Chapter Fifteen

“I am impressed you’re eating something that did not come in a box with a toy inside,” Sebastian said, appearing in the opposite seat at my small kitchen table.

I took another forkful of eggs. “Despite what you think I am not completely helpless.”

He sang a few lines of “Helpless” from Hamilton.

“Been watching Disney Plus at Reggie’s?”

“Alan loves musicals. Are you helpless, Mina?”

I raised my eyebrow. “I believe I just told you I wasn’t.”

He rolled his eyes. “I was trying to be charming and clever while asking if you had a new crush. Since the song is about—you know what, I’m not explaining this again.”

“She should’ve just throat punched him and walked away. Saved me the second half of the musical.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s not how love works.”

I shrugged. “Thanks for the warning.”

He sighed, even though he didn’t need to breathe, and looked out the window for a long moment. It was the time of year when we had more blue sky than gray, and the leaves on the trees danced on the breeze. It was also so humid it’d be hard to breathe until the sun went down. “So, festival tonight?”

The Applechester Founders Festival always took place mid-July and was basically a cross between an art and Renaissance fair. Costumes, shows, booths, and an absolutely atrocious reenactment of the town’s founding.

I nodded. “You and Reggie coming with?”

“Wouldn’t miss it. Jake?”

I scrunched my nose. “No, he’s going with his family tomorrow night. He’s ‘powering down’ tonight.”

“Sounds marvelous.”

“What on earth do you have to power down about? You’re already dead. You don’t have a sympathetic nervous system.”

He gave me a penetrating stare. “Living with a woman is a vastly different experience than I anticipated.”

I finished my breakfast, then walked to the kitchen to drop my dish into the sink. “This is what you get for being a rake before you died. I’m your retribution.”

He made the sign of the cross. “I knew I should’ve gone to church.”

“Would they’ve let you in?”

“Probably not without a rather large donation.”

I leaned against the doorway. “What’s on your schedule today?”

“Extra patrol with the vampire outbreak and the demon threats.” He stretched and yawned. I reached out and put my finger in his mouth. He just closed it around me and crossed his arms. “You are not charming.”

“I am a treasure. You adore me.”

He just shook his head. “Go away. I’m exhausted from suffering your presence.”

“I’ll miss you, too.”

As I climbed in my truck, a memory of sitting between my parents on wooden benches watching one of the festival shows crept up on me. The Founders Festival was my mom’s favorite. She’d dress up like a wolf, which always annoyed my father, and we’d gorge on food truck snacks until we complained about stomachaches. Once Mom left, Dad took me a few times, but it had lost its magic.

It wasn’t until I let Jake drag me a few years ago that I learned to like it from a nostalgic point of view. I would always remember those carefree festival nights with my parents when I was just a kid who wasn’t afraid of anything and loved the idea that the town was founded by a werewolf.

Knowing I’d regret the decision, but still hopeful enough to try, I called my dad. As expected, he picked up by the second ring and announced himself by his last name.

“Hey, Dad, it’s me.” Like he didn’t have caller ID.

“Yep.”

“Tonight is the start of the Founders Festival…”

He grunted.

“And I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go with me?”

Silence.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I had expected. “I was just thinking about…going as a family.” Why was this so difficult?

“Mina…” He didn’t say no out loud, but I could hear it in his long pause.

“Was just an idea. Maybe next year?” I knew he wouldn’t come then, either.

It was like the only way he knew how to get over Mom was to just carve her out of his life and physically remove himself from any and all memories of her. Sometimes I wasn’t sure why I still lived here, except for the close proximity to work. There was something about being in the place you grew up. New generations of teenagers might sit out on the corner of the ice cream shop with pink hair instead of perms, and miniskirts instead of skorts, but it was still the place where Mom took me after dance class for a scoop of chocolate.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “Just figured I’d invite you along. I think I may go for a few hours. Spend ten dollars trying to win a two-dollar stuffed animal.”

It almost sounded like he chuckled, but that couldn’t be it. That would mean we were having an actual conversation. “Dressing up?”

My mouth fell open. He’d just asked me a non-work-related question. “Uh…hm. I may wear wolf ears?” I wasn’t really a costume type of person anymore, but it felt wrong to say no to his question.

“Good. Enjoy.” He hung up.

I just sat there and shook my head. Looked like I was going to need to find the wolf ears Jake bought me many years ago.

It was a well-known fact work always moved at a glacial pace when one was looking forward to doing something afterward. I swear eleven am dragged on for four hours. I opted to walk down to the Coney Island at the end of the block to grab lunch despite the humidity, just for a change of pace. I didn’t often take lunch away from my desk, afraid I would miss something important—or that Maggie’s workload would become sentient and swallow her whole—but today I made the exception. Mostly because I was going a little stir crazy.

I was halfway through the best grilled chicken salad I’d had in ages, while looking at the performance schedule for tonight, when someone slid into the booth opposite me. My head snapped up to find Carma smiling at me. How was she so good at being silent?

I set my phone down on the table and smiled. “Hey.” My chest warmed thinking about all the texts we had sent back and forth this week. It was one thing when we saw each other in the halls or going in and out of offices. When we were there, I could excuse our contact as “getting to know her so I could dig deeper” and “it’s all for the case.”

But here, with her sitting across from me on a random Friday? It felt like someone was holding up a mirror and reflecting back everything I ever said to her.

“Up for some company?”

I nodded. “What’re you doing here?” I flinched. That sounded a tad accusatory. “Not that I’m not happy to see you,” I rushed out.

She just smiled, sending a shock wave through me. God, how’d she do that? She tapped the portfolio on the table in front of her. “Trying to get some Thinner items on the menu. We want our members to be able to eat when they go out with their friends and family.”

“That’s a great idea.”

“Thanks. Rare to see you outside of the office. Did we make your chains too loose?”

I laughed. “Maggie left the key too close to my desk. Snuck out when she was in the bathroom.”

Carma tapped the side of her head. “Sneaky, sneaky. Well, your secret’s safe with me.” She nodded at my phone. “Did I interrupt something?”

I shook my head. “Nah. Just checking out the Applechester Founders Festival schedule for tonight.”

She rested her head in her hand. “Ah, yes. My be sties informed me they were taking me.”

I popped a piece of chicken into my mouth and chewed before I answered. “You ever been?”

“Nope.”

“It’s wild. Be prepared to realize how weird this place actually is.”

She tapped her mouth with a perfectly manicured nail that matched her pink lipstick. I couldn’t look away. “Will I see you there?”

“Hmm?” I shook my head and blinked, refocusing on her face. “Uh, I’m going with my roommate later, so maybe?” Roommate, Mina? How are you going to explain a ghost?

“Well then. Maybe I’ll see you there.”

I couldn’t tell if it was a promise or a warning, but my stomach did a somersault all the same.