Page 35 of The Ghost of Ellwood

“Hey, I have to dry my hair. I thought I looked pretty.”

“Sure.” I rolled my eyes and grabbed my wallet from my back pocket. I made sure I had a few dollars to tip the pizza guy.

“I did some thinking,” Carter said, sitting on the couch.

“That could be dangerous.”

“Shut your face.” He mirrored my smile. “But anyway, what if Theo doesn’t want you knowing about Harvey? Like, wouldn’t he have told you when you asked?”

Guilt clawed at my insides. “Yeah, about that.” I crossed my arms and looked out the panel of glass on the front door. “He told me to stop prying, but it’s hard not to. I wish I could find his journal again.”

“He hid it because he doesn’twantyou to.”

“Whose side are you on?” I tossed him a look over my shoulder

Carter put up his hands. “Neither. I’m the neutral party in this case. My goal is to state facts and nothing more.”

“You’re lucky the pizza just showed up,” I muttered, before opening the door.

He got me thinking, though. Theo wasn’t just some fantasy; he was real. Maybe not real in the way most things are, but he existed. He might be dead, but he had feelings. It wasn’t fair for me to delve so deeply into a past he wanted to keep hidden.

***

After Carter and I ate dinner, I returned to the manor. My ghostly housemate was nowhere in sight as I walked up the stairs to the second floor. I took off my clothes and tossed them in the hamper before pulling a clean pair of boxers from the drawer.

And it was there, as I stood buck-ass naked in my bedroom, that Theo appeared.

I wasn’t sure who was more horrified.

“Forgive me!” he exclaimed, throwing an arm up to cover his eyes as I shielded my junk with both hands.

I quickly stepped into my boxers and pulled them up. “I’m decent now.”

Theo lowered his arm and hunched his shoulders. “I apologize, Ben. I didn’t think before I entered the room.”

“It’s okay.” More than okay. I was surprised when I saw him, but he wasn’t the first man to see me naked. Also, I doubted it was the first time he’d seen me in my birthday suit; it was just the first time he got caught.

“Did you have a nice time with Carter?” Theo asked. He wouldn’t look me in the eye, as if he was too embarrassed.

“You know his name?”

“Yes. I wasn’t visible the other times he visited, but I saw him. He came over when Mr. Henderson lived here too, though he never came inside.” Theo walked over to the bed and sat on the edge of it. “He looks so much like him.”

I froze in place. I was pretty sure my heart was trying to burst out of my chest by the way it thumped against my ribcage.

“Like who?” I asked in a voice so quiet I didn’t know if he’d hear.

“Harvey,” Theo answered, and the grief in his tone made my stomach knot. “Same shade of hair and the same green eyes. It pains me to see him. To remember.”

“So Carterisa relative of Harvey?”

He nodded.

I sat beside Theo on the bed, keeping a slight distance between us. “I should tell you that we searched his attic earlier, trying to find any info on Harvey. I kind of put the pieces together when you told me Harvey lived down the road.”

“And what of your findings?”

“Nothing yet. There’s a lot in that attic.”