Page 59 of A Dish Best Served Hot

“Show me the next place on your list,” he told her.

The next place was more promising. It was an old doctor’s office that had been purchased by a company hoping to make it into a boardinghouse, but the project was stopped halfway through. It shared a building with what had once been a beautiful theater, but had fallen into disrepair.

Ronnie, the Realtor, opened the front doors and let them in. “I’ll let you two walk around and check it out. I’ll wait out here.” The door closed behind him.

Lola looked at Saint. “This place is haunted.”

He gave her a look.

“Seriously,” she said. “I’ve watched enough ghost hunting shows to know that when the person who is supposed to be giving you the tour doesn’t even want to go inside, that place is hella haunted.”

“You watch ghost hunting shows?”

“Yes. Why do you say it like that?” she asked, raising a challenging eyebrow.

Saint shook his head. “Those shows are nonsense.”

Lola laughed. “Okay, I will agree that most of them are overly produced bullshit, but you can’t knock ghost hunting shows until you watchGhost Adventures. These guys actually do their research, try to debunk things while they investigate, and they really care about respecting the people and places they visit. I mean they do say ‘dude’ and ‘bro’ every three seconds, but they are legit and fun.”

Because she looked so adorably animated, Saint refrained from telling her that there was no such thing as legit when it came to ghost hunting. Instead he started examining the old lobby space around them. “This place would probably be the easiest to renovate,” he told Lola. “It already has small rooms with plumbing in each one as well as offices. It has a huge space that used to be the lab, one that was radiology, and another that was the pharmacy. All those spots are completely empty now and can easily be made into a kitchen, a computer lab, and a multipurpose room.”

Lola poked her head around the doorjamb leading into a hallway and then pulled it back quickly. “Do you think the ghosts are from patients or do you think they moseyed over from the abandoned theater?” She turned to face him and bit her juicy bottom lip. “I’d almost rather have patient ghosts. Imagine how dramatic theatrical ghosts would be.”

Saint smiled to himself. He found this superstitious side of Lola delightfully surprising—it was such a contrast from her usual no-nonsense persona. It made her more human, more approachable. “Did you listen to anything I said?”

“Of course I did and I agree with you. This place would be awesome. I’m just wondering how easy the ghosts would be to get rid of. We can’t have ghosts wandering around scaring already traumatized kids.”

“You know,” Saint pretended to muse, “all you need to do is mention property values and you’ll sound just like the Raven Realty people discussing the locals.”

Lola gasped. “You’re right! I’m trying to gentrify their home and kick them out!” She put a hand to her chest. “I’m just like those vultures.”

“I don’t know about all that, but you should definitely apologize.” He was one hundred percent teasing, but Lola replied like he wasn’t.

“Are you crazy? You don’t talk directly to spirits unless you want to open yourself up to a connection that they can use to hitch a ride.”

He snorted. “You cannot honestly tell me that you believe in that stuff. It’s ridiculous.”

“Christians believe that a divine being impregnated a teenager with a magical miracle man who would then be tortured and killed only to resurrect three days later, all of which somehow means that every single person who believes in him can be forgiven for the shitty things they do, but I’m ridiculous for believing that our energy doesn’t always completely disappear when we die?”

Well, when she put it like that. “Touché. Although, personally, I’m more of a most-of-the-Bible-is-metaphorical type believer.”

“To each their own,” Lola said, opening a door and peeking her head in.

Saint had to laugh. She was so damn cute. “So these ghosts, can they see us?”

She shrugged. “I guess it depends on if it’s intelligent—they can see and interact—or residual, just sort of there, haunting.”

“Let’s hope any ghosts here are residual ones, then.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want them to see me do this.” Saint reached for her and pulled her into his arms. He lowered his head and then he stopped, his mouth millimeters from hers. He stared into her gorgeous molten penny eyes. “I want to kiss you so bad,” he confessed. “I want to do more than kiss you. I want to drop to my knees, strip you out of that skirt, and worship you. But we agreed to be friends and I don’t want to ruin that, so if I am. Stop me. Tell me to let you go. I—”

“Saint, shut up and kiss me already.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. Saint didn’t just touch his lips to hers. He tilted his head and sealed their lips together. He bent a bit, so he could wrap his arms around her and lift her until her mouth was almost level with his and she was balancing on the tips of her toes. He twisted his head, worked his tongue, changing positions over and over until Lola was clinging to him like she’d fall if he let go. He pulled back and gave her mouth one more smacking kiss, then another. Finally, he nuzzled her nose with his own. “How was that?” he whispered against her mouth.

“It almost made me wish some intelligent spirits were here, so they could confirm that it was as good as I thought.”

---