Page 141 of Love at First Fright

“Huh. Do you think he like… walked through ‘the door’ or ‘the light’ or something?”

“Maybe? To be honest, his is the only ghost I’ve ever seen, and the memories of it all are distorted by grief and time.” She sighed. “Probably just my imagination processing his death.”

“No!” I said. “I think it was real. That you really saw him.”

Bat reached over and gently brushed my cheek with his thumb. I’m crying. I hadn’t even realised. I reached for Bat’s hand, interlacing our fingers, the feel of his cold palm still somehow reassuring against mine.

“Charlie, I have to dash back to work,” Emily said softly. “But I’m bringing Lily down to London to see you super soon, okay? Maybe the weekend after next?”

“Thanks.” The word came out horribly rough, thick with emotion that refused to be swallowed.

“And Charlie? You can ring me anytime. I mean it. Anytime at all.”

She was worried now. I’d probably freaked her out with all the ghost talk and the random phone call. She’d be on the phone to Mum later, staging an intervention.

“Same goes for you,” I managed. “Love you.”

We said our goodbyes, and I hung up, staring at the phone screen for a moment.

“Are you okay?” Bat asked quietly.

“Yeah. Sorry.” I cleared my throat, wiping my face with my free hand. “It’s the witch’s fault. I mean, the non-witch.”

Bat’s eyes scanned my body, lingering on my ribs that got crushed when I fell to the ground. “Do you need to go to the hospital? It all looked properly vicious.”

“I’m fine,” I assured him, squeezing his hand. Then I had a mad compulsion to draw him closer. I wrapped my arm around his shoulders, pulling him against me. He nestled into my side immediately, his head coming to rest against my collarbone with a tiny noise of contentment that made my breath catch.

Bat stared down at my phone’s home screen. “You know, it still baffles me, these bloody things that everyone’s obsessed with. I swear that if I hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have got sucked into the craze.”

“I think we’ve moved beyond mobiles being a ‘craze’ now,” I said. “They’re practically human biology at this point.”

“Hmph. I just don’t know why you need all these buttons.”

“You mean apps? Well, they all do different things. Like listen to music, which you loved the other day.”

Bat’s finger hovered over the screen, then tapped on an icon—a stylised heart. “What does this one do?”

I laughed as the app loaded. “This, my friend, is a dating app.”

“Dating app?” He sounded horrified.

The screen flashed up immediately with a photo of a man’s chest. No face, just an impressive amount of muscle and his happy trail disappearing beneath low-slung jeans.

“Well, dating slash hookup app.”

“Ah. I’ve seen the workmen use similar,” Bat said, wrinkling his nose. “Shouting about swiping right on the woman with the biggest tits.”

“Well, this app is just for gay men.”

“So, we’re swiping for big dicks?”

I burst out laughing. “Well, they’re not supposed to show their cocks in their profile pics, but as soon as it goes to direct messages, the dick pics come flooding in.”

Bat started swiping left on every image that appeared, all mostly muscled gym rats. Wiltshire clearly was full of them. Maybe it came with the farming territory. “And these are the sort of guys you like?” Bat’s voice sounded funny, strained.

“Not really,” I said, chuckling. “I usually only swipe right for clothes and faces. Those guys tend to want more than a quick fuck.”

“And you use this thing all the time?” That same odd tone.