Page 45 of The Ghost of You

I look at her in the eyes, trying to show her I understand what she means. “Unfortunately family never wants to let you be. They always want to dig up the past and try to fix you.”

The anger slips from her face. “What happened to you that they won’t let go of?”

I pinch my fingers between my eyes before drinking more whiskey. “Nothing important.”

Her hand lands on my thigh. “It must be important if they are concerned about you.” She looks off in the direction of my house. “Not to mention all the distraction you are working on over there.”

“So where is this letter? Maybe we should throw it into the fireplace?” I say, changing the subject.

She must be drunker than I thought because she doesn’t hesitate at the change of subject. She scrambles up from the table and nearly falls into my lap as she trips over Brutus. “You are so smart. Let me grab it.”

I watch as she stumbles into her kitchen, catching herself on the doorframe that connects the two rooms. Her ass is glorious, full and round and I wonder how it would feel in my hands. So much for me thinking these feelings are false. I’m blaming the bottle of whiskey we’ve almost finished off.

She skips back into the room with a kraft paper envelope in hand. She opens it and she struts toward me. “Our dearest Anna May…”

“Does everyone call you that?”

“Hmm?” she asks as she flops down next to me.

“Does everyone call you Anna May?”

She shakes her head, a goofy grin on her face. “Only people back home, Seraphina, and your brother.”

“It suits you. But why the hell does my brother know that about you and not me.”

“You know his friend Dee Bak?”

I nod.

“Well, he was a good friend of mine in college. Small world, isn’t it? That I would run into him here.” She bites her lip, lost in thought before she continues, “Anyway, he calls me Anna May so your brother started too.”

“Ahh. Okay, Anna May.”

She sticks her tongue out at me. “Nope. You can’t call me that.”

“And why not Anna May?”

“Because!” she shouts with a pout on her face.

“Ahh. The perfect reason… because. I’ll make sure to follow through on that Anna May.”

She crawls onto my lap and puts her hand over my mouth. “Nope. You can’t!”

The feeling of her hands on me has my dick stirring. She seems to have this effect on me more and more often. “Fine. I won’t call you that. I’ll just call you Mayberry.”

“Mayberry?”

I push a piece of hair behind her ear. “You know the ideal, perfection.”

She scrunches her nose at me. “Isn’t it a town?”

“I think it can also mean someone who is beautiful when they don’t know they are.”

I can’t believe I said those words out loud. I blame the whiskey.

We stare at each other. The tension in the room amping up as I fight the urge to pull her mouth to mine.

She is still sitting on my lap so I very carefully slide her off before we both regret our decisions. “So what else does the letter say?” I ask, changing the subject again.

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