Page 66 of Hot Ghost Summer

I divert my pending orgasm into the electrical circuit of Theo’s flat, and the lightbulb in the hallway explodes.

Theo’s laugh rings out.

“I’m too…” he pants. “Cum drunk… t’ care that you… broke rule four.”

His forehead drops onto my shoulder. “Our truce didn’t even last a day.”

twenty-one

A Case Of Blue Balls

Theo

Why are we here?

Hollis's message vibrates through my hand.

I frown. I’d wanted him to walk beside me down the high street in his new form, but he wasn’t having any of it. “Because there’s something I want t’ show you.”

Despite being early in the morning, the glass doors of the rescue farm are already unlocked. With the hot weather making a return this late in September, Jayne’s been arriving earlier than usual so the animals can eat in the cool.

“Welcome t’ Bowen’s Farm Animal Rescue Centre.” I pan the phone slowly along the farm’s history board screwed into the red-brick wall.

“As you can see, this land used t’ be an ancient hunting forest. Back in the seventeenth century, the king was financially broke, and he sold it off in chunks. This stretch,” I tap the yellowed map. “Alongside the brook, has belonged t’ the Bowen family since.”

The Bowen family? Like in Bowen’s Plaza?

“One and the same,” I beam, flipping him round to show him the inside of the building. “This is the Old Dairy. It’s why the windows are so high and the roof looks like the inside o’ a boat.”

Moving along a bit, I turn him back to the board. “But this is what I really wanted t’ show you.”

I tap the screen to focus the lens on the blueprint above Jayne’s desk.

“This thick white outline is the original boundary o’ the Bowen’s Farm site. Down ’ere in the red circle, that’s where we are now, and if you follow the land north…” I move the camera across to the architect’s drawing of the completed Bowen’s Plaza development. “Is Plot Forty-Seven.”

Last night, when you described the entity as a ‘farmer-ghost,’ you were thinking of this connection?

When I said that, I’d mostly been frustrated he was controlling my orgasms again—not that I’d ever admit out loud how I like it—but it’d had merit. “Yeah, it was his boots.”

I walk us away from the history wall and into the little kitchen to flick on the kettle.

His boots?

I nod and stretch out my arm like we’re on a video call. “Yeah, so, my dad had a pair o’ farmer-dealer boots just like the ones the ghost was wearing. And his coat… a long wax jacket? Everyone I know back home wears ’em, because pretty much everyone’s a—”

Farm hand.

He finishes my sentence for me.

You can be very observant, Theo.

Blushing, I busy myself with selecting a cup from the rack by the sink. Praise from Hollis hits differently. He doesn’t offer empty platitudes. In fact, he’s more likely to blow the kettle up because I do something to offend him. Like putting the milk in the cup first… My gaze drifts to the small fridge.

Why didn’t this dairy get sold when the rest of the land did?

Hollis’s question reins me in.

“Oh, because it’s a listed building,” I offer with a one-shouldered shrug. “Why?”