Page 42 of Haunted Ever After

Summertime in Florida. The rainy season was here.

Something Vince had said that day, about waiting for the right one, stuck with him. It stuck with him as he strolled down to The Haunt for a burger, and as he brought two more beers with him to the beach at sunset.

The afternoon storm had left lingering clouds in the sky, just enough to make the sunset spectacular. Colors blazed across the horizon, but Nick picked at the label on his beer, feeling uneasy.

The right one. There was no reason to think that Cassie could be the right one, but something inside him still wondered if she might be. Cassie had cracked open a door in his heart that he’d kept closed for years. She reminded him how it felt to be with someone else and really open up to them. Not for a weekend. Not for a couple weeks on vacation. But day to day. She reminded him how it felt to want to share himself with someone else.

The sunset didn’t even look as peaceful anymore without her. Nick levered himself off the edge of the picnic table, dropping easily to the sand. Time to go. He cracked open the last beer, leaving it behind on the table before heading home in the gloaming.

The sun was all but gone, and as Nick hit the sidewalk on Beachside Drive, the streetlights winked on. He paused in front of his café, his gaze traveling up and up, to the window of his tiny apartment. He’d left a light on, but it didn’t look cozy or inviting.

Being alone had been a comfort for a long time. Being alone meant you didn’t need to depend on anyone else. You couldn’t get hurt.

But tonight, Nick didn’t like the way being alone felt. It felt too much like being lonely.

Nineteen

It was annoying, honestly. How much the sunset reminded Cassie of Nick.

It had been a long day. Hot and humid, just another Florida day broken up by a midafternoon thunderstorm. From her place at the kitchen table, Cassie could hear the rumble of thunder outside, like a distant promise. That was followed almost immediately by the patter of the first hard raindrops against her window. It would be a perfect day for snuggling under a blanket with a cup of tea and a good book (and the air-conditioning cranked down to a polar setting to justify said blanket), but sadly, she was a grown-up with a job. Life really wasn’t fair.

By the time the rain stopped she’d uploaded the last bits of the ad campaign for the granola company, humming “Scarlet Begonias” under her breath as she closed her laptop for the day. She loved days like this, where things were buttoned up by the end of the day and she could check things off her list. To celebrate, she decided to take a glass of wine down to the beach at sunset.

But it wasn’t much of a celebration. Sure, the sunset was gorgeous—that was a no-brainer. Cassie watched the colors blaze across the sky and reflect over the water, and she knew she should be grateful. She was grateful. How amazing was it that she lived here, in this little cottage by the water? She’d never dreamed of this as she’d stumbled home to her downtown apartment after yet another girls’ night out. She’d had no idea then how much she would love the quiet of the night, the stars, the soft sound of the ocean against the shore practically in her backyard. A Shakespeare quote popped into her mind: “An honor I dream not of.” She was pretty sure he was talking about marriage, but it made sense here. Cassie had never imagined a life like this, and now she was living it.

But as she watched the sky darken and the sun disappear beneath the horizon, all she could think about was Nick. They’d watched the sunset together, not too long ago. It had been a perfect evening, and it had felt like a true beginning of something.

What the hell had happened? She took a healthy sip of wine, and her phone weighed heavy in her pocket. Calling him would be so easy, and yet it was impossible. Every passing day widened the gap that had grown between them, and Cassie didn’t know if she wanted to bridge it. His outburst hadn’t been her fault. Nick had been the one with the attitude, the one to set a match to what they’d been building. Why should she be the one to reach out?

She scowled at the last remaining daylight and turned back toward home. She’d only taken a few steps when she heard the footsteps behind her, walking when she walked and then stopping when she stopped. A cold sliver of fear slid down her back before she remembered. The Beach Bum. Ugh. The last thing she wanted at this pity party she was throwing for herself was a tagalong.

“Get lost, Casper.” She threw the words over her shoulder and picked up the pace, speed-walking the rest of the way home. The footsteps stopped before she hit her property line, and she immediately felt bad. It wasn’t the Beach Bum’s fault, was it? And that was all this guy had, following people around on the beach.

Great, she thought as she washed out her wineglass. Something else to feel like shit about.

Cassie distracted herself by opening her mail. It was a good mail day; she’d found an Etsy seller who made customized magnetic words for her refrigerator. The seller probably wondered why Cassie needed words that pertained to home improvement; there probably weren’t a lot of people wanting to stick words like “baseboards” or “linoleum” or “carpet” on their refrigerators. But this was exactly what she needed; if Sarah Hawkins wanted to have input on what the house looked like, Cassie needed to communicate with her.

It didn’t take long to swap out some of the more esoteric words in her collection, making room on the fridge for the new words. This wasn’t about poetry anymore. This was about conversation. Sarah Hawkins hadn’t had a voice for a very long time now, and Cassie was going to do her damnedest to let her use it.

“Okay, Sarah. Let’s tackle something easy first. Paint colors.” She scooped up a handful of paint chips in shades of green and pink that she’d picked up from the hardware store. They each went up on the fridge under a magnet. “Keep the ones you like and toss the rest.” Talking to absolutely no one in the middle of her kitchen was getting less weird by the day, and she didn’t know how to feel about that.

Speaking of talking to no one…before going upstairs for the night, Cassie picked her way across her backyard and to the seawall. She peered out into the darkness, but didn’t see anything other than the moon reflecting off the water. No sign of the Beach Bum who’d followed her home.

But just in case…“Here.” She plonked a bottle of water onto the low wall dividing her house from the beach. “You may not like this as much as beer, but listen. You need to hydrate.” Was that true? Did ghosts get dehydrated? She had no idea.

But the bottle of water was gone the next morning.

So were most of the paint chips. Only two remained under their magnets: a soft, barely-there pink and a dark sage green. The rest were scattered on the kitchen floor. The chosen colors coordinated beautifully, which didn’t surprise Cassie in the least.

“That works,” she said to nobody as she made a tick mark on her mental to-do list. Buster was coming over later this afternoon to talk about renovations, now that she had the magnetic words to use to consult Sarah.

To Buster’s credit, he didn’t bat an eye when Cassie told him about the ghostly input. “Makes sense” was all he said. “It was her place first.”

They made sure to discuss the renovations at her kitchen table, so all of Sarah’s contributions could be clearly seen. Cassie and Buster never saw the words on the fridge move, but they also kept themselves from looking there too often. The idea of watching Sarah form her thoughts felt too voyeuristic, too much like watching someone change their clothes. Instead, Cassie left a teaspoon sitting on the table between her and Buster while they discussed what work needed to be done to fix what the flippers had done so shoddily. If Sarah wanted to weigh in, the spoon between them would spin slowly, and they’d both look over to the fridge to see what her thoughts were. (linoleum ugly never like. carpet go. wood floor nice.)

She had no opinions on the master bedroom. Cassie asked, more than once, but Sarah’s answers were always short and in the negative. your room now. She was letting Cassie decorate it the way she wanted, which she appreciated. But she still wasn’t sure if she was staying; she may be doing all this work on the house in order to sell it once Sarah was happy. Even so, she decided to paint this master bedroom her favorite color—soft blue and white accents that made it feel like she was falling asleep in a cloud—even if ultimately it was for someone else to enjoy. Or to paint over. She couldn’t decide which was worse.

It didn’t take long for Buster to become a fixture in the Hawkins House. During the next week he dropped by to tackle some of the smaller things himself. She could finally open her kitchen window, just in time to keep it tightly closed, because it was too damn hot outside and the air conditioner would be running nonstop until at least November. The larger things went on a separate list for him to tackle with his teenage grandsons when they came home for summer break.

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