Page 8 of The Haunting Plot

CHAPTER 3

SAWYER

When I arrive at the house, I’m immediately struck by it. This thing should be on a historic registry. It’s that old and beautiful. As stunning as the property is, I’m not prepared for what I see when the front door opens.

Raven emerges holding a hand up to her face as she squints in the sunlight. Her hair is up in some sort of messy bun that looks elegant yet casual at the same time. She props her free hand on her hip. She’s wearing the shortest shorts and tightest tank top I’ve ever seen, every inch of her delectable curves on full display. I know I’m gawking, but fuck if I can help it.

A frown slowly forms on her gorgeous face. “Why does your face look like that?”

I swallow thickly, doing my best to school my features. “Like what?”

“Like you’re about to shit your pants.”

“I’m not⁠—”

“Whatever. I don’t care. Follow me.” She turns as I hustle behind her.

The interior of the house is in much worse shape than the exterior. It has a lot of charm, but it’s buried under half-finished renovations that look long abandoned.

“What’s the plan here?”

“My original plan was to turn this into a rental property, but the fire put a hold on that for now since I’m not sure how long we’ll need to stay here. The most pressing issue is making it sensory-friendly. I need to replace all the lighting with something dimmable so I can control the brightness, hang blackout curtains, and dampen the echo. I don’t want to gut the hardwoods, but since it looks like someone already started that project, I need some sort of flooring so I can throw some rugs down.”

She walks through the rooms as she speaks. “Most of the walls will need to be repainted in softer, muted colors. And Jonah needs to swing to work through his proprioceptive input.”

“What does that mean?” Her eyes narrow as if I said something offensive. “Sorry, I’m not familiar with that word. Just want to make sure I understand what you’re looking for with the space.”

Her eyelashes flutter as she blinks several times, as if deciding what insult to hurl at me. “It’s body awareness. It’s a type of sensory input all humans have but Jonah struggles with. Swinging helps. I had some hung in his room and one outside, but since I can’t get into our house, I had to order new ones, and these will require drilling to install, which isn’t a skill I possess.”

Don’t make a dirty joke about drilling her, Sawyer. Don’t do it.

“Shall we head upstairs?”

I bite my lip to hold in my perverted retort and gesture for her to lead the way.

Raven climbs the stairs quickly as though she couldn’t care less if I can keep up, and I hustle behind her, trying my best not to stare at her ass. Try and fail. It’s a really nice ass.

“Only one of the rooms up here has carpet, so that’s Jonah’s room, but the rest will need to have it installed. But his room is the only one without bathroom access, so I’d like to knock out this wall and add an entrance for him here.”

“Should be easy enough as long as there’s nothing hidden in the walls that could cause any issues.”

“Like what? Mold? Do you think there could be mold in here?” Panic creeps into her voice.

“In a house this old? I was thinking more like… ghosts. They don’t usually like you changing the layout of their haunts.”

She turns to me slowly as if she can’t believe her ears. My smile is beaming when she locks eyes with me. I’m pretty proud of that one. I love a good dad joke.

“Please tell me you’re not one of those people who believe in magic or ghosts.”

“Honestly, I was just joking, but I absolutely believe in ghosts.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m serious. Life is energy. Where do you think all that energy goes when we die? Who says it can’t float around for a bit? Think about it. It would explain some of the power surges people attribute to ghosts, fluctuations in temperature, even ESP.”

“I think you mean EVP, electronic voice phenomenon. All of that can be explained by science.”

“Maybe, but there’s a lot that science can’t explain. I’ve fallen down some rabbit holes. Plus, there was this one time when I was a kid, a friend dared me to go into his attic, and I saw something in a rocking chair that definitely wasn’t a person.”