“Oh! She’s a feisty one. Filled with the morning fireworks! A good man knocks the farts outta his lass in the morning with a stiff boning.”
And that’s when I screamed for the first time today.
Evan surged quickly near me, too quickly. Less human than he had been last night. Which I knew in my heart had really happened, but seeing Evan as a ghost in the harsh light of day was tough. I wanted to be hugged, and he couldn’t really accomplish that. Instead, his face was too close to mine as his arms encircled me in an embrace that held no comfort because I couldn’t feel it.
He whisper-talked in my ear, “That’s another ghost. He’s helping me.”
“There are other ghosts?”
The voice from the end of the bed gave a loud guffaw. “So ferking many ghosts that the planet is lousy with them! Aye, tell ya what, you’ve never pooped alone, if you know what I be sayin’.”
I turned my head so I could look at Evan’s face. “Did you have to fall off the cliff? If you had just kept your balance instead of trying to do the ice cream swirl, you’d still be here. All the way.”
I saw disappointment in his face. “You always love the swirl when you’re orgasming.”
“Well, you died. Is me getting the best O the priority?”
Evan and the ghost voice said, “Yes,” at the exact same time.
“Men. Even dead men.” I looked at my hands in my lap. “I have a list of things in my to-do box today. One of them is going back to the mountain to see if they can recover your body.”
“Aye, wench. You better hope they can’t reach his body, because if they get it, then his ghost is headed for the great horizon. And Morven wants you dead.”
I held my hands up toward the sound of the voice. “Is this the Grim Reaper?”
“No. This is Sharkbait McBeard. He’s a pirate. I was carjacked last night by two other ghosts. I like to think that their names are One-Eyed Brains and Neck Gash, or at least should be, but I’ll spare you the details.” Evan leaned back against our headboard and held. He didn’t go straight through.
“I think the details are right there in their names.” He was getting my frustration up, which had the side effect of getting my lady parts interested in his man parts.
I gazed around the bedroom and offered, “Thanks, Mr. McBeard, for saving Evan, I guess.”
“Anything I can do to help a healthy lassie like yourself. I’m going to go over to Lover’s Peak and see if I can keep yer body where it is.”
I felt a whoosh like an air-conditioner had flicked on and then watched Evan’s shoulders relax a bit. He and his goddamn shoulders.
“Are there any more ghosts here?” I squinted to see if I could make any out. It seemed pointless since Mr. McBeard had just been a voice, but I wanted to make sure we were alone.
“Not right now.” Evan was staring at me.
“What?”
The whole thing was unnerving. I was waiting to miss him. To cry over him. But he was right here with me like every morning.
“You want breakfast?”
I was hungry. “How are we going to manage that?”
Evan was an amazing cook. He would make me my favorite breakfast on mornings when we didn’t have work. And today was Saturday.
“I’ve learned a few things overnight.” He winked at me. I could still see the eyeball behind the lid while he did it.
“Okay, I can eat.” I flipped the covers off only me.
SHARK HAD INDEED left. I wanted to Google both him and Morven to see if I came up with any information that would help. Sammi was still in denial. I mean, she hadn’t cried yet. She was going to cry, right?
I tried to put myself in her shoes. I managed to crack the fridge enough to grab two eggs. The frying pan was harder, but I was starting to figure out that imagining the task you wanted to finish would expedite the process.
I got the burner on with two attempts.
As I went through the mundane act of cooking, I thought about the cops again. How they were afraid to approach her and were fascinated with her possible cannon pussy.
When I concentrated again, I was in the center of the police station holding my spatula.
I gasped, and then clamped my mouth shut, but no one reacted. Of course. I was a ghost. I was whooshing, or I had whooshed. Traveled like Shark.
“Pupperino case? Who’s on that today?”
My last name caught my attention. The three cops from yesterday were huddled together. All at once they held their hands up in front of their chests like they were cuddling a set of large boobs. I recognized that fake cup size and placement. They were thinking about Sammi. All three of them.
“Michigan will go up and toss another tarp on the bod,” the cop who had predominantly red ears yesterday offered up.
“I gotta couple of fresh ones in the trunk of my cruiser.”
All three were still mimicking Sammi’s boobs. A female cop walked by and smacked Michigan on the back of the head with a file folder. They all dropped their hands and mumbled sorry at her retreating form.
The captain ignored the whole scene and updated them, “Rescue said they would be out there at noon. But we all know how Lover’s Peak goes, so make sure the tarping is accurate.”
Michigan nodded once. “I’ll take Corbey and Kackley with me to check on the scene. But all evidence and accounts point to a very unfortunate accident.”
As soon as the captain disappeared and the female cop was gone, they all held their hands up like boobs again.
I thought of the actual boobs they were trying to imagine and wound up back in front of the oven looking at a naked from the waist up Sammi.
She was busy tossing flour onto the flaming pan of eggs. “You trying to kill me, too?”
She was furious.
All the blood in my body went rushing south. That was what happened whenever Sammi got pissed off, which honestly was often. And half the time I needled her just so we could angry screw. She tossed the frying pan onto the back burner where it sizzled and smoked and then she planted her hands on her hips.
“What in the actual hell, Evan? You can’t just disappear in the middle of making breakfast. Where did you go?” Her voice was rising, sort of like one of those alarms that got louder and louder. When she reached the crescendo we would always end up even more naked.
“Actually, since I’m a ghost, apparently I can just disappear in the middle of making breakfast.”
Her nostrils flared. My dick punched at the front of my ghost pants. She threw the spatula at me, but instead of connecting with my crotch, it went straight through me and hit the hall where it left a dent in the drywall. It joined a small army of other dents. Some guys had marks on their headboards, I had flaws in the drywall.
“I can’t even fight with you like this!” Sammi flailed her arms like a wonky windmill.
“I guess you’ll have to try harder.”
I imagined her running at me, which was exactly what she did, and instead of going through me, she collided with my half-opaque body. “What the…?”
I cupped her face in my palms. Two of my fingers disappeared into the side of her head for a second, but I was able to reposition them so they were in her hair, rather than inside her brain. Sammi tipped her head up, and I imagined the same scenario we’d repeated thousands of times over the years. Every time we fought it was the same dance.