“How did you manage to go ghost all the way? Where are the solid parts of you?”
“They’re still there. I’m just using the non-solid parts to kind of cloak them.”
“Right,” I said, still not completely understanding, but realizing I probably never would unless I spent all my time without a body.
I didn’t have time to think about it anyway. I had an office to search.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Addict - to occupy (oneself) with or involve (oneself) in something habitually or compulsively.”
Frankie
I had come to the conclusion that I was an addict. It didn’t matter how many times I told myself to stop thinking about him, I couldn’t. My emotions were wide open, ranging from flat-out wanting to kick him all the way to daydreaming about the way he kissed.
I went from scheming up ways to get out of the situation I found myself in, which was between him and Rosalyn, to lecturing myself about getting involved in the first place, and then it seemed I always circled back to the way it felt to be in his arms.
Up until last night, I was determined to stay away from him. I made up my mind. He was no good for me and he was driving me insane. But then he showed up on my doorstep, looking wounded. His pathetic attempt at talking was… well, it was pathetic.
Yet also endearing.
Endearing because he’d been genuinely shaken and that seemed to confuse him. It’s like he had no idea what to do or where to go and somehow he ended up at my door. I could see him try—try to express what he was thinking, what was going on, but he couldn’t.
Just like I couldn’t come clean to Rosalyn at lunch.
It’s like he and I were stuck on a carousel—destined to go round and round but never actually getting anywhere.
I could vow to myself that I wouldn’t see him again, that I was just going to wash my hands of the situation. But I wasn’t going to do that. Because I wasn’t a liar and if I said that, I would be lying to myself.
I blew out a breath. I needed a break. A brain break. I needed to stop thinking and stop worrying. I needed my best friend.
I was likely in hot water with her too. Because like any good addict would tell you, addicts pushed away the people who cared about them. Addicts isolated themselves so they only had one thing in their life and that was whatever they were addicted to.
I needed a twelve-step program.
No. That was too much work.
I settled for Chinese food instead. There wasn’t anything some good Chinese food couldn’t fix.
I called and placed an order for too much, making sure I got plenty of the vegetable lo mein Piper liked so much. I knew she would be home. It was Sunday night and the diner she worked at closed early.
When I knocked on her door with food and movies in hand, I actually felt a little nervous. I wondered if she would be upset with me for the way I’d been acting. I wasn’t being a very good friend. I practically fell off the face of the earth and ignored a lot of her texts and calls. When I did answer, the replies were short and not at all the way they used to be.
She seemed a little surprised when she opened the door, but she smiled. “I’m starving!” she said, eyeing the bag in my arms.
“I got your favorite,” I sang, going inside.
“I’ll get some plates!” She dashed into the kitchen and rattled around and returned in record time with everything we needed to stuff our faces.
“You must really be hungry.”
“I really am,” she said, reaching into the bag. “But I also want to hang with you. Long time no see.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Work’s been busy.” It wasn’t a lie. Work’s always busy. It just wasn’t the reason I hadn’t been around.
“Oh? I thought maybe there was a new man in your life.”
I choked on the soda she’d given me when she came out of the kitchen. “A man?” I croaked.
She nodded, dumping a pile of lo mein onto her plate. Then she reached into the bag and pulled out the crab rangoon and added a few of those onto her plate as well.
“Nope, no man in my life worth talking about.” Again, that wasn’t really a lie. Charming wasn’t worth talking about. I was trying to have a break from thinking about him anyway.
“Are you sure?” Piper said, pinning me with a stare. “Is everything okay with you?”
“Yep. Everything’s fine. I just figured we were overdue for some girl time.”
She didn’t really seem convinced, but she let it go.
“So I brought us a movie.” I put down my plate and reached into my bag. “It’s about zombies.”
“Warm Bodies?”
I nodded. “Any movie that combines brain eating with romance is a must see.”
She laughed. “That’s gross.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Piper,” I said seriously, “but if I was a zombie, I would totally eat your brains.”
“Of course you would. My brains are delicious.”
“So what do you think? Should we watch and see how a zombie falls in love?”
“Let’s do it.”
We popped in the movie and settled back to watch it, chowing down on our food. I felt a little guilty because I had ulterior motives for choosing this movie. I wasn’t interested so much in how a zombie fell in love but rather how a girl could fall in love with a zombie. Zombies were killers.
Like Charming.
Except Charming didn’t eat brains (thank God).
Charming told me he wasn’t really living. Zombies were dead.
Maybe if I could somehow see how a girl could love a zombie, I would be able to figure out why I couldn’t get Charming out of my mind. I could understand why I didn’t run screaming in the other direction.
Because really, the only direction I seemed to be going was toward him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Booby trap - an explosive device designed to be triggered when an unsuspecting victim touches or disturbs a seemingly harmless object.”
Charming
The tricky thing about searching someone’s personal space was making it appear it hadn’t been searched at all. Just the slightest disturbance of something that seemed like it would go unnoticed is the one thing that could cause everything to blow up in my face.
“Look over there,” I said in hushed tones, pointing to the bookcases across the room from the desk.
We searched in silence, not wanting to alert any of the staff that might be in the house. It was amazing to me that the Grim Reaper was able to employ so many people and never get caught. If I were him, I would want all the privacy I could get. Hell, I wasn’t him and I still wanted that.