Page 60 of Phobia

“Yeah.”

“It’s… weird. Some of them are really easy to tell because they’ll have this glow. Or be transparent. Some are really disfigured, but others look normal.”

“And what do you do when you see them?”

“I mutter in Latin.” He chuckled quietly. “Nerd, I know. But, if the person disappears, they were a ghost. If they don’t, then I get concerned for their Vitamin D intake.”

“I thought those were medical terms you kept quizzing yourself on,” I said with a half-grin, squeezing his hand.

He chuckled again, which is what I was hoping for. “Because that’s what I told you it was. I guess I could have said it was a prayer or something.”

“Yeah, except you’re not Catholic.”

“See, this is the problem with trying to hide things from you. You know too much about me.” He said it jokingly, but my guts twisted regardless.

“I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me the truth,” I said quietly. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone. Not after everything else.”

He squeezed my hand. “It’s ok. Really. I’m at peace with it now. I just didn’t want to burden you any more than I already did. Do.”

“You werenevera burden, Jamie.”

“Sure feels that way. Even now, dragging you into my ghost problems.”

“I’ll take your ghost problems over my daddy issues any day of the week.”

A laugh bubbled out of him and he clamped a hand over his mouth, looking wide-eyed at me. “I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his hand and trying to regain his composure. “I didn’t mean to laugh.”

“Mhmm. No, I see how it is.” I sniffed and tipped my chin up theatrically. “I have one moment of vulnerability and it bites me in the ass. I’m so glad I can be your comic relief, Kincaid.”

“I’ll make it up to youandyour ass.” When I stole another glance at him, he leaned across the center console and licked my neck before biting it, sending a rush of goosebumps across my skin. “After we get the herbs,” he added.

“Fuck the herbs.” I shifted closer to him, trying to capture a kiss, but he shook his head and retreated to his side of the car.

“No way. Shopping first.”

“Then sex.”

“Then the incantation Dr. Corbin gave me.”

“Thensex?”

“Then sex.”

“Fuck yes.” I gunned it for the flower shop in downtown Winslow. The sooner we could get what we needed, the sooner we could go home and do the ritual thingie and the sooner we’d both be to achieving orgasmic bliss.

Once we were loaded up with bundles of herbs and a potted plant from the flower shop and gobs of overpriced candles from the artisan candle store, not to mention the bag full of crystals Dr. Corbin shoved at Jamie before we left, we headed home.

Back in Jamie’s dorm, he drew a bath and sprinkled a concoction of pink salt and dried leaves and petals into the water. To spiritually cleanse or detach or something. I wasn’t really paying attention to Dr. Corbin’s spiel earlier—I was too busy looking around the dungeon of doom that was his basement. That shit was straight out ofMacbeth. Skulls on shelves. Jars of… stuff. Loads of crystals and candles and bowls. Books that looked like they should be in a museum somewhere.

It was all kind of surreal. Dr. Corbin was adoctordoctor, not just someone with advanced education. A well-known, highly respected surgeon. He was a man of hard science and facts and biology, like Jamie. And yet the two of them had been deeply engrossed in an intense conversation about when to use onyx and when to use jet, even though both of the black stones basically did the same thing.

They were taking the whole thing so seriously that it was hard to discount their belief in ghosts, even though I remained firmly in the “I have no fucking clue” camp. I didn’t know if I believed in ghosts, but I believed in Jamie and ifhebelieved, then I believed by proxy. The story about my great-aunt hadn’t been a lie, either. When I first heard about it I thought itwascool, but the general consensus in the family was that her cheese had slid off her cracker and we were supposed to humor an old lady who missed her deceased relatives. In hindsight, maybe she was on to something.

Even if I was undecided on the matter of ghosts, I had a feeling the lady at the flower shop knew what was up. Before we walked out with our brown paper bag of herbs, she stopped me in my tracks and handed me a pot of lavender.

“To help you see,” she said simply.

“Uh, thanks?” See what? I didn’t ask, since she said it like I should know what the hell she was talking about.