Page 106 of Love at First Fright

Bat blinked. “I am?” He sounded genuinely surprised. Like the concept really confused him.

“You are,” I confirmed, putting enough conviction behind the words for my sad emo ghost to believe them.

Bat’s lips curved into a smile.

A real one. Not the teasing smirk he’d worn earlier, or the polite expression he’d used when introducing me to the other ghosts. This smile reached his eyes, crinkling the corners, lighting up his whole face. Bat’s hands tightened around mine. Cold, long, callused fingers built for crafting beautiful music, unfairly wasted on death. The garden’s light pulsed brighter, reflecting in his eyes, sparkling, dancing, dazzling.

“Charlie,” he said softly.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Thump, thump, thump. My heart kicked against my ribcage like the opening beat of a song I’d forgotten I loved.

He stepped closer. Just half a step, but all at once, the space between us felt charged. Electric. The windchime’s haunting melody became distant static.

Bat’s gaze dropped to my mouth.

Heat flooded through me despite the cool evening breeze, despite the chill of Bat’s touch. My pulse hammered in my throat, my wrists, everywhere. Every point where our skin connected felt like fire and ice simultaneously.

He was going to kiss me.

The thought crashed through my mind with absolute certainty. A ghost was going to kiss me. I was standing in a haunted garden lit by spectral flowers, about to be kissed by a dead man.

This was insane.

I didn’t move.

One of Bat’s hands lifted slowly, hesitantly, to cup my jaw. His thumb brushed across my cheek. A shiver trilled through me.

He leaned in.

Time stretched. Contracted. The garden held its breath.

Then Bat’s cold lips pressed against mine.

Soft. Impossibly soft for someone dead. I gasped against his mouth—I couldn’t help it—and instantly the kiss deepened. Bat’s tongue swept past my parted lips, cold and demanding. His hand slid from my jaw into my hair, fingers tangling in the curls. His other hand released mine to grip my waist, pulling me closer.

Cold. He was so cold. But his mouth moved against mine with desperate heat. His lips parted my own, tongue sliding against mine with an urgency that made my knees weak, like he was starving for this. For touch. For connection. For something after decades of nothing.

My hands found his shoulders, his neck, threading into his long dark hair. Thick, soft, real. This ghost was real under my fingertips, as tangible as any living person I’d ever touched.

Bat made a sound—half gasp, half moan—and pressed closer. The garden blazed brighter around us, flowers erupting in wild cascades of light.

Then…

He vanished.

One moment he was there, holding and kissing me like his afterlife depended on it.

The next, nothing.

My hands clutched empty air. The garden plunged into darkness, all the spirit plants winked out of existence. Just dead hedges and bare trees and earth stretching away into shadows.

I stood alone by the pond, lips still tingling, heart racing.

“Bat?”

Silence. Even the windchimes had gone quiet. Traitors.

“Bat?” I called again, louder this time.