Page 1 of The Handyman and The Drama Queen (Myths, Legends, and Southern Charm #1)

Stone

AKA The Handyman

Weren’t ghosts usually wearing old-fashioned clothes or elegant dresses that made them look classy? A nice suit? What about long nightgowns like that cranky guy from the Christmas ghost movie? Shit. Naked wouldn’t have been surprising.

This one was in Garfield lounge pants and a stained wifebeater that looked like he’d murdered someone.

Wait.

Was that spaghetti sauce?

What had he been doing when he died?

“For fuck’s sake. Why aren’t you more scared?” Glaring at me and seeming to be really offended at my lack of reaction, he crossed his arms over his chest. It didn’t make them any less ghostly looking but it did make him look kinda cute.

Not that I was going to point that out.

I’d dated enough drama queens to spot one dead or alive…and he was definitely the type to lose his shit if I told him he was cute.

“I’m sorry.” I moved my tool bag to my left hand and gestured at him with my right. “It’s the whole thing. If you want to, I’ll go out to the truck and come back. We can try it again and I’ll pretend to scream? I’ll get it right the second time.”

It wouldn’t have been the weirdest thing I’d done on the job since I was flexible and I’d learned how to be polite in a variety of weird situations.

Redneck Casper just huffed.

“No?” That got me a glare. “Well, I’ve been contracted to work on a few things.”

So…

The house was empty of people who were alive, at least according to the woman who’d hired me, but Casper could make things difficult if he wanted to.

“That couldn’t have been done when I was alive ?” His tone went ear-piercing at the end, but being dead was probably frustrating, so I tried to be patient.

“I was told there were some problems with the electrical that had been fixed and I’m here to work on a checklist of other stuff.” A long checklist.

That probably should’ve been handled before he’d died…or even before he’d moved into the place when he’d been alive.

“It was supposed to be move-in ready.” Waving his arms around, Casper started pacing back and forth on the front porch. “ Nothing to worry about . Just have that switch thingy fixed eventually and you’ll be fine .”

Switch thingy?

“Something from your move-in inspection?” He really needed to use more words at a lower volume if he wanted me to follow along. “Something in the electrical system needed to be replaced?”

“Yes.” Glaring at me like I was an idiot, Casper passed by me in a huff. “He said it wasn’t anything I needed to worry about.”

As he reached the railing, he whipped around and threw out his arms again. “Well, bullshit. A cascade of bullshit. I got electrocuted cooking SpaghettiOs!”

Ah.

That explained a few things.

“I’m sorry for your loss?” It wasn’t a situation I’d ever run into before, but judging from the way his eyes went psycho-wide, it’d been the wrong response. “Losing your physical body is something no one is ever prepared for.”

It might not have been much better, but the stunned silence that followed was an improvement over him screaming at me about canned pasta.

“How about you tell me what you’re most frustrated about while I start looking over the checklist?” Letting myself in with the new electronic lock that had just been installed, I opened the door and gestured for him to go first.

Being a gentleman didn’t get me a good response, so I tried again. “I’ll see if we can fix some of it. Don’t worry if it’s a long list. I’ve got a few days’ worth of work at the very least.”

And he came back to life.

Well, not literally, but he found his words.

“What I’m frustrated with?” Stomping past me would’ve been more effective if he’d had real weight to go with it. “Let’s start with being so bored I’m losing my mind!”

Okay, that was something we could handle.

“I think we can do something about that, but would you show me around the house first?” No point in wandering if I had someone who already knew all the problems. “I’m a bit more corporeal than you, so once we’re done going over things, we’ll figure out what lights you want on and I can put the TV on?”

The house was going to be rented fully furnished, so that had to mean there was a TV or radio somewhere.

Casper stopped in his tracks and marveled at me, his voice dropping to a shocked whisper as his eyes got wider. “You’ll turn on the TV for me?”

“Yes.” Resisting the urge to step back as he inched closer, I nodded and did my best to look businesslike. “We’ll figure out some good options for you and I’ll change the channel when I come back tomorrow. For variety, you know. How does that sound?”

Orgasmic based on his smile.

“Yes, thank you.” The drama queen turned on a dime as he smiled and shifted until he would’ve gone through me if I’d taken a deep breath. “I’d really appreciate that.”

Telling myself pointing out that he couldn’t show his appreciation in the way he seemed to be imagining wouldn’t be helpful, I nodded. “It’s no problem. I wouldn’t want to wander around with nothing to do either.”

Before he could go back into psycho mode, I gestured around the front foyer. “How about you show me around and tell me anything you think I need to know?”

Being helpful didn’t seem to turn him on as much as the promise of TV did, but he took a deep breath and stepped back, so we were making progress on getting him back on an even keel. “Sure. That’s no problem.”

Standing straighter, he pointed to the window near the front door. “Did anyone mention that the windows at the front of the house are really drafty? I didn’t notice any issues in the rest, but they make the living room five degrees different than the kitchen or the bedrooms upstairs.”

“No.” That’d be easy to fix, though, so I set my bag down and reached for the notebook I kept in my back pocket. It was a bit cliché but things were generally cliché for a reason. “I’ll make a note of that. What else?”

Having a purpose, and someone to talk to probably, kept him calmer and he went through the downstairs pointing out issues. It really was the best way to do a walk-through and I had a longer list than I expected by the time we made it around to the kitchen.

“This looks much better. But when I was alive—” He broke off and sighed so dramatically I almost smiled. “When I was alive, the floor by the sink was spongy or wiggly or wrong in some way. Honestly, some parts of life are fuzzier than others, but I remember there being a problem and I don’t remember anyone fixing that.”

Before I could respond or write it down, he sighed again. “But it might’ve gotten fixed when everything was blank?”

“Blank?” Oh. “Um, right after the accident?”

He nodded, not looking as crazy when his death was mentioned that time. “Yes. The SpaghettiOs exploded and then time was just missing until it started coming in and out, and then once I was awake, I guess, I realized I was dead.”

Muttering something that sounded like couldn’t even fucking die right , he cut it off before I reacted. “But then I was awake and they were fixing the electrical stuff.”

“I’m still sorry about everything.” Especially him being bored. “Have you tried…moving on?”

If there was a better way to ask that, I couldn’t think of it. Part of me waited for him to go all SpaghettiOs on me as I made a note about checking the floor joists, but he shrugged and started wandering around the kitchen like he’d probably done when he had a body.

“I did the whole close my eyes and think of moving on thing but it didn’t do any good. There’s no white light to walk into, so I’m not just being stubborn.” Shrugging, he made a full circle of the kitchen and finally came back to stand in front of me. “I’m just stuck here. The only thing I’ve figured out is how far I can go around the property before this energy starts pushing back at me.”

Well, that was something at least.

“My great-gran always said that ghosts came from having unfinished business in life and strong regrets right when they died.” Was she right about SpaghettiOs Guy? “What were you thinking when you died? Is it something we can fix?”

I’d run a message to a loved one if he needed it. They’d probably think I was crazy but we just couldn’t leave him like this if he wanted to move on.

“Oh God.” The way his eyes went wide said he knew what’d gotten him into his current situation but the way he flickered in and out and disappeared said he wasn’t going to talk about it.

Great.

But he was a drama queen in any state, so it hadn’t been surprising.

It meant I had to finish doing my walk-through of the first floor on my own, though.

I didn’t find nearly as many additional problems as he would’ve pointed out, but I did okay as I headed upstairs. He wasn’t in the first two bedrooms I went into or the hall bath, but when I got to what must have been his room when he was alive, he was sitting on his bed pouting.

It was unexpected.

The sitting, not the pouting.

He’d walked right through the front door earlier, so I hadn’t been expecting to see him interacting with anything physical. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I startled him, but he seemed to have heard me coming. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Drama queen mode activated.

“I will respect that limit.” Ha.

The drama queen had new things to fuss over.

His head turned and he frowned at me like he was mentally walking through what I’d said, but when he didn’t ask anything, I continued like nothing had been interesting at all. “Do you want to go through my list and see what I missed upstairs so far?”

He couldn’t seem to decide if he was ready to be distracted or not, but after a few seconds of silence, he nodded. “Yes. Then we’ll work on the TV situation?”

“Of course.” I glanced around the room at the simple dresser and nightstands that finished out the space and frowned. “Is there any kind of old alarm clock or radio? We could turn that on up here and then the TV downstairs. That way you’d have options.”

He looked at me like I’d just given him the biggest orgasm of his life. “I…I don’t know…but that…”

And nothing.

He was definitely going to be the stunned silent after a good scene type.

“We’ll work on that.” There had to be boxes of random stuff somewhere.

Shit, his stuff had to be around somewhere too.

But he didn’t seem to be in the right headspace to ask about that, so I decided a distraction was in order. “Were you dating anyone when you…well, when you had your accident? Is there anyone I need to tell about your current…state?”

Oh.

That was interesting.

Who knew ghosts could blush.

“I…” He started to get something out and then his brain stopped working.

I was counting it as a win that he hadn’t disappeared again, but I was waiting to see what he’d do before I gave myself credit for a good distraction.

“No, thank you.” It wasn’t the strangest answer he could’ve given me, but something about the way he swallowed and looked embarrassed made me wonder what he was thinking.

“Okay.” That was clearly a very polite way of telling me we’d found a limit, so I accepted it without pestering him since I didn’t know him well enough to bug him. “Once you go over the list with me, do you want to walk outside and show me your boundaries?”

He blinked then malfunctioned again, but after barely vanishing for a second, he was back and pretending to be perfectly normal…for a ghost at least. “Sure. That sounds good.”

Okay.

“Great.” Since we were edging into awkward territory, I held out the notebook and went right into business mode.

It took us a few minutes to go over all of the things I’d noted down and then we took another five for him to point out other things I’d missed.

He seemed to enjoy that…but it brought up some strange questions.

“Why had you climbed into the bottom of the linen closet again?” He’d carefully managed not to explain why, so the again was pushing it.

At first, he just gave me a sigh but his drama didn’t last long. “I thought the wires went to an outlet and I was looking for someplace to plug in an air freshener thing. I was trying to follow where the wires went, but I decided it was a lost cause when something zapped me.”

Well, if SpaghettiOs hadn’t killed him, his air freshener would’ve.

“I’m going to call the electricians to come back and we’re going to figure out who inspected this house to begin with.” Sitting back on the floor, I looked up and did my best to ignore the way his dick was outlined in his pants.

Someone had died without even a jock on.

“I’m not sure when they’ll come back, but I’ll make sure to be here when they handle it.” So he wouldn’t drive himself or anyone else nuts.

“Thanks.” He seemed to understand my reasoning based on his sigh.

But I didn’t want him to feel dejected, so I stood up, giving myself props for ignoring his dick, and nodded toward the stairs. “Let’s go walk and we’ll hang out for a while.”

He took two steps toward the stairs before stopping and turning slowly to face me. “You don’t have to. I know I’m dead and all, but you don’t have to waste time being nice to me. I’m just…I don’t know…I just need to get used to the haunting lifestyle. I’ll be fine.”

No.

He would not be fine.

He’d end up being the ghost version of the get off my lawn guy.

“That’s not believable at all, so you need to work on your delivery, but aside from that, I didn’t ask because I felt sorry for you.” Well, not just because of that. “I had fun hanging out and you could use a friend.”

He looked like he was going to sigh again.

“Besides, the only other gay or bi guys I know in the area are into kinks that aren’t my thing or they’re so painfully shy I’m scared of shocking them to death.” That got me a glare and I had to laugh. “Too soon?”

“You have a terrible sense of humor.” Crossing his arms over his slightly translucent chest, he huffed and started trying to stomp down the stairs. “You’re lucky I’m stupid and you’re sexy.”

Yes on both counts.

“Well, tools make a man hotter, everyone knows that, and you did electrocute yourself with canned pasta.” And almost with a plug-in air freshener. “So…”

“Somehow the universe is torturing me.” He started muttering to himself about sexy men and something about bad decisions, and I decided I didn’t have to worry when I caught him checking out my package as I got down to the bottom of the stairs. “On a lot of fucking levels.”

“Eight inches worth of levels, my dramatic new friend.” I wasn’t going to pretend to know what it meant when the sexiest guy I’d met in years was dead, but at least he wasn’t scared of me or his own shadow.

So I was going to count it as progress.