Page 24 of Shadowing My Dreams
“Oh, a drink! You wanna get out of here? Maybe go have a drink and some dinner anywhere else but here?” I practically begged.
“Dinner? You sure you want to do that?” He looked at me so seriously that I understood what he meant.
I nodded. “Well, I know it’s a little like a date, but… yeah. I do.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“I mean, I’m starting to run out of reasons not to. How about you? Every time I touch your hand, I… Yes, I think I do.” I swallowed the truth and stood there, hoping I wasn’t a complete idiot.
“You are totally annoying.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Pretty people always expect to get their way.”
“You think I‘m pretty? I prefer handsome. I’m very masculine.” I raised my arm and popped my bicep. It usually worked.
“That you are. But see that right there is what I’m…” His shoulders slumped, and he turned to look at me. “Sure. I’d be happy to get out of here and have dinner with you.”
“God, you intrigue the shit out of me. It’s like you got inside my head somehow. There’s so much I want to know about you.”I slowly placed my hand on his leg over the fabric of his pants. Nothing happened. My idea was right.
“We are working together.”
“We don’t have an HR department, sorry.”
“Smartass.”
“Besides, I hope that this isn’t some kind of forever thing. I mean, the working together part.”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Maybe I'm running out of reasons too.”
10
Archie
How the fuck did I get here? Was it his chiseled face and jawline? I swear I could cut myself on it. Don’t even get me started on that stupid chin dimple. But it was really his soulful brown eyes that made me melt. No… That’s a lie. It was that stupidly muscular body. Why did I have to have a type that was never good for me?
I was skinny and pasty. I wasn’t ugly, and I knew that. But I glowed in the fucking dark. It wasn’t usually the way to a man’s heart.
We had nothing in common. He definitely spent all of his time in a gym. He was a trainer, for fuck’s sake. This wasn’t even what he considered his best body, but his body seemed to be about the best body I’d ever seen. My ex was also a muscle boy, but he paled when compared to Jack.
So? Why were we here?
“You’re not eating very much?” He had cleaned his plate already. Steak and a salad, which figured.
I pushed around the fish and rice with my fork. “I’m still a little… I get hungry – ravenous, actually, whenever I connect because it takes so much energy out of me. They drain me because I feed them the energy they need to manifest or to speak to me.”
“You’re like a living battery?”
I nodded. “When I have to be. That’s not always the case, though. Some ghosts use other sources because that’s what they’re used to. But usually, yeah. I’m their battery.”
“But this time is different?”
“Yeah. His sickness… Whatever it is has been hard to expel. It takes me a little longer to recover.” It felt like I had been beaten. My body still ached, and my head was threatening a migraine at any moment.
