Page 62 of Ghost Note

“Hey.”

His eyes raked over me, lingering around my chest before he cleared his throat and looked up again. “You look nice.”

“Do I?” I rubbed my hands over my stomach awkwardly. “I threw this on really. It’s hot, but I didn’t want to wear anything too fancy in case we were moving boxes and things, you know, so I—”

“Zee?”

“Hmm?” I blinked.

“I said you look nice. Accept the compliment without the rambling.”

“Oh-okay.” I nodded. “Thanks.”

“Want to come in?” He held the door open, and I made my way over to him, stumbling awkwardly when I tried to walk through only for him to block my passage with his arm.

Standing beside him, I looked up at his face slowly, feeling the old spark hiss and prickle between us. Danny’s soft smirk made me want to pounce on him—literally throw myself at his chest, hope like hell he caught me, and kiss him better than I’d kissed him in my stockroom the other morning.

The feelings of hate were weak, barely clinging on, no matter how many times I tried to remember all the times I’d cried, and just how hard it had been to move on once he’d gone.

Heat rushed to my cheeks, and I hitched in a breath.

“Please don’t make this awkward, Danny,” I whispered.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Zee,” he breathed before he pushed the door out of his hand and let me through.

Walking past him, I stepped into Florence’s home and was immediately greeted with the familiar smell of comfort. This wasn’t your typical bungalow. This was a grand home, flattened out over one floor. Florence and Albie had planned to spend their whole lives here from the very moment they’d laid eyes on it, even accounting for their older years when they wouldn’t be so good on the stairs. She once told me that the second she stepped through that front door, she’d known this place would be her forever, in much the same way she’d known Albie would be, the very second she’d seen him playing football with his friends, too.

Her home looked exactly the same as it always had, with plush cream carpets, soft greys and magnolia walls that were dotted with framed pictures of Tim, Amie, and Danny wherever you went. I knew I featured on some of them, too. Florence, at one point, had been family to me. She’d treated me like the granddaughter she never had, and a sudden wave of grief washed over me.

I pressed my hand to my chest and sucked in a breath.

“This place smells just like her,” I said, glancing around. “That air of vanilla and apple. Apple pie with cinnamon.”

“It’s like she’s still here,” Danny said, just as the front door closed behind him. “I keep expecting her to walk in from the kitchen with a plate of cookies or something.”

I looked up at him to see sad eyes as he, too, glanced around. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Kinda.”

“It’s okay to not be okay. You know that, right?”

He turned to me, holding my gaze for a few seconds before he nodded softly. “Yeah, I know.”

“I see you haven’t gotten any better with the whole allowing yourself to be vulnerable thing,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

“Really? I could have sworn you saw me holding back the tears at Atley House the other day.”

My lips parted to speak, but nothing came out.

He huffed out a small laugh and leaned closer. “I can be vulnerable, Zee, but you might not like what you see when I split my chest wide open in front of you, so be careful what you wish for.”

“Good job on not making this awkward, too,” I said quietly, unable to take my eyes off his lips.

Danny laughed properly then, stepping back and turning towards the kitchen. “My bad. Come on. Let’s stop pretending there’s no sexual tension between us and get to work before we both do something only you’ll regret.”

I stared at him as he walked away, his swagger strong and confident, while I stood there, mute.

An entire dictionary of words hung on the tip of my tongue, desperate to arrange themselves in some sort of order that would spout a shit load of denials right at him.

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