Page 69 of Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places
“I stay where I am and calleveryonefor help.”
“Good.” He clipped a white tag to the front of Rebel’s shirt—her tracker. They all had one. It pulsed red at steady intervals. “You know I’m proud of you, right?”
Rebel nodded and lunged at him, trapping him in a bear hug. “This is the best day ever.”
“You always say that.”
“I mean it this time.” Rebel grabbed Georgia’s hand as they walked away. “I love you, Dad! Thank you!”
“Love you too!”
Lucky’s phone buzzed in her pocket—the unknown caller never slept, giving weight to the automated marketing calls theory. “Maverick, I need a favor.”
“Anything.” She had his complete attention.
“I know we have to do this, and I’m going to, but you might have to calm me down first.”
“What do you need?”
She took a deep breath to center herself. “On the one hand, I am absolutelybuzzingright now. This isincredible. The collective energy of human belief coalesced and manifested this entity. I need to be here. Hennessee House is fantastic, but this is the work I’ve wanted to do since I was a teenager. This is my dream—investigating humans and our brains and the phenomena we create and the things we can do.”
“I wish you could see the way you look right now,” Maverick said, smiling.
“But on the other hand…it’s ghosts. The legend is based around the idea of ghosts haunting the park. If the community believes it’s ghosts, who’s to say the entity won’t have the same composition and functionality as one? Hell, I’m a believer and believing is half the battle. They already got my ass.”
Maverick held her face in his hands and spoke calmly. “You’re going to be fine. The legend is clear: the entity is rarely seen because it stays behind the couples and in their peripheral. It has rules to follow too.”
He was right. That made sense. As long as they all followed the rules, they’d be safe. Except. “If it decides to haunt us, you gotta keep me steady.” She pressed her lips together because she didn’t want to say the next part, but he needed to know what he might be up against. In her tiniest, hushed voice she confessed, “I might try to talk to it. I’m sorry!”
“I already know,” he said with the patience of a saint. “That’swhy we need to go into this with the right state of mind. Both thinking the same thing, on the same page.”
“Which is?”
He grinned. “How amazing our first date is about to be.”
Realization suddenly clicked into place. “Maverick, I’m so stressed right now. Don’t do this to me.” But she was smiling.
“Afraid I’m gonna have to.”
“I can’t. We can’t.” But she was seconds away from giggling.
“It’s already happening. Our walk awaits.”
She narrowed her eyes as he took her hand. “You planned this, didn’t you?”
“Mmm, I plead the fifth on that,” he said as they took their first steps together. “But hypothetically speaking, if I had, would I have been right in assuming this would make you happy?”
Never in her wildest dreams did she think she’d find someone willing to test a supernatural urban legend in an amusement park as a first date, at midnight no less. Be still her heart because Maverick had hers sprung and soaring.
“Yes.” Lucky beamed. “Minus the ghostly potential, but yes. Very happy.”
He pulled a single-stem white rose out of his jacket pocket and presented it to her. “I didn’t know what kind of flowers you like.”
“I—”
“Don’t tell me. I have a plan for that. Tonight, I picked that one because allegedly the park security cameras have recorded the entity before. It appears as a large, heart-shaped white cloud.”
“That’s so precious.” Lucky laughed, shaking her head. “I love it—I love that you thought of this.” The best mixture offantastical and cheesy—and just for her. She held it to her nose and breathed in. “No one’s ever given me flowers before. Thank you. Your only competition is a house.”
