Page 109 of Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places
“Not thewholebook, but yes. I finished the opening. I needed a distraction and ended up writing nonstop again. It’s really rough, really,reallyrough, but I feel ready to share it with you.”
He sounded so adorably nervous again, if she weren’t in the bathtub she would’ve started gleefully kicking her feet. She needed to be calm. Professional. Encouraging sans the syrupy sweetness. She decided to go with “I’d be honored to read it. Send it to me immediately.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I usually wait until I’m done and it feels perfect before sending it out for feedback. You’re honestly the only person I feel like I can trust at this stage. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Yes, you could have,” she insisted.
“I told you—you’re my muse. You inspired me to face the blank page and just…start.”
Lucky resisted the urge to grumble at him. “And how did I do that while locked away in my tower?”
“It was exactly that,” he said. “Your drive. Your dedication. I think I’d forgotten what it was like to be so absorbed by a goal, you’ll do anything for it. You being there gave me the motivation to write my novel. And now I have something to share with you, the way you shared your Hennessee House nights with me.”
“I’m…honestly not sure how I feel about that. Being alone here isn’t—” She stopped herself.
“Isn’t what?”
Isn’t what she wanted after all. She missed him. She missed the NQP team. She missed working with them and having a second. She didn’t want to make these discoveries alone. She wanted to share her progress, triumphs, and failures with him too.
But more than that, she wanted herownteam. She wanted to mentor and work with other ESPers like herself, who had the same interests and goals.
“Never mind. Forget I said that.”
•••
Post–neighborhood walk, there wasn’t much for Lucky to do once she made her self-tapes and organized her notes. Even though it would be helpful to gauge her process in real time, she couldn’t bring herself to play back her vlog raw footage, particularly the ones she filmed during difficult nights with Hennessee. She knew she lookedRough, with a capitalR, but they would be good for the show. The audience (and Xander) would appreciate seeing how truly worn-out she got.
A busy body meant a busy mind, and she needed to keep Hennessee in the dark as much as possible. She made a schedule, slotting in activities like reading books, wasting time on the internet, doing her own box braids, watching movies, and trying to conquer one new recipe every day. Had she also tried staving off restlessness by talking to a cat? Yes, but things could bea lotworse.
Honestly, she was grateful for Gengar’s company. She played and took naps with him. Tried teaching him tricks. He’d become her constant companion.
During his front yard patrol time, she supervised from the porch. He’d probably been an outdoor kitty for his entire life, butshe’d never had a pet before. Heat exhaustion was no joke. He mightneedher.
She settled into her usual spot—the pillowed bench with her feet up on the banister. To pass the time, she started an unremarkable book with an unremarkable title that she was strangely desperate to read. She focused on the story slowly unfolding, and not at all on the mysterious anonymous writer whose words managed to give her a severe case of chills in the dry summer heat. When the mail arrived at noon, she thoughtlessly set a slender white box aside using a similar technique.
A large box directly addressed to Lucky with no return address had also arrived.
“Gengar, I’m going inside.”
The cat ran after her, rubbing across her ankles as it passed the threshold. She brought the box into the kitchen, set it on the counter, and grabbed a pair of scissors.
“Do you think it’s from Xander?”
Gengar yowled as she sliced it open to find an assortment of baked goods—cookies, muffins, pastries, an entire loaf of banana bread. He stood on his hind legs, ready to jump in.
“No cookies for you,” she said, knowing full well he just wanted the box. “You could be allergic.”
Lucky searched around the sides, eventually finding a greeting card–size blue envelope. The handwriting on the front was on the larger side, but neat and evenly spaced. Inside there was a card and when she opened it, something fell out and onto the counter. She’d thought they were postcards—that’s why she looked. But they were photos.
A picture of Maverick in the blue sweater wearing glasses and holding a stack of books.
A picture of her, Maverick, and Rebel outside the gates of Penny Place.
“Shit.” Lucky clenched her jaw and squeezed her eyes shut, summoning her brick wall to slam into place.
Hennessee House busted through it like the damn Kool-Aid man. She lurched forward from the force of it, gripping the counter to help her stay upright. No longer daytime dormant, it had fully woken up for this, ravenously craving the thing it knew she’d been hiding. It had taken that image of him, the thought of his name, and barreled through her mind like a tornado.
A chair at the kitchen table scraped backward across the floor like nails on a chalkboard. The second one moved, then the third and the fourth until they were arranged exactly the same way as when she and Maverick had accidentally slept in the kitchen. Her memory on display because Hennessee had finally found where she’d hidden them.
