Page 6 of Ghostlighted
Emphasis on thepoor, so maybe I needed to stop fighting this so hard.
“Fine. I’ll cash the check.” I glared at him from under lowered brows. “But I won’t like it.”
He flashed a grin. “I can live with that. Or rather, not live, but you know what I mean. We’re makingexcellentprogress here. Now.” He stood up and crossed the turret to loom over me. “I want you to listen to me, Maz. And I mean really listen. Not only listen, buthearme.”
I swallowed. “Okay.”
His eyebrows shot down and the bills rose from the desk next to me, rustling in the air. “Stop being such an idiot!”
“Beg pardon?”
“Because of what Carson did, this house never had the chance to become a home.”
“But you grew up here. It was already your home.”
“It was not. It was simply the house I’d inherited from my parents. A beautiful house. A house that Oren and I showered with time, money, and his incredible talent. But still just a house. It hadn’t crossed that last line because I was waiting for him. Waiting for Oren.”
His face shuttered for an instant, and I knew what he was thinking. He was still waiting for Oren, and maybe always would.
Avi took a breath and met my gaze. “Then you came. You didn’t freak out when you found out you were sharing the space with a ghost.”
“I wouldn’t gothatfar.” I had freaked out pretty significantly.
A smile glimmered on his lips. “Well, only at first. But then youacceptedme.Involvedme.Partneredwith me, in a way. You made the attic my personal space.”
“To be fair, Ricky helped with that, as did the guys from Transitions Transportation.”
He waved a hand. “It was your idea, even if you didn’t personally relocate everything.” His gaze caught on his left hand which was still in the air. “You gave something to me that I would never have gotten should anybody else have inherited this place and Oren’s things.” He touched the wedding band gently. “You gave me my husband.”
I took a shaky breath, forcing air into my leaden lungs. Because the evidence of Oren’s plans for a surprise Canadian wedding, one that Avi hadn’t lived to see, still hurt.
Not for the first time since I’d gotten that call from Taryn telling me I’d inherited this house, I wished I’d known about the bequest before it was too late. Maybe Oren and I could have helped each other, sustained each other through the grief of his loss of Avi and my loss of my parents. At the very least, neither of us would have been alone.
“Any decent person would have done the same.”
Avi chuckled. “In case you hadn’t noticed, decency isn’t always the default setting for our fellow humans.”
“I guess not. But I still think we have the right to expect it.”
“Trust, but verify, Maz. When it comes to decency, trust, but verify.” His gaze slid away from me. “So, you claim this is our house now, correct? Our home?”
I narrowed my eyes, because when Avi had used that tone a few minutes ago, I’d walked right into a trap. “Yeeaahh.”
“That means I need to contribute, too.”
“Hey, you’re a great housemate. Thanks to your dustbusting superpowers, we’ll never need to vacuum or hire a cleaning service. Heck, you even disappear Gil’s fur.” I shuddered at the image of a vast, spectral fur ball. “And it’s not like you’re going to drink the last of the OJ or leave your underwear on the bathroom floor. Besides, you contributed the whole freaking house. You’re covered.”
His chin firmed in that way I was starting to recognize: Avi in stubborn mode. He pointed to the bills that were still suspended over the desk. “The top bill on that stack is for the security system, which you seem to be paying in installments. Out of your ghostwriting earnings and Manor salary.”
I shifted uneasily. I hadn’t intended for him to see that. Who knew ghosts could be nosy? “So?”
“You can’t saythat’snot to my benefit. I want people breaking in here even less than you do, because there’s nothing I could do to them, not even confront them.”
I glanced at the hovering bills. “Well, you could give them one hell of a paper cut.”
“I’m serious, Maz. The royalty money is finally there now. Use it.”
“I’ll… consider it.” He narrowed his eyes, and I held my hands up to ward off the glare. “Fine. I’ll use it to pay for the security system.”
