Page 141 of Just This Once

So I drove home. I didn’t even consider taking her to her place. There was no way I was leaving her alone tonight, so half an hour later, when I paused at the gate to punch in my passcode, Hope finally stirred enough to straighten in her seat and blink out the front windshield.

“Where are we?”

“My place.” I glanced over with a smirk. “Told you, you were coming home with me tonight.”

“Oh God.” Groaning, she clutched her stomach. “If you expect sex from me right now, you’re going to be sadly disappointed.”

I chuckled before playing along. “Hey, I can wait a couple of hours for your medications to kick in.” When she whimpered, I laughed again. “Joking. I do not expect sex from you. Jesus, Trouble, really?”

She sighed in relief and asked for some mints as I parked in the circle drive and killed the engine. I shook my head in amusement and found her some soft peppermint candies in my center console. After she took two, she thanked me, then crunched them down as she curled back into a ball and closed her eyes.

She didn’t wake when I came around to her side to pull her into my arms. Nor when I carried her to the pool house and laid her in my bed. She didn’t even stir when I stripped her down to nothing but her panties or when I covered her with blankets. It wasn’t until I sat on the edge beside her and stroked a wet cloth over her face to clean away her ruined makeup that her eyelashes fluttered.

“’Sup?” she asked blearily as she tried to open her eyes but failed.

I set the washcloth aside and kissed her brow. “There’s a glass of water for you here to your right on the nightstand,” I told her. “And a puke bucket on the floor below that. I texted Oaklynn from your phone and told her you found an alternate way home. So you’re set for the rest of the night, okay?”

“’Kay, thanks.” Smiling, she smoothed her hand along the fabric of the blanket until she reached my hip. Then she patted the leg of my sleep pants I’d changed into. “Is this your bed?” When I nodded, she smiled drowsily. “It smells like you.”

“Yeah. Strange how that works.”

“Smart-ass,” she snickered, only to sigh and ball her fingers around the cloth of my pants as if she wanted to keep me exactly where I was.

“Always,” I assured her as I lifted the ghost amulet near her face. “Where are you ranked on this list for a re-transplant, anyway?”

“Um, I don’t remember the number, but it’s probably a few years away.”

“Fuck.”

Her eyes fluttered open, and she frowned at the vial. “What’s that? Hey, cool. It’s clouding up and turning colors.” She lifted a limp hand from my thigh and tapped the glass.

I pulled it a few inches away so I could see the color better as I muttered, “Yeah.” It just wasn’t the dark green I wanted it to be.

“So what is it?” Hope asked, seeming to wake up a bit more.

“It’s a ghost detector,” I answered, keeping it near her in the hopes that it would darken after a few moments. “It clouds white when one is near.”

“Okay…” Hope said slowly, frowning up at me. “So why are you holding it up tome?”

I sighed impatiently. “Oaklynn thought she saw an orb around you the night we moved Union’s cousin into Archer House.”

When Hope merely blinked, I tried to explain. “Orbs show up when?—”

“Yeah, yeah,” she cut in. “Alec explained all that to me. Orbs show up around ghosts. But why would a ghost be hanging around me?”

“At first, we thought you were possessed. Like Hudson had been. But when I tested this thing around you?—”

“Wait. When did you test it on me?”

“When I held the door open for you as you were carrying a box inside,” I explained. “Remember?”

“Really?” Her mouth fell open. “Iknewyou were acting strange then.”

“Yeah,that’swhy I was acting strange,” I muttered with a roll of my eyes. “Had nothing to do with the fact that one of my best friend’s sisters had just asked me to have sex with her in order to fulfill her dying bucket-list wish.”

Ignoring that, Hope nudged the vial with her finger. “This cloud isn’t white, anyway. It’s green.” Glancing up at me, she asked, “What does green mean?”

“That’s the thing. I didn’t think it meant anything. I was sure it was malfunctioning. So I took it back to Jezebel’s Nest the next day to ask the owner.”

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