Page 7 of Ghosted AF
MNSTR:Thank you for your feedback. Your information has been sent to a quality control agent for review. Is there anything else I can help you with?
Huffing in frustration, I closed out the app and chucked my phone to the other end of the sofa. So much for customer service. Apparently, I would just have to suffer through my heart palpitations every time Caius walked through the fucking living room.
Despite the pre-bedtime chaos, I had slept soundly during the night, undisturbed by ghostly shenanigans. I hadn’t forgotten about Caius, but I also hadn’t expected to stumble into the living room to find a shirtless male on my sofa.
MNSTR had claimed they were sending a griffin shifter, not a gorgeous, half-naked Viking.
There he’d been, stretched out like he owned the place, one arm draped behind his head and his other hand lazily scrolling through his phone. The morning light had spilled across his bare chest, highlighting the edges of a tattoo I hadn’t noticed before—a swirl of runes just beneath his collarbone.
I didn’t remember making a noise, but he’d glanced up at my entrance, a crooked smile playing at the corner of his mouth asif he found something about me amusing. His voice had been gravelly with sleep when he’d greeted me, and the hint of an accent made the simple sentence sound far sexier than it had any right to be.
Instead of acknowledging him, I’d made a beeline for the kitchen. Once there, I had determinedly kept my eyes on the coffee pot. I hadn’t even glanced at him. Not once.
I certainly hadn’t noticed the way his hair tumbled around his broad shoulders in messy waves of gold and bronze.
Currently, he had retreated onto the balcony with a cup of coffee, still shirtless, to dry his wings in the morning sun after his shower. And yes, maybe I peeked through the sliding glass door a couple of times, but only to admire his impressive tawny and white feathers.
Clearly.
If I happened to notice the way his back muscles rippled with movement, or the way the bright rays gleamed off his tanned skin, it was purely by accident. I mean, I didn’tcareor anything.
It did provide a nice distraction from my problems, though.
The front office hadn’t contacted me. Mykal hadn’t returned for his tools, not that I had expected him to. For the past hour, I had been procrastinating, knowing I should call management, but not sure I wanted to deal with what came after that.
If they didn’t know anything about Mykal’s disappearance, someone should probably report him as a missing person. With his tools still inside my apartment, I would no doubt have to talk to the police, which would probably end with me somehow implicating myself in his death.
Alleged death, of course.
On the other hand, if Mykal hadn’t died, and his body wasn’t rotting somewhere in my apartment, that meant I had an entirely different issue.
Caius kept telling me I didn’t have a poltergeist situation. He seemed positive about that, but he also couldn’t tell me what kind of situation I did have. Which didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
So, in short, I had spent my savings—money I had squirreled away for over a year to get out of this dump—for the pleasure of a pretty view and blue balls.
Before I could get too worked up and do something crazy, like fight the MNSTR chatbot, a knock at my door had me springing up from the sofa. My heart raced as I hurried to answer the summons, a part of me hoping to see Mykal on my stoop, while another part worried it might be the Circle City PD.
It turned out to be neither.
I didn’t have to bother unlatching the deadbolt since the door didn’t even close all the way. Not that anyone would be stupid enough to break in with Caius there, but it still made me uneasy that it had been like that all night.
Rather than my missing maintenance guy or the police, I pulled the door open on screeching hinges to find another Viking waiting for me. At least this one had a shirt on.
Maybe MNSTR had sent a replacement agent after all.
“Can I help you?”
He smiled, and I swear to the gods I heard a bell chime as the sunlight glinted off one of his canines.
“Rylee Burke?”
“Um, yes?”
“Lucius Finch.” He swept his golden hair back with one hand and shoved the other across the threshold toward me.
I took the offered hand before I could think better of it, then flinched back when his words finally caught up to my muddled brain. “Finch? You wouldn’t happen to be related to Caius Finch, would you?”
But I already knew. The family resemblance was undeniable.
