Page 57 of Hot Ghost Summer

Leaning against the doorjamb for a minute, I admire the view. He has excellent posture, back all straight and proper with long, lean legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. One hand confidently commands the keyboard while the other rests at ease on the table beside him. I’m pretty sure he knows I’m here, but he doesn’t turn to greet me; those lucent polar-white eyes remain fixed on his screen despite the fractured lenses of his glasses.

I remember how he looked at me with that same intensity when he ground me into the mattress last night, and a shudder that starts in my toes propels me toward him.

“Morning,” I sing-song. “Fancy seeing you ’ere.”

My hand naturally gravitates to his shoulder, but instead of the friendly squeeze I was aiming for, my fingers sink right through him. A frown wrinkles my nose. He’d been solid enough when we… And definitely strong enough that he… So why…?

“I was thinking about what you said yesterday,” he begins, eyes still on the screen in front of him. “About you helping me resolve some things.”

“Oh yeah?” I ask, pulling the other chair closer to sit beside him. Still, he doesn’t so much as glance at me.

“I think it’s a good idea,” he adds, and my smile splits my face. “But we need to establish some ground rules.”

I scoff, lean back in my chair and fold my arms.

Above the rim of his glasses, I note the arch of his eyebrow, but he still he won’t look at me. “I am your superior, after all.”

Ignoring that, I turn my attention to the screen that captivates him so, and notice that he has the email chain between the land development company and ExorSquad open.

We had the best sex of my life last night. I literally just washed his dried spunk out of my pubes, and he thinks he can pretend like we never happened? I don’t think so. “Mhm. Like what?”

“Some will be behavioural protocols: things I’ll expect from you when we’re on the clock. Others will be more accountability based: things you’ll do—and not do—when we’re off the clock that might jeopardise the job.”

He presses more keys, and a new blank screen appears, which he titles “Theo’s Rules.”

“Oh, goodie.” I rub my hands together in sarcastic glee. “Do be specific—I live for the details.”

Finally, he looks at me. His gaze rakes over my semi-naked body, then he shuffles in his seat and clears his throat. “This is serious, Theo. Last night you invited a wraith in here, and days before that—”

“I invited a what?” I interrupt.

“A wraith.” Hollis navigates from his empty list of rules to his app, still using keyboard shortcuts and not the trackpad, I note. He highlights the sentence about them draining their victims dry and leaving them as nothing more than a shrivelled husk.

I pull a face. “That… was in ’ere?”

He switches back to his list of rules. I hate it already.

Then he types.

Rule One: Theo will spend this morning familiarising himself with all the entries in the Nachtmann Field Guide to Ghosts and Ghouls.

The cursor pauses, flashing rhythmically before he adds,

There will be a test.

I groan and tilt my face up to the ceiling. I hate tests. “What’s my reward?”

“Getting to beta test my app,” he deadpans.

Dissatisfied, I offer him my best scowl.

Hollis moves the cursor to a new line, and the words “Rule Two” appear.

This is not how I’d imagined our morning after the night before going. Can’t we just skip this bit and go straight back to him throwing me around the bedroom?

“The first thing we need to do is revisit the worksite—”

“Are you sure?” I blurt, leaning forward in the chair.