Haunt Your Heart Out

Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

James chose the pizza place slash bar mostly frequented by the après ski crowd. I held my fingers to the car vent to chase away the tingling cold as he navigated dark, snow-swept streets. James fumbled in the compartment between our seats and tugged a pair of gloves from inside it, handing them to me. They were black leather and worn to perfection, the tiny bumps on the palm and fingertips ghostly reminders of a grip no longer providing fully fledged traction. I slipped my hands inside, grateful for the extra layer against the cold, and mentally kicked myself for forgetting my own gloves in the first place.

There was a line when we arrived, but he slipped past the waiting crowd and led me to the bar. The local nightlife and I weren’t well acquainted. Natalie and I had our fair share of girls’ nights out, but they tended to end before nine, and I never had more than two drinks since I could get a hangover by looking at a bottle of vodka. But I listed drink names in my head while I hopped onto a stool and waited for James to do the same.

Instead, the bartender pointed at James, then jabbed a thumb over his shoulder toward a booth in the back of the restaurant. James offered his hand again—though I was getting used to the warmth of his smooth palm against mine, something swelled inside my chest each time we made contact. He led me to the empty table, grabbing two menus on his way past the end of the bar. He waved them over his head. I turned to look at the bartender, who offered a two-finger wave in response.

“What service,” I said.

“I tip really well. It comes in handy when I want a last-minute table. I also interviewed the restaurant owner about the alleged ghost that haunts the kitchen, and they’re all really excited about maybe making it into the documentary.”

I’d done a whole segment about a kitchen ghost in this exact location—a chef with Julia Child-esque energy who’d fought her way to the top of the male-dominated field and refused to give up the space she’d carved out for herself, even in death. It had to have been a coincidence. I forced the thought from my mind as James took off his coat and unwound his scarf from around his neck, then held out a hand to accept my coat.

“Oh, thanks.” I unzipped my puffy monstrosity, cringing at the nylon rustle that came with retro skiwear. If we’d ended up at a themed party at a rented chalet, I’d have fit in. I slipped into the booth, folded my hands on top of the table, and eyed the other patrons. It was jam-packed with people fresh off the mountain, goggle marks still pressed deep into their windburn-flushed cheeks. They mingled at the bar, gathered around the pool tables, and carried half-full pint glasses throughout the restaurant as they chatted. These were not the themed party type; here one minute, gone the next, heading home to the city to start another week at the office.

“What’s with this documentary? Do you do any actual research, or just plunk yourselves in any cemetery and make up stories?”

James ran a hand through the hair at the back of his head. “I keep telling the guy he’s going to have to get better at research or some local is going to call him out. He’s always been a good storyteller. He’s got a film crew following him around because he’s convinced them this is their big break. Hell, he convinced me to join this one by letting me pick the location. But what he’s got in creative drive, he lacks in forethought.”

I supposed I couldn’t judge them for running around my town, telling ghost stories without any qualifications. I’d made up dozens of ghost stories with even fewer qualifications—and much older, crappier film equipment to boot.

“How’d you get into film making? Hollywood born and raised?” I asked.

“I’m originally from Syracuse, but I’ve moved around a bit over the last few years. Trying to find where I belong, you know? My father made it clear that I hadn’t lived up to his standards, and I was ready to be anywhere-but-there, so here we are.”

I pressed my lips together and nodded. Strained parental relationship. Yeah, I knew a bit about that. Maybe he also had a sibling who never answered the phone when he called and left his texts on “read” more often than not.

“What about you?” he asked.

“Me? I’m a lifer. I was born here, I’ll die here. Nothing can tear me away.”

“You’ve never thought about moving?”

“No, no way. This is where I belong. I’m not a wanderer. I like to have roots.”

“Roots are good. Do you have family nearby, then?”

I shook my head and scanned the restaurant again, avoiding eye contact—and having to give answers.

The restaurant’s owner stopped by the table, apologizing for the interruption and asking James to come back to the kitchen so he could show him a newspaper clipping he’d found related to the restaurant’s ghost story. The timing was perfect. James hadn’t done anything to deserve the torture of the whole, lonely story anyway.

“Go ahead. I won’t disappear, I promise. I’ll order the pizza while you’re gone. Any preference?”

James shrugged. “All pizza is good pizza.”

He dashed off to the kitchen with the owner, and after tapping an order into the touchscreen, I busied myself picking at my cuticles waiting for him to come back. When he emerged from the kitchen again, he was laughing with a server. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and he threw his head back to let his laugh ring throughout the building. He patted the server on the shoulder as they parted, then took his seat across from me.

“You seem to have settled in nicely in the short amount of time you’ve been here.”

“I don’t want to live my life wandering between work and home. If I’m going to be somewhere, I’m going to connect with that place. We’ve made stops in Phoenix, stayed in Montana for a bit. Oh, and there was a communal farm in Connecticut— that was an experience. But with those projects I was just along for the ride. This time I get to drive a bit. The best part of joining the crew is that I get to talk to everyone. Learn the stories. Even if we’re talking about ghosts, each of these people puts so much of them into the interview. It’s not about a ghost anymore. It becomes about how the ghost exists in relation to the person telling the story. Where the story and storyteller merge is where it all comes together. Part of the story is the place, and the place is the people.”

“That’s exactly why I’m not planning to leave.” I sucked air through my nose and held it in my lungs for a moment before exhaling. I turned my eyes to the table. So much for sparing him my woe. “My grandparents worked themselves to the bone to get here, to this town. They built the house I live in with their bare hands. They’re gone now, but I can’t help but think they’d be thrilled that I’m still enjoying the life they built here. Even if I’m the only one who stuck around. This place is the memories and stories I know so well.”

A server swept in with a giant supreme pizza balanced on one hand, and two plates in the other. We thanked him, and James offered me the spatula to take the first slice.

He didn’t pry, and he didn’t give me the sad look. The one that said “Wow, you’re all alone, you poor lost soul. Why don’t you go make a life somewhere else?”

Instead, he loaded his plate with two slices, lifted one from the plate and raised it in a foodie-style toast, then ate. After a few bites, he struck up the conversation again. “That’s part of the reason I love the bookstore so much.”

“Other than the prime literature at incredibly reduced rates?”

He nodded. “I contacted Charles, the store’s owner, to request that we film a segment for the documentary there. There’s a tale we would like to investigate, involving a bookstore ghost and the ladder that killed her. It’s one of those tales that just screams cult following, if we can hit the right notes.”

I swallowed. That one was way too specific to have been a coincidence. My complete infatuation with Belle exploring Beast’s library had made its way into Haunted Happenings in an early episode, complete with a tragic ending that would have made Disney quit animation altogether. Unlike the rest of the episodes we filmed, this one had nothing to do with historical events or strong, independent feminists. I wove my jealousy of Belle’s books and rolling ladders and animated awe into a ghost story so obviously fake the episode hadn’t even gotten a fraction of the views as the rest of them, more than fifteen years later.

“Did he, uh, give you an interview?”

James laughed. “No. He sounded really freaked out, actually. Didn’t seem like a fan of spooky stories, in general. Especially not ones that take place in a building he owns.”

“Where’d you hear that one?” I asked, plucking at my napkin.

He pointed at me while he finished chewing his latest bite. “There’s this great vlog online, from the YouTube glory days—before everything was ‘like, this; subscribe, that.’”

“ Haunted Happenings ?” I asked cautiously.

“Yes, that’s the one! You know it? I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. Small town, tight community.”

I pressed my lips together to suppress a nervous laugh, then began my own monologue. “Welcome to haunted Stowe, Vermont, where a population of restless spirits and wandering sprites roam fearlessly in the afterlife. This highly active town boasts ghosts innumerable, with hundreds of separate sightings each year. Born to a duo of ghost-hunters, I’m your host, Luna Noctem.”

James dipped his chin and raised his eyebrows, then offered a tiny golf clap at my performance. It would be silly to keep it from him now. I had to come clean.

“It might be difficult to recognize me without the masquerade mask, purple hair, and Hot Topic dress. Allow me to reintroduce myself.” I stretched a hand in his direction. “Luna Noctem, nice to meet you.”

The corners of his mouth rose in a tentative smile as his eyes tracked my face, likely trying to detect my younger self in the features. He grasped my hand in a firm handshake, then cleared his throat. “How long were you going to let me run around your town talking about ghost stories before sharing this information?”

I smirked. “It’s good to stay a step ahead of the competition. In this case, a whole season ahead, since the twenty-two episodes I filmed basically count as a season of network TV.” I drummed my fingertips on the table. “It all started with this book I found at a library book sale, actually. It’s full of Vermont ghost stories, and the inscription inside included an AOL Instant Messenger screen name. I messaged the guy like the nosy creeper I am, and learned more than I ever wished to know about ghosts. Turns out, he’d met a man in a Northeastern USA ghost sighting forum, sent him the book as a gift, and they eventually started a relationship. When they split, this book didn’t make the cut. Curiosity got me and I became a regular on the forum—mostly it was something to fill the time since my parents were never around. Then my best friend and I launched the vlog, and it started gaining traction. Before we knew it, we had people messaging us on AIM and emailing, asking us to help them prove their ghost sightings to skeptics …”

James leaned forward, an elbow propped against the table, hands casually draped. “How do I know you’re not just saying this to woo me?”

“Oh, trust me.” I cocked my head. “I’ve already had great success at that. Anyway. We ended the vlog when I went off to college. There were”—I swallowed, trying to decide when was too early to casually drop my anxiety, depression, and attachment disorder details on the guy—“too many all-nighters to squeeze in ghost hunting. Sorry I didn’t say anything earlier. I wasn’t trying to, like, keep it a secret or anything. It’s just one of those silly things I used to do to pass the time.”

“No problem,” James said. “I wasn’t exactly forthcoming about my mission, either. Besides, I might have been a bit starstruck had I known the truth about your identity. After all, you’re—I mean, Luna is—a big part of what we’re doing here.”

I raised an eyebrow, but didn’t interrupt. The conversation was about to get extra weird, or really flattering—and I wasn’t against sticking around to figure out which.

He cleared his throat. “I found the vlog during my senior year. My parents were divorcing and everything felt, uh, unbalanced. I wanted to be anywhere but there, doing anything but listening to them argue over who would keep the boat, and who would fork over the tuition for my first year at college. Haunted Happenings gave me an escape, I guess. It was my gateway to ghost lore, but it was also a way to help me disappear.”

“Ironic,” I said, folding my hands on the table in front of me. “I’d started recording because my parents were never around, and I felt forgotten. I was looking for something to ground me and something to help me leave a mark.”

“It seems we both got what we were looking for, then,” James said. He shook red pepper flakes onto the slice of pizza that remained on his plate, then ate.

We fell into an easy silence, nothing but bar chatter cutting through. After I finished my third slice, I leaned back in the booth and watched as he wiped grease from his fingertips. His movements were slow and steady, nothing hurried or urgent about it.

It was a relief to simply exist in each other’s worlds without the expectations or pressures that often came with first dates. My getting-ready jitters had been for nothing, it seemed. I could open up about it, let him know what was on my mind. But would making myself that vulnerable ruin the good thing we had going? There was only one way to find out.

“I like how quiet is easy with you around,” I said. “There’s no need to fill the silence.”

He leaned forward, placed both elbows on the table, and clasped his hands one on top of the other. “I like you.” He tipped his head and gave me that lopsided grin that promised mischief. His bright eyes were a bullet train on a direct route to my soul. Last stop, coming right up—get off now or you’re going along for the ride.

“I think I like you, too.” The admission was torn from me. I’d lost control of my mind and mouth. It was something about the dim lighting in the restaurant and the way his eyes didn’t leave mine for a second while he was making his confession. The sincerity and the suddenness collided, catching me off-guard, and I was entirely unable to contain the truth.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he said. He rose from his side of the table, took the two tiny steps required to get to my end, then slipped into the booth beside me. Supporting himself with a hand on the bench between us, he brought his free hand to my cheek. My hair rustled beneath his palm, so he brushed it out of the way and tucked it behind my ear, looking at me and through me and into me all at once. His eyes—usually dark under the shadow of his infamous ball cap—glinted deep brown and gold in the overhead lamp. We sat that way, eyes locked, for breath after breath, or maybe just a single exhale.

“So do it then.” I raised my chin and lifted my eyebrows. Come and get it.

“Okay,” he whispered. He drew his thumb along my jawline, then swiped a fingertip across my lips, which pressed together involuntarily the moment the contact disappeared. My mind went from level-headed to romance-cover-level dramatics in a second. My heart crashed inside my chest like waves on the rocky shore, his eyes the nearest thing to a lighthouse beacon, drawing me in with a siren’s song rather than warning me away. The only thing that was was him and me, and the mere inches of space between us.

He closed the distance. Smooth lips pressed against mine and a Fourth of July grand finale lit up behind my eyelids at the subtle scrape of his stubbled chin and evergreen snowmelt scent.

William Goldman had ranked the best kisses through history in terms of passion. Ten-year-old me heard that line and resolved to base every romantic interaction I’d ever have on Buttercup and Westley. A worthy scale, yes. But this kiss was more than passion alone. His lips were wanting and giving, all in one. My lips curled into a smile against his mouth.

So much for resisting.