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“She’s anti-marriage now and who can blame her? My son was a lousy husband, which really irks me. I didn’t raise him to neglect his family the way he has.”

If Mrs. Marner was hung up on marriage, Grandma Burke used every opportunity she could to complain about my dad, whowasbeing a jerk of late. Or always. But he was a fun dad, so I was always willing to forgive him, until he left Grandma—his own mother—alone on multiple occasions and my mother had to intervene.

Sensing an hour long rant about Dad on the horizon, I stood up quickly. “Let me go tell Jake real quick, then I’ll take you to class.”

As I opened the front door, Ryan was standing there, gesturing with a sweep of his arm.

“Welcome home, Bai.”

I jumped, not expecting to see him today. It was possible he might appear out of thin air at any time, but lately he’d been following Jake’s work schedule and only showing up when my boyfriend was at the office. Before he died, Ryan and Marner had been partners in homicide and great personal friends, so that wasn’t the issue. It was more that Ryan had a deathly fear—pun intended—of popping in when Jake and I might be, well,busy.

A fear I shared, frankly.

After Ryan had asked me for a breakdown of our usual times for getting frisky, it had gone too far. I had told in no uncertain terms it was none of his business.

Friendship only went so far and it didn’t involve kissing and telling.

So now, Ryan tried to stop by when Jake was at work.

“Hey, Ryan,” I said, easing between him and a stack of boxes. He might not have a physical being, but it would be rude to not respect his space. “What’s up?”

“What?” Jake asked, looking up from where he was on the floor, wrestling to twist on the legs on the couch that the movers had delivered earlier today. “Bailey, why are your hands empty?”

“Oh, shoot, I forgot my box on the porch,” I said, not regretting that fact at all. “And I’m talking to Ryan.”

Jake sighed but he did glance around and say, “Hey, man, what’s up?”

Jake couldn’t see or hear Ryan, but he did believe me—most of the time—that his ghost existed.

“Yo, Marner,” Ryan said, because he was dead and didn’t understand that no one should say “yo” anymore. “How’s it hanging?”

Or say ‘how’s it hanging.’

Then again, Ryan hadn’t even been dead for two years.

Maybe he’d always sounded like a caricature of a cop and I’d just never noticed.

“I need to take my grandmother to play practice,” I said to the room at large, meaning it for both of them.

Ryan’s response was a snort. “I will definitely be joining you for that production. Not.”

“We’re not done unloading the truck,” Jake said with a frown. “Can’t she skip tonight?”

“She needs the stimulation.”

“I need stimulation,” Ryan said. “Things have been so boring lately. No hot chicks in the afterlife, no assignments from the Office, no murders to solve.”

I ignored him because my boyfriend’s frown grew more pronounced. “I have to take this truck back tomorrow morning.”

“Am I actually of any benefit to you unloading a truck one tiny box at a time?” I asked, perfectly serious. “Can’t we phone a friend? What’s your brother doing?”

“His side piece,” Ryan said. “Last I heard.”

Again, I ignored the comedic ghost in the corner, who was surveying the labels on the boxes with a critical eye.

“He has softball practice.”

“Softball practice.” Ryan snorted again and made a lewd gesture that I wasn’t entirely sure the meaning of.