He snaked an arm around my waist and pulled me hard against him, so quickly, and with such force, it momentarily knocked the breath from me. I dropped my clothes.

“What’s the matter?” I glanced around in alarm, thinking that Lucia had reappeared, and he was snatching me from eminent danger.

But I realized the danger I was sensing was of an entirely different kind when he pressed me even closer against him, so close that I could feel the sharp definition of the buttons of his shirt—and the hardness of him through the rivets of his fly.

“I always keep my promises,” he said in a voice that was deeper than usual.

Then he leaned down to kiss me, and I felt the danger—and his promise—through every nerve in my body. It coursed from my lips all the way down to my toes, and reawakened other parts that had only recently calmed down again after being overexcited by the chaise longue.

“Y-yes,” I said, clinging to him a little unsteadily when he finally let me up for air. “You do keep your promises. I’ll give you that.”

“Hey, you two,” I heard my neighbor Ryan shout from his balcony. “Get a room!”

Jesse pulled reluctantly away from me, shooting a hostile glance in Ryan’s direction. “I’m really starting to dislike him.”

“Yeah, me, too.” I kept an arm around Jesse’s waist, since I needed the support. I still felt a little shaky. “Let’s get out of here.”

once

I had classes Tuesday and Thursday mornings until eleven, which was rough for me even when I wasn’t up late the night before recovering from an attack from a Non-Compliant Deceased Person.

But it was particularly rough that Thursday morning. Jake had been super excited about his unexpected overnight guests—well, one of them, anyway. He kept me and Gina up talking for hours, covering any and every topic he could think of, including but not limited to: what Jake would do if he got his hands on the “creeper” who was stalking us (the excuse Jesse gave him—and Gina—for why we’d suddenly had to crash at their house for the night); the tastiness of thin-crust pizza; what constituted a perfect wave, and why Jake was so good at riding them; and the unfairness of his not being made best man at my forthcoming wedding.

To avoid ill feeling, Jesse had appointed all three of my stepbrothers groomsmen, just as I had three bridesmaids: CeeCee, Gina, and Brad’s wife, Debbie. None of us were thrilled with the last choice, but it had been a necessary evil, since my stepnieces were our flower girls, and we needed both their parents close by to help keep control of them in the basilica during the ceremony.

Neither of us had appointed a best man or maid of honor. It seemed unwise to play favorites.

Jake had many things to say about all of this, and it was nice to see Gina laughing at his jokes (especially given how depressed she’d been lately over her stalled career).

But I had a hard time paying attention to the conversation. I still hadn’t heard back from Shahbaz or Father Dominic, and even though I’d showered as soon as I got to the Crossing, I could still smell the chlorine in my hair from the pool back at my apartment, and the scratches on my neck from Lucia’s attack stung (I’d hidden them beneath a high-collared sweater I’d brought along, so I could avoid having to answer any awkward questions).

Maybe that’s why, when Gina and I finally stumbled into Jesse’s bed together—it was king-sized, and I didn’t feel it was fair for either of us to have to sleep on the couch, especially with a homicidal baby ghost potentially on the prowl—I still couldn’t sleep, even though it was after three in the morning.

Then again, this is a problem I have most nights. No matter how soothing I try to make my sleep environment (based on advice from magazines and my therapist), I end up lying there staring at the back of my eyelids, trying not to think about my problems.

Since most of my problems are NCDP related, however, and NCDPs love showing up for nocturnal visitations—especially bedside—this was probably the root of my chronic insomnia.

But of course I couldn’t tell Dr. Jo, my shrink, that. Or about the discussion I’d had with her deceased husband in the faculty parking lot, next to her Mercedes sedan, after my very first appointment with her. No accredited counseling program is going to graduate a student who believes she can communicate with the dead. That doesn’t exactly look good in their alumni brochures.

Instead, I’d told her I couldn’t sleep due to stress—school-related stress. Dr. Jo was in her late sixties, silver-haired but still spry, a lot like Father Dominic. Unlike Father Dominic, she wore a lot of bright colors, including bright red lipstick, even though she’d recently been widowed. Her husband—the NCDP who liked to hang around the school faculty parking lot—told me this was because she wanted to look cheerful for her patients.

She’d written me a prescription for a sleep aid—thirty pills only, nonrefillable—warning me that the pills were strong, and a better way to manage insomnia was through exercise. Had I thought about taking a yoga class? The college offered several.

I’d filled the prescription, but never taken a single pill—nor did I sign up for yoga. I could barely sit still through an entire episode of The Bachelor (Gina’s favorite show). No way was I going to be able to downward dog away my problems.

For some reason on this night when sleep wouldn’t come, instead of patiently counting souls of the dead I’ve helped move on, like I normally do, I did something even more insane than yoga. Something that was guaranteed to be my next really bad mistake.

But of course I did it anyway.

The moon had come out and cast Jesse’s room—Spike, his yellow tomcat, watching over Romeo through the bars of his cage with elaborate disinterest; Gina, breathing deeply and contentedly beside me—in a blue glow. It seemed hard to believe that Egyptian curses, evil real estate developers, or demons existed.

But they did. I had the marks around my neck to prove it. And next time, my fiancé might not be around to save me, because my fiancé might be the one putting the marks there.

Maybe that thought was what made me lean over the side of the bed to snatch my cell phone off the stack of ancient poetry and medical textbooks Jesse used as a bedside table, then text Paul:

Fine. See you Friday at Mariner’s  8.

NOV 17 3:32 AM