Page 68 of Take My Love

I had to switch so I could get Saturday off, but it’s no big deal. I’ll sleep Thursday and Friday nights.

“Jamie told me this Italian restaurant is pretty fancy. Should I dress up?” Silas sits on the couch next to me with a plateful of pasta.

“Black slacks and a button-up will be fine,” I tell him. “But I guess that means I gotta wear a dress.”

“If I gotta dress up, then so do you.” He smirks before shoving more food into his mouth.

I almost ask him if this is getting too weird that we’re going on a double date with other people and both don’t seem too excited about it. But I don’t since he needs this. Aundrea really fucked up his head about with how she treated him and skewinghis belief on what he deserves. So if I have to tag along for one awkward night, I’ll do it.

“Crap, my phone just died in the middle of respondin’ to her text.” Silas tries to restart it. “It wasn’t even on red.”

“That’s strange. I’ll text her so she knows you aren’t ignorin’ her.” I grab my phone but my screen goes black. “What the hell?”

“Yours died too?”

The TV changes shows without either of us touching the remote.

“Okay, what the fuck is goin’ on?” Silas glances around, setting his plate on the coffee table. “This is a little too freaky for me.”

“I’m not sure…Marjorie?”

“Oh please don’t tell me your house ghost is doin’ this?”

“She might be.”

“There has to be another explanation.” He stands, panicking while he grabs the remote and changes it back to the show I was watching.

“Maybe she’s still not used to you being here.”

“It’s been a week. Why wouldn’t she?”

“I dunno…” I shrug, continuing to eat my food. There’s no anxiety streaming through me so I don’t think she has bad intentions in whatever she’s trying to tell us. “Maybe she didn’t want us textin’ ’em back for whatever reason.”

“That—” He brushes a hand through his hair, looking flustered as he rubs over his jawline next. “That’d be ridiculous, Posey. Spirits don’t have that kind of power to drain phone batteries and control TV remotes.”

“How do you know? The sooner you accept she’s real, the easier it’ll be to understand why she does the things she does.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose and sits. “I’m not sayin’ it was her, but I’m notnotsayin’ it wasn’t.”

I chuckle, amused with how flustered he sounds. “You’re gonna make her wanna prove herself even more now.”

It’s just after six in the morning when my phone vibrates with a call from Mila.

I usually keep my phone on silent, but she’s on my list of people who can get through to me in case of an emergency. She sounds awful as she tells me she’s come down with something and can’t run the yoga class so she needs me to do it.

“Silas…” I poke his bicep, hoping not to startle him too badly. “Silas, wake up.”

“Posey?”

“No, it’s your house ghost, Marjorie. Get up before I slaughter you into a million tiny pieces and feed you to the goats.”

His eyes pop open, and I grin at his adorable sleepy face.

“You’re such a weirdo,” he grumbles.

“Hey, you said you liked my weirdness.”

“Don’t recall that.” He yanks the sheet up but I quickly pull it back, revealing his bare chest and boxer briefs.