Page 111 of A Chance for Us
I am so looking forward to it.
Twenty-Eight
OLIVER
It’s pizza night at Grayson’s, and while I really didn’t want to come, I couldn’t come up with a good reason to skip. I haven’t seen Amelia in far too long, and if there’s anything in the world that can cheer me up, it’s my nieces and nephew.
So, tonight, I’m putting on my best smile and faking it.
“Uncle Oliver, do you believe in ghosts?”
“Not really,” I say to Melia as she brushes her doll’s hair.
“I do. I think they like to hunt people.”
“That’s . . . disturbing.”
Amelia puts the brush down. “On this one show I watched, the ghost tried to take over a little girl’s uncle’s body.”
“I don’t think they’d want mine.”
Hell, right now, I don’t want mine.
“Ghosts aren’t picky.”
There are multiple directions to take this conversation, and being that I am the asshole of the family, I stay the course.
“I think ghosts only like little kids. They want girls especially.”
Her head lifts. “Why?”
“Because they have long hair, and all ghosts really wish they had long hair so it flies in the wind as they float.”
I catalogue this as something Grayson will make me pay for later.
Amelia jumps a little and pats her hair. “Do you think they like little sisters?”
This is why Amelia is one of my favorite people in the universe. She’ll sacrifice a sibling if it means she survives. If we have a zombie apocalypse, I’m totally keeping her on my team.
“I know my ghost would like Aunt Stella’s hair.”
“She has really long hair.”
“She does.”
“I wonder if we could tell the ghost to take her instead.”
I chuckle. “I like that plan.”
Melia leaps forward, catching me off guard. “I love you the most, Uncle Oliver. Don’t ever leave me.”
“Leave you? Where would I go?”
She sits back down on the floor. “With your wife. Daddy said you love her and that he thinks you’re next to leave.”
Did he now? “I’m not planning to go anywhere.”
“Okay,” she whispers. “You’re my favorite.”
