Page 29 of Grave Expectations

“I don’t want to incon⁠—”

“Oh, hush. My aunt has her own trauma, she doesn’t need to put that on me. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the town hates me,” she started.

“They don’t hate you.”

“No, it’s worse, they’re afraid of me. And not in a respect way, in a…bad way. You’re the first person that’s gotten this close to me, and I like it. I like it a lot. I just can’t bear the thought of keeping you from your peace, and I’d never ask that of you.”

Alaric cupped her chin, his thumb moving across her cheek where a lone tear slid down her face. Now she was crying and it was his fault. He really should have planned this better, had a speech, waited another few days. Anything other than this awkward confession.

“If I’d not met you, then yes, that’s what I would want. But you’ve given me life after years of death, and I have found that I very much want to be around you. Not just because you’re the only one I can speak to, but for your heart. Even now, your worry is for my happiness, with no consideration for your own.”

“So you wouldn’t be staying out of a sense of duty?” Rosalin asked, her voice quiet.

“Duty? Duty to what?”

“Because I brought you out of that purgatory. Because I may be able to set you free. You’re not sticking around because you think you owe me, right?”

“I am eternally grateful, but I do not feel as if I owe you,” he said.

“And if you stayed, what would you do?”

“Well,” he considered. “I should wish to court you.”

“Court me?”

“Dating, I suppose. I’d like to take you on dates. I understand the limitations, given that no one else can see me. But I’d like to spend time with you, for you to know me as I know you.”

Rosalin was quiet for a long moment, her gaze still eternally searching his. “And if dating doesn’t pan out? If either of us decides we want something else…then what?”

“I suppose it depends,” he admitted. He’d not thought beyond spending time with Rosalin. It seemed like such an unfair ask, he hadn’t considered what else he might do—just that if she didn’t want him around, he’d cross to the other side. What was the point of haunting Pumpkin Hollow for another three hundred years?

Wait for another necromancer to bleed on him?

“On what?”

“If I am still able to touch and move things,” he decided. “I’d rather like to haunt some place. Maybe play some tricks on the townsfolk. They’ve far too kind an opinion of me, I feel I must remedy it.”

“Be serious,” she said, though her lips turned up in the start of a smile.

“The unknown is…exciting,” he admitted. “For centuries, I’ve not been able to make my own plans. And now I have a choice, and if you’ll allow me, I’d like to choose you.”

“Oh.” The word was a soft puff of air.

“Do not answer so quickly,” Alaric said, suddenly nervous. It occurred to him that she might agree with her aunts, that she might reject him. She was too kind to be cruel about it, but it would sting, nonetheless.

“It’s…a lot,” Rosalin admitted.

“It is. Let’s take things one step at a time, then.”

“Right,” she agreed. “The curse.”

“Well, cinnamon rolls,” Alaric said, nodding to the bag in her hand. “Then the curse.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Cinnamon rolls were the perfect fix for Roz’s previously sour mood. Well, cinnamon rolls, getting eaten out in a bakery, and getting asked out by a ghost. That’s basically what Alaric proposed, wasn’t it? That they break the curse so he might have some freedom, and then he would date her. To anyone else, it was ridiculous. But Roz spent most of her time alone anyway, so it didn’t matter if no one could see her boyfriend.

Boyfriend. Is that what he was? She hadn’t answered him, mostly because she was so overwhelmed by the offer. Of course he’d wanted to sleep with her, she was the first person he could touch in three hundred years. He was still a man, dead or otherwise.