Page 46 of Haunted Ever After

Cassie raised an eyebrow. “Anything? What if it’s illegal?” A teasing smile played around her lips—the best thing he’d seen all day.

Nick leaned his elbows on the counter, staring right into her eyes. “Anything,” he repeated.

She broke the stare first, fiddling with the strap of her bag again. “You said Elmer died in the year 2000, right?” Nick nodded at the non sequitur, but Cassie wasn’t done. “Do you know how old he was when he died?”

Nick’s phone buzzed in his back pocket almost immediately, and he fought to keep his face impassive. Elmer chiming in already. But Cassie was finally talking to him again. Nick wasn’t interrupting this conversation for anything. “I’m not sure exactly, but at least eighty? Maybe eighty-five?”

Cassie appeared to do some quick math in her head, then her eyes lit up. “Okay, that might work.”

“Work for what?” His phone buzzed again, and Nick considered throwing it in the trash.

“Well, you know how you and Elmer text?”

“Painfully aware of it,” he said as his pocket buzzed again and again.

Another smile. Even a little bit of a laugh this time. “And it happens pretty regularly, right?”

Now he let himself chuckle with the irony. “Most days.”

“You can just text him whenever you feel like it?”

“Huh.” He’d never thought about that before. “Elmer usually texts me first. Does that matter?”

“Maybe not.” But the answer was more of a question. Cassie took a deep breath; Nick could tell that this was her gearing up for the actual favor. “Do you think he might have known Sarah Hawkins?”

Oh, wow. Something else he’d never considered. He knew that the ghosts in town had been real people with real lives, but he’d never thought about their lives before their deaths. Who they’d known. How far back their history went.

And Elmer…of course Nick had known him when he was a kid. But Elmer had always been that old man who ran the café. Boneyard Key was a small town, though, and the history didn’t span very many generations. So it stood to reason…

“If he was in his eighties when he died,” Nick spoke while he thought, working out the math in his head, “he would have been born, what, before 1920? So yeah, that sounds like they might have overlapped. When did she die again?”

“Sometime in the 1940s.” Enthusiasm lit up her eyes; he’d obviously answered correctly. “So the favor…Do you think you could ask Elmer about her? And that maybe he’d answer? I’m trying to piece together more information about her life, but it’s hard to come by, and her vocabulary is pretty limited. You know, the words on the fridge.”

“I’m aware.” His voice was brittle; he remembered the words on her fridge. get him out. Yeah, he remembered those words all too well. Nan might think that Sarah Hawkins was a gentle spirit, but she’d manifested as Mean Mrs. Hawkins to Nick; she was obviously not a fan of his. What had he done to offend her? Had his grandpa pissed her off a few decades back or something?

Cassie’s expression softened; she remembered the words too. “What I mean is, there’s only so much she can tell me. I get it; Sarah isn’t your favorite person right now, but do you think…?”

“Sure,” Nick answered immediately. He wasn’t going to hold a grudge against a ghost. That would just be petty. “Believe me, if there’s one thing Elmer likes to do, it’s talk. If he knows anything about Mrs. Hawkins, it’ll be harder to get him to shut up.” The phone buzzed in his pocket again as if to illustrate his point, but Elmer could wait. This conversation was a hell of a lot more important. “I’ll ask him about Sarah under one condition.”

The enthusiasm drained from Cassie’s eyes, replaced by suspicion. Oh, no. That wasn’t the look he wanted to put on her face. “What’s the condition?”

His heart pounded as he took the leap. “Have dinner with me. Let me prove to you that I’m not that guy.” Nick held his breath. This was his chance. If she said no, he wasn’t going to ask again. He wasn’t that guy, either. If a girl said no, she said no.

Cassie took a cautious sip of her latte, considering. “Sophie and Libby really like you. You’ve got some good friends there.”

That wasn’t a yes. But it also wasn’t a no. “I really do.” He cocked an eyebrow. “So…?”

She studied him carefully. Nick wasn’t sure what she was looking for in his face, but she must have found it, because her sigh ended with a cautious smile. “Okay.”

Relief swept through him. He was going to get a chance to make this right. “Okay. Meet me here at eight.”

“We’re eating here?” She raised her eyebrows, and her flirty smile was the best thing he’d seen in weeks. “Nick Royer, are you gonna cook for me?”

He shook his head. “I’m a shitty cook, believe me. You don’t want that.”

“You don’t want that!” Ramon called from the back, and Nick hung his head. Of course he’d heard everything. He should be annoyed, but he was in too good a mood now. She’d said yes. The whole café could catch on fire for all he cared.

“See?” Nick gestured behind him.

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