Page 15 of Ghost of a Chance

It had frightened her. Jasper with his sweetness and kisses was the balm for that. Comforting her in a way that she really didn’t want to unpack right now.

Her mom had been pretty clear that, if she was going to play at being a medium and talking to ghosts, she needed to keep things light. Inviting herself into their realm could awaken something unexpected. But her warning had fallen on deaf ears. In no way had Kirsty ever believed any of it was real.

Now she had this faint feeling that it might be.

She might have called a spirit forward… “What did Paul sound like?”

“Huh?”

Jasper gave her a funny look, his attention on Chewie who was inspecting something. She repeated the question.

She didn’t want to divulge that she’d heard a voice in that room. No one else had mentioned hearing anything, so it was probably in her head. And if it wasn’t, she didn’t want to reveal it before she understood who—or what—it was.

“Let me see. Can you hold Chewie’s lead? I think I have a video of us from before he died.”

She took the dog’s lead from him and bent down to pet Chewie, letting the dog nuzzle closer to her as she did so. Jasper was a lot like his dog: big and comforting.

“Here it is. But it’s just a voice note from him.”

She stood up and leaned over his arm as he hit play.

“Don’t forget I’m going to the lab tonight. If you get drunk Uber home. Later.”

Not the voice that she’d heard during the séance. Not even close. This one was lighter and there wasn’t a tone of warning. But then, his attitude might have changed after he died.

“When was that from?”

“The night he died,” Jasper said roughly. His voice was choked with emotion.

She didn’t have to be Eva Clare to figure out that Jasper was trying to keep from crying. The way he’d laid out the facts.

“Do you miss him?”

“I do. Usually…well, he’s so irritating that I have that as a shield to keep from admitting it to myself.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“I thought you said he died at your place.”

“Oops, I forgot about the lab. Sorry, guess I blocked it out. I just associated him with being at our place.”

“What lab?”

“The physics lab on campus,” he said.

Hearing he’d blocked out where his roommate had been the night he died made her want to dig deeper into the fight he’d mentioned they had.

Since the séance was a bust and so far Kirsty hadn’t felt anything supernatural around the book, she was going back to plan A which was to investigate this issue like it was a mystery. “Let’s go there and see if we can find out what he was working on when he died.”

“I’ll check and see when the lab is open as soon as we get back,” he said. As sunny as Jasper usually was, he sounded resigned. Maybe because of the toll this was taking on him.

Or maybe because there was more to the fight he had with Paul that fateful night.

“Anxious to get this over with?” she asked as they started walking back. She’d finished the last of her rum and Coke, as had Jasper. The alcohol left a light buzz behind.

“More than you know. It’s not like I didn’t love Paul, but it’s time for him to move on. I feel like I’m stuck in some sort of stasis.”

“Like when Han was in carbonite at the end of Empire Strikes Back ? We’ll figure this out,” she promised.

She wasn’t one to let go of something once she started it.

One way or another she was going to figure out why Paul was trapped in a textbook and help Jasper move on.

The possibility that it was Jasper’s guilt and unresolved emotions around his roommate’s death still felt the most plausible. Even with tonight’s oddities.

“Except I’m walking around and talking… I feel more like a hologram. Here but not really.” But they were back at the house and Gia was outside smoking weed, waving them over to her.

Jasper let Chewie into the house so the dog could get water and then head upstairs to his bed in Jasper’s room.

Kirsty was a little jealous.

“Do you think Dan captured any paranormal activity?” Jasper’s deep timbre brought her back to reality.

“He texted earlier that the curtains moved at one point, so I think that’s where the cool feeling came from,” Gia mentioned.

“That explains it,” Jasper said, his voice deflating. “I’m a bit disappointed. I mean, I wasn’t sure it would work. But still.”

“You should have said something, Jasper. If anyone has doubts it makes the spirits leery of showing up.”

She’d read that on the wiki. It resonated with her.

“I thought that was obvious.”

“How? You have a haunted book and brought it on live TV. Sounds like you believe in it to me.”

“Oh, well when you put it that way,” he said dryly.

“Most of the things I do are predicated on belief. So if you’re not into it, say so. It can have a big impact on the environment around me.” She was in this lie so deep that she was swimming now. If anyone was at fault for a lack of belief, it was her.

He nodded; his forehead creased in thought. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I’m just cranky. I should turn in. See you both tomorrow.” She left as they both were saying good-night.

From the beginning she’d known this was going to be hard. She had no way of freeing a ghost from a book. Of talking to the dead and bringing someone peace. That was more apparent than ever. Yet…

Two things haunted her as she made her way up the stairs. That voice warning her not to lie. And Jasper’s kiss.

It was going to be hard to keep her distance from him. Relationships weren’t really her thing. She didn’t trust anyone except her mom. Probably it was down to her dad abandoning them sprinkled with the few guys she’d dated in college.

No more kisses after dark. Tomorrow she’d be her most buttoned-up self. All business. She would solve this mystery whatever it was and get the fuck out of Vermont and away from Jasper Cotton.

* * *

Chewie lay across the bottom of Jasper’s bed, snoring. He should be sleeping himself, but he couldn’t get that last voice message from Paul out of his head. His phone pinged.

Night, Jaspy. Love you.

Goodnight Mom.?

They’d had a fight earlier that day about Jasper’s grades.

He’d been close to flunking two classes.

Focus had been hard to find while working with Paul to finish that sci-fi short story of his dad’s.

He hadn’t wanted to admit that he couldn’t do it.

It was the first time he hadn’t been able to do something his dad had done.

Paul also worried Jasper spent too much time at the frat house and not enough at the library.

Having flunked out of one college, Paul had been determined to make the most of his second chance at UVM. He was also a year older than Jasper. Like a big brother watching out for him.

But after a lifetime of being watched and helicopter parented by his mom, Jasper hadn’t been interested in that. Had started to choke on the chains of family. He didn’t need to be told by another person that he only had four years to figure out the rest of his life.

From his earliest memory his mom had been warning him to make the most of every day.

He tried.

Until Paul’s death.

Then everything shut down. He pulled himself back from experiencing new things, buckled down, got his degree, and then fell into the job with Bri. A real job. A grown-up job.

As he absently scrolled online, his phone started playing “No Such Thing” by John Mayer.

A song that he personally didn’t like, but it was on a playlist that his mom had made for him.

She was inspired by watching Guardians of the Galaxy and seeing videos online of a parent and son who exchanged playlists.

She got her best ideas from seeing what other parents did. She’d told him that more than once.

“Not tonight.”

The music shut off and he fell back sideways on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. No closer to finding answers now than he had been the day he worked up the courage to ask Kirsty for help.

Unbidden the memory of her face when “Batshit” had started to play…a little startled but then totally into it. He liked that nothing seemed to faze her. Guess that was par for the course when she could communicate with the dead—but not talk to them .

Laughing a little at the remembered firmness in her tone. Which he’d been reading as stress. God knew she had to feel the pressure of getting Paul to leave the book. No amount of kissing and hugging was going to make up for his part in that.

Still no regrets. If not for Paul then he wouldn’t have spent a rainy afternoon walking around town with her. He still wasn’t sure why he’d hadn’t suggested hanging out tonight.

“Because she asked you to give her space, you douche,” he said out loud.

Chewie snorted at him. After a few more minutes of tossing and turning, it became clear that sleep was not on the agenda, so Jasper got to his feet, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, forgoing a tee since he was hot and went down to the kitchen.

He’d dealt with insomnia in seventh grade, and his mom had him see a sleep therapist who advised him to leave the room entirely if he wasn’t sleeping. To only return when he was tired. Something about not associating the bed with restlessness.

Maybe one of the girls had brought Sleepytime tea. He started opening cabinets when he heard footsteps behind him and jumped, pivoting to see Kirsty standing at the entrance to the kitchen in a long black cardigan.

“Sorry.”

Fuck. His heart was still racing, and it was all he could do not to curse out loud and try to appear chill. Like she hadn’t genuinely scared him.

“It’s fine. Did you bring any Sleepytime tea?” he asked.

“I think Gia has some tea with valerian in it.” Her hair was down, hanging around her shoulders as she brushed past him toward the cupboard and found the tea.

“Want some?” he asked as he filled the kettle with water.

“Sure,” she said. “I don’t know if it’ll work. This place is…different.”

“It definitely is.” He hadn’t even considered that the house itself was part of the problem. Paul seemed real enough, but the idea of other hauntings unsettled him. “Too big for my tastes. I’m used to my apartment and its sounds.”

“And flickering lights,” she teased.

“Especially those. Even Paul feels a bit subdued here,” he mentioned. Other than earlier when the TV and the lights went off, he’d been pretty quiet.

“Probably realizes that you’re serious about getting rid of him this time,” she said. “Might scare him.”

“Can ghosts get scared?”

“Hey, if they’re our souls that are lingering for a reason, I’m pretty sure they can get scared.”

She had a point.

They both took their teas to the kitchen table, which had been moved back in after their earlier theatrics, and sat down.

He noticed she kept glancing at his naked chest, and he tried his damnedest to keep his eyes on her.

That sweetheart-shaped face with her thick black brows and big brown eyes that he could just sink into.

There was something young and innocent about her when she wasn’t wearing her dark eyeliner and lipstick. As if she was a different person entirely.

“Possibly,” he said, not wanting to talk about Paul. “What’s your biggest objection to hooking up with me again?”

Right now he needed her to give him something solid so he didn’t make a pass. They were becoming friends and he didn’t want to screw with that. Not tonight when for the first time in a really long time he didn’t feel unsure.

Her hand went to the top button of her sweater, unbuttoning it and then buttoning it again as if it would help make up her mind.

“Too in your face?”

She flushed and forced her gaze up to his face.

Their eyes met. He held his breath as a flash of longing and want appeared in her eyes.

The spark between them went both ways. He reached across the table and touched her hand, ran his finger along her knuckles.

Her skin was smooth and cool to the touch.

She opened her palm and then turned it over until the tips of her fingers brushed his.

Then she pulled back. “Like I said, I’m here as an author and my publisher wants results.” She started to say more, then shook her head, moving her gaze down to her tea mug.

Jasper just stared at those pretty brown eyes of hers. She really didn’t like to reveal anything about herself. That much was clear. It was a wonder that she’d come home with him after the concert.

It would be easier to have this conversation if she wasn’t so damned sexy. He couldn’t concentrate on anything right now. As mysterious and guarded as she was, he felt like he understood her.

“That’s just an excuse.” She sighed, worrying a strand of her hair between her fingers. “I don’t trust people.”

“Why not?” He had no trouble trusting people but honestly, that was easy for him because he expected nothing from them.

“I suck at relationships. I don’t want to sleep with you because one time I can write off, but more than that…things get complicated.”

“Maybe we can make up rules and build our own world, like your books,” he said. He’d do anything to hold her again. Sober this time. Feel her moving with him, exploring each other.

He wanted to cling to her to remind himself he wasn’t going through this alone. So yeah, he’d play by her rules. Let her set the tone or whatever she wanted.

It wasn’t like either of them was going to get a reprieve from the tension that flared between them.

“Like what?”