Page 18 of Crazy Spooky Love

“This is the story that just keeps on giving, isn’t it?”

He’s leaning on the garden gate and is evidently more amused by the situation than I am; the only person even less pleased to see Fletch is Leo.

There’s never been any love lost between these two, they’re at opposite ends of the spectrum in pretty much any way you’d care to mention.

Leo has to be close to the top of Fletch’s “discredit before I die” list, right below the Bittersweet family, two generations of which are currently caught here on the lawns of Scarborough House in a compromising position.

He must feel like it’s his frigging birthday.

Gran blows an elegant plume of smoke into his camera lens when he tries to direct it her way, and he shakes his head.

“A pleasure as always, Paradise.”

She prickles at his use of her full name; it’s so rarely used that it feels like a reprimand, which of course is precisely his sarcastic intent.

“Nothing better to do than hang off my coattails, Gunn?” Leo’s eyes bore into Fletch.

“Cape,” Marina mutters beside me. Artie hovers on my other side, watching everything with wide eyes.

Fletch notes Leo’s attire, his eyebrows raised in amusement. “Who have you come as today, Dark? A cut-price Mr. Darcy for the morning TV crowd?”

Much as I can see the cause for comparison, I hate that between us we’re giving Fletch a story he’ll dine out on for weeks. My grandmother is in her dressing gown in the street, for God’s sake.

“I almost hesitate to ask what’s going on here,” he laughs.

“I mean, I can hazard a good guess. Bunch of fakers exposed whilst colluding to con the public into believing farcical ghost shite on live television. Blah blah blah. Is there more to the story or should I wrap it up and go for an early lunch?”

Gran takes a pointedly slow drag from her cigarette, every inch the star of her own film noir.

“Your gran is the only person alive who can still make smoking look sexy,” Marina says in open admiration.

“She’s had long enough to practice it,” I mutter, still sour with her for causing this entire debacle.

“I knew your grandmother, Fletcher Gunn,” my gran says, wafting her cigarette holder airily in his direction.

“Wonderful woman. Used to come and see me every other Friday after she lost your grandpa Ron.” She smiles a faraway smile.

“Now, he was a character. Not unlike you, actually, in looks at least.”

“Don’t bother, Dicey,” he laughs, even though he’s anything but amused. “Save your tea leaf reading for someone more gullible.”

Gran smiles benignly, completely unconcerned by Fletch’s rudeness. “I’m surprised you’re so scared of what you can’t see, given how forward-thinking she was, but then…you’re male.”

She’s getting under his skin; I see a muscle flickering in his cheek.

“Gran, you’re really not helping here. Go inside and put some clothes on at least?”

“I came like this, darling. I have my leotard on underneath. Quite a thrill for the taxi driver this morning, I should imagine.”

I hand Artie the keys to Babs. “Take Gran back to the van and wait for me?”

He nods and steps forward, glad to have a purpose. “Shall we, Mrs. B?”

I watch as he offers Gran his arm, which she accepts with a sniffy glance at Fletch.

“Thank you, Arthur, what beautiful manners you have. Chivalry is terribly underrated by the youth of today.”

She allows him to escort her away. I breathe a sigh of relief once she’s safely out of earshot. If only I could get rid of Fletcher Gunn so easily.

“I still think it might be better if we step inside,” I say to Leo, deliberately ignoring my least favorite reporter on the planet.

Leo shakes his head with a huff. “Why, so you can insist again that this wasn’t your doing?

Come on, Melody. We both know how jealous you are of my success.

I knew you felt threatened, but this is a step too far.

Dicey could have ruined my career. In fact she still might have.

It’s not you who has to go and explain to the production team what the fuck happened back there, is it? ”

As he speaks, the twins make their way down the garden path as if it’s a model’s runway. They glide to a halt a little way behind him. Fletch perks up considerably.

“Nikki and Vikki,” I say quietly to Marina, remembering their names.

“No fucking way,” she laughs under her breath.

Leo seems bolstered by the arrival of his troops.

“You know something, Melody? It doesn’t even matter whether you knew about Dicey’s stunt beforehand or not, because the fact is that it happened because of you and your stubborn insistence on poking around in my business.

You just declared war on live fucking television, and I hereby notify you of my intent to blast you and your ridiculous…

” he waves an arm in the general direction of Babs “ wagon right off the face of this goddamn planet!”

He jerks his head toward the twins, a signal for them to follow him as he stalks away. To be honest, I’m taken aback by the level of his vitriol and how willing he is to believe that I’d stoop so low. Maybe that sliver of my heart that is forever his just shrank a little.

Fletch throws the twins a wink as they walk past him. “Can I join your war cabinet, ladies? I promise to do exactly as I’m told.”

Leo swings back around just long enough to growl “Fuck off, Gunn,” before he yanks open his car door and ushers the twins inside.

Jesus, the testosterone coming off the pair of them is making the air so hazy, it’s like heat rising from melting concrete on the hottest day of summer.

Leo eyeballs me as he slides into the driver’s seat and mutters, “War,” then slams his door and screeches away from the curb.

If he could have made his tires smoke, he would have.

“He’s hardly Winston Churchill, is he?” Marina quips, as we watch him go. Her phone starts to play the Ghostbusters theme tune inside her bra and she excuses herself to take the call, shooting me an apologetic look as she walks away toward Babs.

“Just you and me then, Ghostbuster,” Fletch grins. “You still up for taking this inside and giving me an exclusive?”

“You should be so lucky,” I say snarkily, because I’ve just remembered what Marina said about him checking out my backside the last time he was here. There’s no way I’m letting him into Scarborough House again, to look at my bum or anything else.

“It wasn’t a come-on,” he assures me, laughing. “Unless you want it to be.”

“Do you have to flirt with everyone in a skirt? It makes you look seedy.” I load my comment with as much derision as is possible, because I’m annoyed by the ripple of interest skittering down my back at his words.

I know, I know. It’s just that he’s hot and I’m going through a dry spell.

I still hate him, even if my brain wants to register that his eyes are the color of forest moss today and that the way he rolls his shirtsleeves up his forearms is sexy.

He looks over his shoulder. “You talking to me or one of your imaginary friends again, Bittersweet?”

“You should go now. There’s nothing to see here and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I give you an exclusive.”

His eyes slide slowly over my The Good Place T-shirt. For the record, Eleanor Shellstrop is my heroine.

“Better buy yourself a decent coat, then, sweetheart.”

I watch him saunter off toward his car, parked a little way down from the house, and desperately want to sling an insult at him.

I can’t say anything derisory about his car, it’s a pretty cool, old, navy-blue Saab.

I mean, it’s not Babs cool, obviously, but it’s the kind of car that you’d be impressed by if a blind date turned up in it.

It says, “I’m different, I walk outside the lines.

” I can’t really pick holes in his dress sense either, seeing as he somehow pulls off looking like he’s stepped from a disheveled GQ shoot, and the lawn has only recently been vacated by my grandmother in pink spandex and her dressing gown.

He manages to make office dress look totally unrespectable, somehow, as if he’s always straddling the gap between work and sliding into the nearest dive bar to down a double vodka.

You know how some office guys wear cheap shirts you can see through and character ties that just aren’t funny?

Fletch is so not that guy. As I watch him leave I grudgingly acknowledge that his dark-charcoal shirt clings to him in all the right places, just enough to accentuate his shoulders and skim his biceps as he moves, and I can’t imagine he’s worn a tie since the day he left school.

I snarl with frustration as he slams his car door, feeling as if he’s got one over on me. Mostly because he has.

Climbing into the van a few minutes later, I throw Artie a grateful smile for clambering into the back and allowing Gran to take his seat beside Marina. Not that she’d have climbed into the back anyway, but like her, I appreciate his good manners.

I don’t speak until I’ve hurled Babs sharply around a few corners to get my pent-up aggression out.

“Nice work, Gran. Like, thanks a sodding million.”

She shrugs. “It was nothing, darling.”

“Oh, it was something, all right.” A thought occurs to me. “Did Mum know you were doing this?”

Gran’s expression is conflicted. “Not exactly. I thought she’d have vetoed it so I didn’t tell her. Shame really, she might have had more success with Lloyd than I did. He’s a prickly one.”

“Did they talk to you?” I can’t keep up my angry act when there’s a chance that Gran might have learned something useful from the Scarborough brothers.

She leans her head back against the scuffed seat with a sigh and closes her eyes. “There’s a saying that comes to mind here, darling, something about not teaching your grandma to suck eggs, if I’m not mistaken.”