Chapter Sixteen

By the time I got home from work, the landscaping in front of our apartment building had been draped with twinkle lights, likely by the ghosts. They lived for the festival, figuratively speaking. A wooden silhouette of a woman slow dancing with a wolf stood on the lawn.

There were children running around in wolf costumes and glittery fairy wings, playing with fake swords and taking pictures. As with any supernatural festival theme, it had evolved into a summer Halloween, with festival goers wearing everything from superhero and princess costumes to wolf pelts and historically accurate fashion from 1819, the year Applechester was first established as a township.

When I’d walked into my apartment, I found Sebastian comforting a crying Reggie. With a sigh, I set my bag down. “What’s wrong, buddy?”

“I’m going to my first Founders Fest, and this is what I have to wear!” He stood, gesturing to his dark denim jeans, white T-shirt, and cardigan.

“You look like a model for an LL Bean catalog. What’s the problem?”

“¡Dios mío, that’s the problem, Mina! I’m stuck in these clothes for all eternity, or until I can figure out how to change them! At least Sebastian is wearing clothes from the right era!”

I glanced at Sebastian who was trying to keep a straight face. “I’m not historically accurate by at least half a century.”

“It’s better than a sweater and jeans in July!” he shot back.

Sebastian nodded. “True.”

I walked to the linen closet and pulled out an old white top sheet. “I’m willing to sacrifice this sheet if you want to go as a ghost.” Reggie just stared at me. “I’ll cut out two eye holes and everything. You can scare some of the humans if you can keep it on you long enough.”

I tossed the sheet over Reggie’s head and Sebastian laughed. The sheet floated over Reggie’s body for a moment before sinking to the floor. He muttered something in Spanish that sounded like “Uy tan fastidioso.”

“Love you, too.” I winked at him. “One day you’ll be able to touch and move things for longer. I’m told it takes a while. Unless you’re Sebastian, who’s just lazy.”

He shrugged. “I’m dead. Why do more work than I have to?”

Reggie just shook his head. “I need new friends.”

“The only people who’ll see you are the supernatural ones, most of whom can’t dress up either. You get to be special that way?” I mean it wasn’t much, but I was trying.

“Doesn’t count. But I know a way you can make it up to me.”

I flinched, knowing where this was headed. “You’re going to make me dress up, aren’t you?”

He smiled, and for the first time in my life, I was actually afraid of a ghost. “Sí.”

“Dammit.”

“You owe me so hard,” I whispered to Reggie as the three of us walked into the festival.

“You shouldn’t have things in your closet you don’t feel comfortable wearing,” he shot back.

“I wear it to sleep in!” I tried to tug my gray T-shirt dress lower than, say, my ass.

“You have shorts on. Stop being a prude.”

“I am NOT a prude! I just like wearing clothes in public.” I was definitely a jeans or long skirt kind of girl. I only had the tiny shorts because of an undercover mission at a bar a few years back. I had forgotten they were buried in the deep recesses of my closet until Reggie and Sebastian had unearthed them. Apparently, my gray shirt, tiny pair of shorts, and wolf ears constituted a costume to Reggie. Well, at least he’d stopped crying.

“Mina,” Sebastian said, giving me a once-over. “Stop fidgeting. You’re gorgeous. Your legs should be on display at the Tower of London.”

I stopped, looked over at him, and burst out laughing. “You’re ridiculous.”

He tipped his top hat at me.

“¡Hola Reggie! Hey Mina, Seb.”

We looked over to see Reggie’s brother, Alan, approaching. He wore a flannel shirt and jeans despite the heat, and Reggie looked positively aghast. “I told you to dress up! I left an outfit on your bed!”

Alan shrugged one shoulder. “This is more comfortable.”

Reggie spoke in rapid fire Spanish mixed with English, something about how family is supposed to be the most important, and how could Alan just ignore Reggie’s wishes since this was the first year Reggie couldn’t dress up?

Alan just smiled and crossed his arms, taking it all in stride. Finally, Alan said, “It’s my body, Reggie. I’ll dress it how I want.”

Reggie sighed but acquiesced. “You want to hang for a bit?”

Alan pointed toward the entrance with his thumb. “Lola’s meeting me at the gate. Want to join me?”

“I’ll wait until she’s out of her exorcism stage.”

“I promise, I’m telling her our best stories. She’ll come around,” Alan said, turning away from us. “Have fun tonight!”

“I can’t believe my own sobrina wants to exorcise me,” Reggie grumbled.

“I can’t believe I haven’t tried,” I teased back.

He rolled his eyes. “Come on, let’s go look at stuff you’ll never buy.”

We walked through the art stalls, pausing to admire paintings and bespoke furniture. Sebastian had not-so-subtly tried to convince me to buy at least four pieces, all of which were several hundred dollars. While I was a huge supporter of paying artists for their work, I would not pay four hundred for a coffee table and then feel good about putting my feet on it. Which, come to think of it, was probably his goal.

A group of ghosts from our building appeared in front of the vintage photo stand, where people could dress up as wolves or vaguely historical figures and overpay for sepia-colored social media pics. They were hooting and laughing, calling out how historically inaccurate some costumes were, or daring each other to run in and out of frame to see if they showed up on camera. Spoiler alert: they would just look like a lens flash.

I turned to Sebastian and Reggie. “You’re about to ditch me before we make it to the haunted walk, aren’t you?” It was more like a corny, high school production walk.

“We don’t do haunted walks,” Reggie said as Sebastian fixed his hair. “They’re scary”

“You’re ghosts!”

“Yes, but we’re not the scary kind,” Sebastian added, before gripping Reggie’s shoulders. “You don’t look a day over dead. Go get your man.” He spun him around and pushed him toward the group.

Reggie gave us the briefest wave and took off, sidling up to a man with shoulder length hair and a tight band T-shirt. The man smiled and leaned close to Reggie as they greeted each other. I couldn’t help but smile.

“Aw, Reggie’s got a ghost crush,” I mused.

Sebastian smiled. “He deserves to be happy, and Clint is a pretty cool dude.”

I nodded. “Clint has always been cool to me.” He wasn’t hard on the eyes, especially when he bit his lip and smiled, which he was definitely doing right now. I could practically see Reggie melt.

“You gonna go over there and flirt with a pretty girl? Or boy?”

He gave me a side eye. “I’m perfectly content cohabiting with a beautiful woman. I don’t desire any other complications.”

“You’ll never get to see my tits.”

He laughed. “Pity.”

“I’m perfectly content, also.”

“Hmmm.”

As if on cue, someone called my name. I looked up to find Carma walking toward me, dressed as the sexiest wolf I had ever seen. She had on a thin long sleeve shirt, tight dark gray leggings, and a hat with wolf ears. I could only stare as she got closer, her bright red lips burning into my brain.

“Ah. I see why Jake is worried,” Sebastian said under his breath.

I couldn’t form a response. I just…

And Carma…

“Good evening.” He disappeared, a strategic move. If he ever needed to be tapped in for this mission, it’d be better if he wasn’t connected with me.

Carma walked up to me and threw her arms around my shoulders in a quick hug, as if we were lifelong friends. My entire body clenched at her unexpected touch. Seeing coworkers outside of the confines of a workday always made people more casual, well people other than me, and I always found it weird.

I didn’t find it weird now, as I breathed her in and closed my arms around her waist for a brief moment before stepping back and clearing my throat. “Carma, hey! You look…” Ugh, what were words? “Incredible.”

She reached up and touched my ears, then smiled. “So do you.” She stepped back and laughed awkwardly, then looked around. “Who was that guy you were talking to? He had an amazing costume.”

I sucked in a breath. Carma could see ghosts? Well, that was pertinent. It meant she had supernatural genes. I just didn’t know if this was a newfound ability or something she had been born with, and I couldn’t very well ask her outright.

I forced myself to relax, look over at where Sebastian had been standing, then wave away her question. “My roommate, who’s big into theater. He must’ve seen something shiny. Or hot.”

She laughed. “So, you here by yourself?”

I scrunched my nose. “Looks like I am now. Both my friends took off.”

“Mine are running late.” She checked her cell. “Ah, later, even.”

“So, shall we…?” Why was I so awkward?

“Yes. Please.”

We moved toward the “haunted walk,” which was really a nearby bike trail draped with twinkle lights and a dozen Applechester community theater actors miming scenes from the town’s origin story. I had no idea why it was called a haunted walk. The only thing scary about it was the bad acting. And the garbage bags fashioned to be poor facsimiles of ghosts.

As we stood in line, Carma and I were nearly shoulder to shoulder, so close I could reach out and catch her hand with mine. Which I wouldn’t, because if she was here, I was on duty.

Except when her pinky hooked around mine, every thought left my head. Warmth spread up my arm and through my chest. My stomach dropped. I couldn’t take a full breath.

We were holding hands.

We couldn’t be.

Shouldn’t be.

Move your hand, Mina. Ignoring the logic center of my brain, my fingers threaded through hers, our palms pressing together. I swore there was a lightning charge in the infinitesimal space between.

This was exactly the opposite of everything I should be doing, but I couldn’t bring myself to let go. Not yet. In a minute.

I nodded toward the entrance. “Are you ready for a history lesson?”

“Absolutely. As long as you’re my teacher.”

I laughed as we fell in behind a group of high school kids giggling about something on their phones. “Oh, I’d be one hundred percent in trouble if I was a teacher and you were my student.”

“I’d never miss a class.”

I squeezed her hand and smiled. “This isn’t as good as the reenactment, but it’s definitely a solid pre-game.”

Her eyes widened as she mouthed the word reenactment.

I smirked. “This festival is a wild ride.” She squealed and tugged on my hand. God, she was adorable.

The trees still had all their leaves, and it wasn’t fully dark yet, but everyone just rolled with the campiness of the event. Even with all the people around, there was a calmness in being separated from the main crowd. Carma gasped and laughed at every turn, from the first display of a woman meeting a “scary werewolf” to the last one of them dancing under a full moon next to a sign that read “Welcome to Applechester.”

“So, a werewolf founded Applechester?” she asked, staring at the dancing wolf-human couple.

“If you believe in that sort of thing, yeah.”

Her gaze shifted to mine. “Do you?”

I didn’t look away when I answered. “Not sure if one really founded the town, but I do believe in a lot of things.”

“Including werewolves?”

I nodded once. She looked down at our hands, then pulled me off the trail and deeper into the woods. “Hey, watch for poison ivy. It’ll jump out at you.”

She rounded the trunk of a large tree, did a quick look at the ground, then pushed me against the bark. We weren’t completely invisible to passersby, but we were pretty well hidden. An addictive mix of euphoria and hopefulness filled my chest. The kind of feeling I used to get the last night of summer camp, or when I had graduated high school and thought anything was possible, or the moment just before I closed a big case. I had always associated it with an action, not a person. My subconscious tried to wave a red flag at me, but I staunchly ignored her.

Carma reached up and traced my lip with her fingertips. “It feels like I’ve known you for years.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Me, too. Every thought that wasn’t kissing her vanished from my head. She cradled my face in her palm, and I pushed my cheek against her smooth skin. I felt…cherished.

“What would you do if I told you I was a werewolf? Would you still let me kiss you?”

I blinked hard, trying to refocus. “What?” I tried to piece together what she was saying. She looked momentarily annoyed. “I’m sorry, it’s hard to concentrate when you’re touching me.”

“I mean, same.” She stepped closer to me. “If I was a werewolf, would you still let me kiss you?”

Werewolf, werewolf, werewolf.

“Mina.” The distress in her voice yanked me from my whirling thoughts. “You didn’t answer.”

I shook my head slightly to clear it, and somehow just jostled my brain-to-mouth filter loose. It was the only reasonable explanation for saying, “You’re asking me something really important, but all I can think about is how you smell like strawberries and the way you bite your lip and how being around you actually makes me happy, and I can’t remember the last time I was happy. I can’t risk getting involved with someone I work with, but I swear to God, if I don’t kiss you right now, I will die.”

Her hands moved across my shoulders, resting against the back of my neck. “Then kiss me.”

I couldn’t kiss her. I couldn’t ever go back once I crossed this line. I imagined pushing her away and walking home, going on with my life as if this moment never existed. Every cell in my body rebelled at the thought, my stomach twisting with regret. I shook my head, my eyes stinging. If I kissed her, I could lose everything. But if I didn’t kiss her, I knew I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

I licked my lips then moved my head up, my top lip brushing hers. I hovered there, waiting for my common sense to kick in. Waiting for Jake or Sebastian or even Reggie to come to my rescue. Waiting for lightning to strike me dead so I wouldn’t have to make this choice.

Carma’s fingers stroked the back of my neck, and the entire world fell away. My heart moved sideways then fell to ground, through the earth, and there was no more choice. I pressed my lips against hers.

We both sucked in breath through our noses, as if we hadn’t been able to breathe until we were connected like this. I pulled back and kissed her again, then a third time, sucking her bottom lip between mine. She was so soft, so warm. It was like lying in a strawberry field on a cloudless day.

Her tongue brushed my top lip, and I opened my mouth, deepening the kiss. As our tongues slid together, she moaned and wrapped her arms tighter around my neck. My hands slid from her hips up to the middle of her back, her breasts pressing into mine. This kiss was better than anything I had imagined. It was better than any kiss I’d ever had.

It was as if I was a sparkler and her kiss was a match. I was going to explode into beautiful fire. I nipped at her bottom lip, and my knees nearly gave out when she returned the favor.

I forgot we were in public and was about to move my mouth to her neck when a woman calling her name broke through the haze. I pulled back, looking around for the offending party. These people clearly didn’t know I carried a gun. To be fair, it had silver-tipped wooden bullets that were dipped in holy water, which would just mildly injure a human. My targets tended to be supernatural creatures who had lost control.

Carma blinked a few times, disoriented. “What…?”

“You have a visitor.”