Ghostly Read online

  Great. How am I going to get out of this? All of a sudden, a pair of strong, muscular arms reached down and helped me up. I couldn’t see who was helping me, but the same arms wrapped around my waist and confidently and expertly guided me out of the mob.

  As soon as we were safely away from the freaky flash mob, I spun around to face my protector. I halfway expected to see Creepshow or Jett, but in the back of my mind I also knew it wouldn’t be either of them. And I turned out to be right. When I looked around, I stared into a face I’d never seen before. The arms belonged to a tall boy, smiling at me with the warmest, kindest brown eyes I’d ever seen.

  “Hi.” He straightened me up and stood back to look at me. “I’m Mason.”

  “Lucy. But everyone calls me Juice.” I held out my hand and he took it, but instead of shaking it, he just held it and then covered it with his other hand.

  “You okay, Juice? You took a pretty hard hit back there.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m fine now. Thanks for rescuing me.” I became acutely aware of my hand in his. He looked at it and with a final little squeeze, let it go.

  “Well, it looked like you were sinking in quicksand. Plus that crowd looked to be going south fast.”

  “I know. And all because the line for our bathroom wrapped around the dance.” I laughed nervously.

  “Yeah, you girls do take a long time in there.”

  “Hey, some of us do. I got in and out of there in minutes flat.”

  “Well, natural beauties don’t need a lot of time.” He looked straight at me when he said that. I know I blushed because I could feel the heat crawling across my cheeks.

  “What, you don’t hear that a lot?”

  I could only shake my head in answer to his question. Was he kidding? I looked down at my black high tops and my hand went absentmindedly to my short blonde ponytails. He had to be kidding.

  But he wasn’t. “I can’t believe that,” he said, his brown eyes sparkling. As if he could tell how uncomfortable I was, he changed the subject. “Are you thirsty? Let’s get something to drink.” He grabbed my hand, easily, as if he had been doing it forever, and we walked over to the refreshments area.

  At that moment, I would have followed him anywhere. I was already halfway to being in love with Mason after only ten minutes.

  I saw Sixx while Mason went to get sodas for us and I waved my arms frantically to get her attention. Despite the roar of the music and the crowd, she managed to both see and hear me and shove her way through the sea of people to get to me.

  “Ohmigoodness Juice. I thought I’d lost you forever! Where the heck have you been? And just what happened to you? You look like you just won the lottery or something. Did you find a bod—” I smacked my hand over her mouth before she said anything else just as Mason walked up with drinks.

  “Mason, this is my best friend, Sixx. Sixx, this is Mason. We just met.” I implied a thousand other things to her with my eyes and bless her, she got it all. Her eyes flashed back at me with instant best-friend-only understanding.

  “Hey, Mason,” she said. “Nice to meet you. One of those mine?” She pointed to the sodas Mason carried and without missing a beat, he handed her his soda. “Sure is.” He handed me the other one and when both of his hands were free, he casually slipped his hand in mine again. I tried not to show it outwardly, but my heart jumped up into my throat. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Sixx caught my eye and winked at me.

  “Well, I’m glad your friend is here and you’re in good hands, now, because actually, I have to leave.”

  What? Leave? How could he leave now? How could he leave ever? I actually started to feel panicked. How would I see him again? Should I ask for his phone number or wait for him to ask for mine? OMG, what if he didn’t want it? I didn’t even know his last name!

  “Hey, Sixx, do you have a pen and paper in that giant bag of yours?” Mason asked. He stood peering into the cavernous opening that represented her purse.

  Yes! He wanted my number! I forced myself not to dance. Sixx started ripping around in her mine shaft of a purse and I prayed there would be a notepad and pen in there somewhere. Sixx finally came up for air with both. I started breathing again as she handed them to Mason.

  “Juice, I’m going to give you my number. I’d like to see you again.” He looked up at me. “If you want to.” He waited, pen poised over the notepad.

  “Yes.” I thought up ten different things to say. I could be cute or flirty or teasing or coy. In the end, all I could manage to say was yes. “I’d like that, Mason.”

  “Great. Me too.” He bent over the notepad and scribbled and talked at the same time. “I’m writing down my name, Mason Keene, and my number.” He ripped the page off and handed it to me. Then he handed me the notepad and pen. “Will you give me your number, Juice?”

  Again, I thought of all these great ways to answer, and again, all I came up with was one word. “Yes.”

  Sixx told me later it sounded perfect. She said she knew it was by the way Mason smiled.

  I wrote my name and phone number down on the small piece of paper and ripped it from the pad. I handed it to him and when he took it, he withdrew his wallet from his back pocket and folded my paper once and slipped it inside the billfold portion of his wallet. I could hear the Velcro as he opened and closed it and I thought, I’m as important as his money. Wow. Then I felt Sixx jab me in the ribs. I almost laughed out loud.

  Chapter Nine

  When I woke up Sunday morning, for the first time in a week, Shane the ghost wasn’t the first thing on my mind. All I could think of? Mason Keene. I had already driven everyone crazy on the ride home last night talking about him. Of course, Sixx had to tell the most hilarious story of how we met to Creepshow and Jett. Unfortunately, since Mason had to leave before the guys caught up with us, she got to seriously color up her version.

  In her account, the crowd had been in the middle of mauling me, and I had slipped in a puddle of heaven-knows-what, when Prince Mason swept in and rescued me. And apparently he’d been able to do it with one hand free to hold a vat of cola for my thirsty sidekick. Her description had us all rolling with laughter even if it wasn’t even close to the truth.

  I glanced at the clock and realized it might be early enough in the morning that the guys could still be down at the beach. I dressed in a hurry and grabbed a towel and my bike from the garage. I rode down to the ocean in the quiet of the morning, sharing the road with few cars and even fewer bicyclists. There were some hardy souls out running and we smiled at each other as we passed, as if enjoying the freshness of this early hour was a secret only we knew.

  I got to the beach parking lot in about seven minutes and spotted The Gator right away. I peeked inside. Creepshow and Jett were nowhere to be found. It made me smile, thinking of them worshipping down by the water.

  “Thinking of me?”

  I whirled around and found myself face to face with Shane. Immediately, I felt guilty. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but up until the moment I laid eyes on him, I had only been thinking of Mason.

  “Hey, Shane. What’s up?” I was pretty sure I wore that guilt on my face and my expression gave away all my indiscretions to Shane. I tried to carefully rearrange my features and put on my most innocent look. I knew I wasn’t fooling anyone. I had that kind of face.

  “I’m surprised to see you here. Kind of thought you weren’t the morning type.”

  “Oh, that’s Sixx, not me. She hates the morning. I kind of like it. Especially mornings like this, where the day feels just born, you know? Fresh and new, and sort of untouched?”

  I knew I might be rambling, running on at the mouth and I looked at Shane to see if he thought I might be crazy, but he just gazed at me with a smile on his face, his blue eyes twinkling. It seemed he understood what I was trying to describe. I sighed, feeling even more awful. Besides my tight group of friends, no one else had ever understood me so perfectly. I found myself suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to hug him.


  “Same here.” Shane said, saving me from my own thoughts. “I like seeing you in the morning, too. You look the same way you described the day. Fresh and new and sort of untouched.” He reached out and gently pulled one of my hastily fixed ponytails.

  “Seriously, Shane. Do guys really talk like you?” I had that fluttery feeling in the pit of my stomach again. It reminded me of the way Mason made me feel last night. Immediately, I felt guilty again. Seriously, how could this be happening to me with two guys? Sixteen years of nothing, then all of a sudden . . . floodgates.

  I’m sure Shane would have answered and said something swooningly perfect, but just then Creepshow and Jett came ambling up, surfboards in tow. They looked breathless and wiped out and happy. Whenever I saw them this way, it always made me jealous.

  They looked more natural here in this setting than anywhere, with sand in their hair and their skin burnished a toasty bronze color by the sun. Here, they looked like they belonged. No one ragged on them about their strange taste in clothes, or their unusual ride (The Gator), or even their weird female friends (me, and definitely Sixx). Here, they were the captains of their own destiny and they answered only to the wave and she never asked of them anything they couldn’t handle. She could be unforgiving, but she rewarded the worthy.

  “Hey Juice! I didn’t know you were coming down this morning.” Creep gave me a sloppy, wet hug.

  “Should have brought your wetsuit, wahini.” Jett nodded at me and went around the back of the van to change. Minutes later he returned, now dressed in shorts and flojos, and opened the side door to climb on the side and secure his board on the roof rack. Creep handed his board up and Jett secured that one as well.

  “I’ve got my bathing suit on, but Shane showed up so I shelved the swim idea.”

  “Oh, hey, Shane.” Creep greeted Shane and Jett lowered his shades and nodded at him.

  “Dude.” That constituted Jett’s whole hello to Shane.

  Shane nodded back. “Hey. Good waves?”

  “Tasty.”

  “Man, I miss that.”

  Jett looked over at Shane as if he just remembered that a ghost can’t surf. “Yeah. That must suck.”

  “It does.”

  Creep jumped in. “Where were you last night, Shane? You missed a rocking show.”

  “That right?”

  “Yeah. Juice didn’t tell you about the Battle of the Bands over at the Civic?”

  “Nope. Didn’t hear about that one.”

  I shot a death-ray look over at Creepshow, but he, being as dense as ever, didn’t get my drift and continued burying me in my hole. “It was the kind, Boss. I’m pretty sure I’m still yelling because I was really close to the speakers all night.” He was totally yelling but he didn’t seem to care. “There was, like, a million people there, major babe action, and some dude action if you ask Juice.”

  Oh, please kill me now. If I leaned forward enough, maybe I could kick him in the shins. I attempted to get in position when Jett rescued Creepshow from my planned hobbling.

  “Hey, Shane? Any luck finding a body?”

  “No, not yet. Hoping you guys might have had some luck for me. Maybe even at that concert you went to last night?”

  Creepshow tripped all over himself to jump in. “Hey, Juice? What about that guy you met? Maybe he could be a good body for Shane?”

  Seriously, just shoot me in the head. Would this nightmare never end? “I don’t think he would be, Creep. He didn’t look a thing like Shane. He seemed taller and darker and didn’t even have the same color eyes.”

  Shane looked at me questioningly. “Wow, Juice. You sure seemed to, like, study, this guy.”

  “I did not ‘study’ Mason. I just noticed his height standing next to him, you know. And it wasn’t hard to notice his hair is clearly darker than yours, Shane. I mean, you noticed that too, didn’t you, Jett?” I begged him with my eyes.

  “Oh, yeah, sure I did, Juice. I noticed that right when you introduced us.” Jett jumped in.

  “Well, the body doesn’t have to match exactly, Juice. I mean, the hair color, the eyes, even the height, that doesn’t have to be the same as what I look like now. I’ll settle for almost anything short of the body of a troll.” He laughed a little bit and I couldn’t help but laugh with him.

  And then the sound of his laughter and the smile on his face reminded me of something. It reminded me that he represented the boy I fell for first. He was the one who started talking to me in my homeroom class and the one who seemed to know just what I might be thinking and just when I needed him the most. And I realized that at the end of the day, the hand I had most wanted to hold belonged to Shane, not Mason. If I never saw Mason again, I’d live. But, if I never saw Shane again, the hurt might take forever to go away. It had only been a short period of time, but I had made a promise to Shane. I owed him that. He’d waited for me, sixty long years, and I wouldn’t let him down now.

  “Well, don’t worry, Shane. We’ll find you one. And I promise it won’t be a troll.”

  Shane looked over at me and gave me one of those thousand watt smiles and I knew I chose right.

  I pointed at Shane. “I did meet a guy last night that might be a good fit for you, Shane.”

  “So, I hear. Tall, dark, and not blue-eyed. Is that about right?” Shane grinned.

  I glared back at him. “Yes. And that’s not funny. He was a nice guy and I’m not exactly comfortable about this, so I can do without the jokes, thank you.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So, I got his phone number at home. I guess I can go call him and set up a date or something. If he still wants to.”

  “Oh, he’ll totally want to, Juice.” Creepshow spoke up. “I mean, he’d be crazy not to want to, right?” I swung my glare over to him and he snapped his mouth closed in a hurry. What had gotten into him lately, anyway?

  I told them I’d make the call at home and come back and let them know what Mason said. I jumped on my bike and looked back over my shoulder at the three of my guys standing there by The Gator; Creepshow, Jett, and my ghost, Shane. The funny thing was, as I pedaled away with the picture of the three of them in my mind, it was Creepshow who lingered the longest. That definitely qualified as weird.

  Chapter Ten

  Half an hour later, I sat on my bed holding the phone in my hand. I had the piece of paper Mason had written his phone number on in my other hand. Truth be told, I had been sitting there holding the thing for almost ten minutes. I knew I had to make the call, I just didn’t know what I would say. Like, how would this conversation sound? Oh, hi. Remember me? I wondered if my ghost boyfriend could borrow your body, you know, forever?

  Frustrated, I threw the phone across the bed. Maybe, it would be better if I wrote a script first. I grabbed my backpack from the floor and fished out my notebook. I flipped through it until I got to a blank page. Now, I needed a pen. I got up and retrieved one from my desk drawer. Armed with the pen, I returned to my bed and the notebook. And that’s when I saw it.

  You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Juice had been scrawled across one of the pages. I twisted around to see if somehow Shane had learned a new trick called Walking Through Solid Walls, but I didn’t see him anywhere. I wrote underneath: What makes you think I don’t want to do this? Then I moved the notebook around.

  I tried not to stare but a few seconds later I watched these words form letter by letter: I just don’t want to force you into anything.

  I sighed.

  “Shane? I don’t know if you can hear me, but I am NOT having a conversation with you in this notebook. It’s weird and even though I know it’s you, it is totally creeping me out.” I waited a couple of minutes for an answer and started to close my notebook when the scrawl began to appear again.

  Okay. I guess it is kind of creepy. Meet me outside your house. I’ll be by the street light.

  That seemed a little bit more like it. Finally, he’d show himself again. I closed the notebook and stuffed it back
in my backpack. I took a quick peek at my hair and deemed it passable. I couldn’t do much with two inch long ponytails anyway. I started to walk out of my bedroom when the phone rang and I jumped. Who could be calling me now? I checked the Caller ID and didn’t recognize the number. I considered not answering, and looked longingly out the window where Shane might already be waiting for me out there, somewhere. Finally, though, my curiosity got the better of me.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. Is this Juice? I mean, Lucy?

  “Yes. This is she. Who’s calling, please?”

  “Oh, hi Juice. It’s Mason. From the concert?”

  No way! He actually called! For a second my heart soared and my stomach leapt somewhere into my throat.

  “Juice? Are you there?”

  “Yes! I’m here. Hi!” I tried hard not to sound like a chipmunk. Totally failed, I’m sure.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m good. How about you?”

  “I’m great. Did I catch you at a bad time? You sound kind of rushed.”

  Wow. He was good. I needed to calm my voice. “Well, I just was about to leave actually.”

  “Oh, okay. So, I won’t keep you. I just wanted to say I had a good time the other night. I wish I could have stayed longer.”

  “Me too.” I wish you didn’t meet me after I fell on my butt. SO not my best side.

  “Great. So, I called to see if you wanted to maybe do something with me.”

  “Oh, yeah?” You still want to after you’ve seen me flopping around in urine?

  “Yeah. A friend of mine is having a party this weekend and I wanted to invite you. You know, you and your friends.”

  “Wow, Mason. You sure you want to invite all my crazy friends? You’ve actually met them, right?” I laid back on my bed and brought my knees up to my chest. A party could be fun with my friends around me.

  Mason laughed. “Yes, I remember them all and I still want them to come, too. I think they’ll have a great time.”

  I laughed with him. “Oh, trust me. Sixx and Creepshow and Jett have no problem having a great time wherever they go. No problem there.”