Page 46 of Ghost of a Chance
“Mom got a good job and I was getting too big for the spare room.She wanted me to have a space that was my own,” he shrugged.
He’d liked the little room at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.That was decorated with stuff from his mom’s childhood and that his granddad had painted a galaxy mural on because he likedStar Wars.But his mom and his grandma hadn’t always seen eye to eye on things.That tension had driven them into their own place.
“What about you?Where’s home?”
“Thoms Hollow, Georgia.Mom and I lived all over the place but we’ve been there since I graduated college.When I started making some decent money writing we bought houses next to each other.It’s a duplex,” she said.
“Really?You struck me as someone who would want her independence and live…”
“As far as I could from my mom?”she asked.
“I guess.”There was a softness to her face that told him she cherished the relationship with her mom.
“She’s cool.She had me when she was twenty-one, so we’re really close, and we have fun together.She also is totally like me.We both like our privacy but we’re close in case we need each other.Also when I’m on deadline she makes sure I have dinner every night.It’s just nice to be taken care of,” she said.
He rested his hands on his forearms.“My mom has no boundaries.I guess it’s because my dad died, but she hovers constantly.She’s already texted me three times this morning just to check in.I couldn’t live next to her.”
“Or in the same state?”she asked, a half smile teasing her lips.
“Definitely.I haven’t let her know I’m back in Vermont.Had to turn off the tracker on my phone.She keeps saying there’s something wrong with hers and I’ll have to help her turn it back on the next time we see each other.”Which he felt bad about.Sort of.She knew he could handle himself.He wished she would act like it.
“That’s evil.My mom is tech savvy so the minute I turn off tracking she calls me.What are you up to—shit like that,” Kirsty said.
“Do you tell her it bothers you?”His mom pulled that with him all the time, which he thought was something just she did.Maybe all moms did that?
“Yeah, because then she backs off.Like the other night I texted her ‘I’m at a concert and hoping to get laid.’”
“You didn’t say that to your mom.”
“Yup, and she just warned me to use a condom and said if I didn’t answer her text at six a.m.she was calling the cops.”
“Good thing Paul woke you up,” he said, remembering the blaring TV.Kirsty with her hair bedraggled wearing only his T-shirt from the night before.
A rosy blush spread over her cheeks.“There are worse ways to wake up.”
Ten
“How’d the ghost hunt go while we were gone?”Gia asked as they all settled into the living room eating their lunch.
“We had another incident with the TV, but we didn’t capture anything,” Jasper said.
Dan was eating a sandwich in between rigging up his newly purchased infrared camera.“Bri’s not going to love the quality of this camera,” he said, his words muffled by the food in his mouth, “But if we can catch a glimpse of something on it I think she’ll let it slide.”
Kirsty hoped so.Not that she thought that Paul was taking a corporeal form but footage proving that it wasn’t human intervention would still help.She’d done more research on ghosts like Paul.Supposedly poltergeists resisted being caught on film.Made sense to her.
“We are going to try to talk to Paul’s professor tomorrow and find out more about the day he died.Maybe he had a paper or project he didn’t finish, something important enough to keep him tethered here.”
“Are you going to finish it for him?”Gia asked Kirsty with a cheeky grin.
“Uh, no.Science and me don’t mix.What about you, Jasper?”
“I get the fundamentals.I think I could eke out a C if that’s the only way to get Paul to move on,” Jasper said around a bite.Something told her it was more than just a science paper or project, but at this point Kirsty was open to anything.“How’d you make out on the schedule?”
“Well…they didn’t want to give it to me, but I sweet-talked someone in the records office,” Gia said, winking at Jasper.
“Not surprising.I set up a shared Google drive for us all to use,” Kirsty said.“Figured we can drop stuff in there.Updates and whatnot.”
“I’ll put it in there.Also, we totally can film in the library, which is pretty nice.I’d like to get a few photos of you working in there, Kirst, so we can use them for promo.”
