Page 23 of Ghosted (The Ravenwood #1)

TWENTY

“Is it possible for your stomach to actually eat itself from nerves?” I ask Wren, slipping one of her hoops into my earlobe.

She brought them to the store for me, swearing they were good luck.

The last time she wore them, she won twenty bucks off a scratcher a customer gave her as a tip.

And the time before that, she was the thousandth customer at the bakery down the street and got a month’s worth of free pastries.

She says her hoops will give me some good luck with my first few readings tonight. Wren can be sweet sometimes; it’s just always buried beneath miles of sarcasm. The first appointment called and cancelled, so I have a little more time to get ready. Which, to be honest, feels lucky to me.

“I mean, have you ever heard of ulcers?” Wren asks, bringing me back to the present. I squint at my appearance in the dingy store bathroom mirror. I don’t even know why I’m dressing up. No one is going to see me if all goes according to plan .

She comes behind me to adjust my hair. I’m fairly average height, and she’s got a couple of inches on me, including the three to four inches of her platform boots, so her head is cut off in our tiny mirror.

She uses the razor-sharp points of her nails to rake my hair back away from my face and secures it with a gold barrette that matches her earrings. “It’s going to be fine. No one will see you. Everyone tonight is a tourist anyway, right?”

I turn away from the mirror to face her. “Yeah, I think so. But what if no spirits come to me? They’re going to think I’m a fraud.” I pick at my already ragged cuticle, accidentally making it bleed a little.

Wren smacks my hand. “Stop that!” she chastises. She uses the hem of her black long-sleeve shirt to wipe the blood from my thumb. “If it doesn’t work out, oh well. You and Aunt Clarissa will think of something else to boost the shop. You aren’t a product, Rae.”

I scrunch my nose doubtfully. “I kind of am.”

Wren grumbles under her breath, and I’m fairly sure she’s cursing me.

“Okay, but you can always back out. I know you love this store, but it’s all you’ve ever known.

If this doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean that you did anything wrong.

And if you have to move on, you can. You’ll be okay.

” She grips me firmly by the shoulders until I look at her.

I don’t want to even think about what would happen if we don’t make up the new monthly difference in profit. If I do, I’ll run to the bathroom with anxiety guts and definitely won’t be able to do any readings. At least, not with my dignity intact.

I pull the conversational emergency rip cord and blurt, “I kissed Dean.”

“Huh?” she asks, dropping her hands from my shoulders and blinking heavily. “Yeah, after your date. Why are you bringing this up now?”

“Not just after our date. Like, last night.” I suck my lips in, watching her brain work to catch up with this out-of-left-field conversation.

“You can get freaky with ghosts now? Since when?”

“Uh, yesterday, I guess. I’ve never tried to touch another spirit, but it just sort of happened with him.”

She raises an eyebrow and snorts. “Well, damn. I guess you did take my advice.”

I feel my cheeks heat, and I press my cool palms against them. “No judgment,” I demand.

She raises her hands in mock surrender and snickers. I can’t help but laugh, too. “So what now?” she asks eventually.

The question immediately sobers me. “I mean, I don’t know.

We’re not exactly staring down a future with picket fences and a puppy.

I’m still going to help him move on, because he deserves to find peace.

And I want to know what happened to him.

He has a right to know, too. But, I guess in the meantime, we’ll just do what we want. Enjoy a small sliver of happiness.”

“Only you would start fucking the guy you’re also Nancy Drewing for. Oh my god. You’re Nancy Doing him!” She doubles over with laughter that sounds like a cat hacking up a furball. She’s not one to laugh outright often, so the muscle is a little atrophied.

I scowl at her, forcing my lips to stay in a thin line. “I’m leaving now.”

“Wait! I’m sorry,” she wheezes. She reaches out a claw and snags my shirt, stopping me before I can storm out of the room. “I’m happy for you, really. Good for you. ”

I sigh and gently free my shirt from her grasp. “Thank you. And for the record, we aren’t sleeping together. We just kissed.”

“You aren’t sleeping together yet. I mean, think of the possibilities! The man doesn’t rely on gravity, Rae,” she says gravely.

“Kissing was hard enough. The amount of focus it took was intense. And when I lost concentration, I sort of fell through him,” I admit.

She purses her lips. “I mean, I’m guessing it’s like a muscle.

You had to work on every other part of your gift before it came naturally, too.

Remember when you first started seeing spirits and thought you were going nuts because you only saw flashes of them?

I know we were both young, but I have such a distinct memory of you whipping your head around and staring into the corner of the room. I could literally taste your fear.”

“Wow, thanks for the memories,” I say and cross my arms, not sure how this fits into my getting laid.

“Calm down, Patrick Stump.” She gives me an eye roll so epic I can only see the whites of her eyes. “My point was, you eventually got better at it. Now you can see ghosts without even trying, as long as they want to be seen. I’m sure the physical stuff is like that too.”

I shrug a shoulder. “Maybe.”

“One way to find out,” she says, grinning maniacally. “I knew my advice would work. You should really listen to me more often.”

I huff a laugh and say, “Mmhm. You might want to think about that one time in sixth grade when you walked around with toilet paper coming out of the back of your pants all day until Emily Monroe finally told you. Give your head time to shrink, so you can fit through the door frame.” I scramble out of the room at the murderous glint in her eye.

I like Dean and all, but I’m not quite ready to join him in the afterlife.

I dart around the corner and into the storefront. Wren wouldn’t claw my eyes out in front of other people… Right? I shiver and go hide behind Aunt Clarissa. She swats at me playfully. “You two. You realize you’re both nearly in your thirties, right?”

“A sister’s love is just as powerful as a sister’s hate. One can’t exist without the other, and I don’t think that’s something you ever grow out of. Look at you and mom,” I say, gesturing vaguely to her.

She frowns at me. “What about me and your mother?”

“You two fight like cats and dogs!” I point out.

We still talk about Thanksgiving 2006. It was an epic fight. Mashed potatoes were involved, and we found them everywhere for weeks afterward. I bet the new homeowners will still find mummified globs of potato in my parents’ old house.

The smoker’s wrinkles around her lips deepen as she scowls even harder. “Well, maybe if your mother wasn’t such an uptight?—”

“Hey, Bug!” my mom greets, entering the store with a chime of the bell above the door. “‘Rissa, how are you?” She ducks under the chandelier and meets us at the counter.

“Great, thank you, dear!” Aunt Clarissa squawks. She turns dagger eyes on me, and I’m not sure who I’m more afraid of in this moment: my aunt or my sister.

“Ready for this?” my mom asks, rubbing my arm reassuringly and searching my face for any apprehension.

She reminds me of a general evaluating the war table, deciding if it’s time to attack or hold the line.

We had a long conversation on the phone yesterday, and she told me about a million and one times that I didn’t have to do anything that made me uncomfortable.

That, and that she would murder my aunt if she made me feel like I had to do this on her behalf.

“I am. I’m nervous, but excited too,” I say, patting her hand.

I turn my head and catch the tail end of a smug ‘I told you so’ look crossing Aunt Clarissa’s face. My eyes dart back to my mom, who looks like someone just took a dump in her high-fiber, low-sugar cereal.

I steer my mom away by the elbow and lead her out the door. “Here, you can hang out in my apartment until afterward. Remember, I don’t want anyone to know it’s me, so you can’t be hanging around cheering me on like I’m playing high school volleyball.”

“I resent that,” she grumbles as we climb the stairs.

When we get to the landing, I unlock the door for her and usher her inside.

“Make yourself at home, but that doesn’t mean that you have to clean everything in sight,” I say, flipping on the lamp by the door for her.

“I’ll send Wren up here, too, so maybe you won’t feel the need to break out the Swiffer. ”

“And you know what? I resent that too,” she says, hooking her bag on the coat rack. “I thought you liked my cleaning,” she pouts.

“I do! But it makes me feel guilty that you don’t relax. Just watch some TV or something.”

“Relax? In this mess?” she asks, looking over my clean-adjacent home with a raised eyebrow.

I can see her gaze catching on the dishes in my sink and the kitchen towel tossed on my island.

She practically sprouts hives at my disheveled coffee table with last night’s puzzle and my latest attempt at knitting strewn over it.

“Well, on that note,” I quip, heading out the door. I marvel at the way my mom can make me feel eight years old again, shoving piles of dirty laundry under my bed and chucking stuffed animals in the closet to pass her random room inspections.

I head into the store and nearly collide with Wren. “Hey, Mom’s upstairs and she’s about to clean my whole place against my will. Can you go up there and make sure she doesn’t find my vibrators in her cleaning frenzy?” I beg.