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“So, you still like Maxwell coffee, huh?” Jamie asked, appearing next to me—out of fucking nowhere—and standing by the counter mid-coffee-goddamn-pour.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” I jumped back, spilling the coffee all over in the process. I hopped back a step and held up the carafe as a shield. “Get back, you!”
“Uh… what?” Holly asked.
Jamie raised an eyebrow, a smirk over his face. Today, though his body retained the shimmery light around his outline, he appeared more solid and less of a dream.
“You? Now… that’s a new one.” Jamie rubbed his chin as he grinned, arms crossed over his chest. “I’ve never been calledyoubefore.”
“Are you okay?” Holly asked from behind me, voice full of alarm.
“Oh! I’m just peachy!” I lowered the carafe to my abdomen, pressed against my shirt in defense mode. The heat from the container burned, but I didn’t even care. I froze in place. “It was… a… uh… bug.” I kept my gaze on Jamie who started cracking up.
“A bug, huh?” His smile reached from ear to ear.
“A bug?” Holly’s innocent voice chirped. She hopped off the cardboard box and walked around the kitchen, circling the island in front of me. “Let me see if I can catch him for you.”
As she stepped around the island for the second time, Jamie held out a sign—in the style ofLove Actually—which glowed the same way he did. The letters were big and bold and read: “I’m not going anywhere…”
Jamie flipped a “ghost” card.
The next one read: “Until I save you.”
I rolled my eyes and glanced around him. “Do you see the bug?” I asked Holly.
“Nope. Nothing over here. Must’ve been a huge one though!” Holly walked right through Jamie as she passed me, making her way back to the cardboard box where she sat. “Thanks again for the coffee! Sorry to put you out of your way. Bugs and all.”
I narrowed my eyes at Jamie and mouthed: “I’ll deal with you later.” Before putting a finger to my lips. He shrugged his shoulders and threw the sign behind him. As he tossed the damn thing, it vanished, little pieces of glowing paper shredding into the air and fading away like they never existed in the first place.
What the fuck was happening to me.
“You can see spirits,” Jamie said. “Okay, okay. Technically, you can see one spirit. And that would be me.” He pointed his thumb toward his chest and grinned, clearly amused with himself.
“I wasn’t asking you!” I cried.
“What?” Holly asked.
“Nothing.” I pressed my lips together and turned away from Jamie, casting him away from my sight. “Sorry… rough morning.”
Avoiding eye contact with thespiritin my midst, I poured Holly a fresh cup of coffee and walked it over to her.
“Thanks,” Holly said, brows crinkled. She took the cup from me and lifted from her seat. “Y’know… I probably should let you get back to what you were doing. I showed up out of the blue, and I’m probably taking up your writing time or something. Anyway, will we see you next Sunday?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, you’ll see me,” I said, too tired to say something nice. You know, that thing people did when they said someone wasn’t imposing when they really were in fact imposing.
“Okay, well, cool,” Holly said. “I’m just going to take the coffee to go then.”
After she left, I leaned against the inside of the front door, sinking down until my ass hit the floor. Once again, as I peered around, I noticed no signs of Jamie.
So, he was the ghost who kept on ghosting me. Always showing up at the worst of times.
God fucking help me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sixteen Years Before
Crisp, weightless flakes of snow landed against my tongue, pricking my mouth like a thin sheet of ice. Friction met my arms as I slid them back against the thick white surrounding my body on the snowy bank, paving with my limbs to make a snow angel. From above, a thick ivory sky enveloped my every being, and I welcomed becoming a part of it all and disappearing into nothingness.
