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“This is interesting.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Yeah?”

I paused.

I was talking to a ghost in front of a bunch of others, which usually would be social suicide for me, but since this whole evening had taken a weird turn of events, I cleared my throat and moved closer to the wall. “Do you haunt here or the place next door?”

He continued to stare at me. His eyebrows were all the way up. He lifted the cigarette back to his mouth and took a drag.

Most of the ghosts I knew didn’t do that sort of thing. They were there, staring or walking around. Conversing, if they could. They didn’t have habits like smoking.

A wicked grin tugged at the side of his mouth as his eyes shifted beyond me.

There was a crackle of gravel under someone’s shoes. The main guy who’d been hyped for the ghost hunting experience moved closer, and he cleared his throat, lowering his head. “Uh. What are you doing?”

“I’m pretending to talk to a ghost.”

“Ah! Got it.” He frowned. “Why?”

I gestured to the others behind him. “To enrich the ‘ghost hunting’ experience.”

He grinned. “That’s awesome. You’re awesome.”

“I think you’re awesome.”

“We’re awesome.” He motioned between us, saying to the others behind, “We’re both awesome.”

“Watch it, Nimrod. She's claimed already,” a guy shouted from the back.

Nimrod laughed, raising his hands. “Hands are off.”

I scowled. “Don’t be a dick.”

The group quieted.

The guy who had shouted lifted up a hand. “Like in general or is that more of a direct thing from you to me? Specifically.”

“Specifically you.” I motioned beside me. “You called him Nimrod.”

His face relaxed. He started laughing. Everyone did.

The guy chuckled too, giving me a warm smile. “It’s not an insult. It’s my name.”

“Your name is Nimrod?”

One of the girls laughed. “You’re not that popular, Josh. She doesn’t even know your name.”

Ignoring her, he held his hand out to me. “Josh Nimrod.”

I shook his hand. “It feels wrong to be shaking on that last name.” I cringed. “No offense to you or all the Nimrods in the world. Now that I know it’s a last name.”

He waved that off. “None taken. There’s a bunch of us. There’s even a town called Nimrod in Minnesota. We get together there sometimes as a joke.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. There’s a whole social media event about it.” He displayed his big meaty hand in the air. “To all the Nimrods out there. You can’t imagine some of the people that show up. When they realize it’s an actual thing because that’s our last name, they either join us in celebrating or they get pissed.” He shrugged. “Big bulky football genes tend to run in the family somewhere so most of us don’t care.”

The guy in the back snorted. “No one would dare mess with our Joshy.”