at some point.” Her voice was low, urgent, and it did things to Nick’s insides. There was innuendo there, and he wanted more.

“And I’d like to be inside…your house. At some point.” He raised an eyebrow and her cheeks flamed in response. He flipped his hands under hers so he could entwine their fingers. “But for now I’ll just say good night.”

“Good night.” She squeezed lightly on his hands before letting go. She backed away, up the front walk, until her heel bumped against the bottom step. He stayed on the sidewalk, rooted to the spot under a streetlight until Cassie was up the front steps of her porch and inside. The sound of her front door closing echoed down the street to him in the quiet of the night, finally setting him free to find his way home. As he headed down the sidewalk the weird, staticky buzzing that had filled his head was gone, but he could still feel it there somewhere—a faint, unsettling whisper tickling the back of his brain, getting quieter as he walked away, a radio station losing its signal. Its absence was a relief, but why was it there at all? Until they figured that out, he wasn’t going to be hanging out much at Cassie’s place. That was for sure.

It wasn’t until the next morning that he remembered they hadn’t exactly set a date for the talk (text? chat?) with Elmer. But he barely had time to feel disappointed, because there she was, coming through the door, square in the middle of the lunchtime rush.

“Hey.” He threw her a quick smile as she walked through the door. “I’m a little tied up right now, but if you want to give me a minute, we can…” His voice trailed off as she took her laptop and charging cord out of its bag, a sheepish expression on her face. “Come on. Again?” He tried to sound grumpy, he really did. But he couldn’t help it; his heart was soaring. Cassie was back at her table in his café and all was right with the world. Suck it, Spooky Brew.

“Look, it wasn’t my fault.” But Cassie was already laughing. She was glad to be back too.

“Did you unplug your laptop?” He shook his head at her in mock despair as he wiped down the counter. The counter was perfectly clean, but this made him look busy and he didn’t have to go too far away from her.

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