Page 109 of Just One Little Bargain

“Coming from behind you.”

“I will break up with you.”

“No you won’t.” He chuckles and pulls her closer.

Standing apart from all of them, in a pocket of deliberate solitude near the hedgerow, is a man who has decided he is above this. He writes his own name tag in precise capital letters, because the volunteer’s handwriting doesn’t meet his standards. It reads WILFRED.

“I’ll be transparent,” he announces to the group, unprompted. “I hold a degree in environmental science from a reputable institution, and I find the vast majority of paranormal claims reducible to infrasound, cognitive bias, and poor ventilation.”

That earns my reluctant admiration. Also the confidence. In Hell, a man this committed to credential-based superiority would already have a corner office.

Stanley offers a diplomatic, “Well, it’s all in good fun.”

The volunteer hands Wilfred his EMF detector with the same bright smile she gives everyone else.

“These devices are almost certainly rigged,” he says, turning it over in his hands. “Calibrated to trigger at random intervals. Standard practice for commercial ghost tourism.”

Theo glances up from his detector. “Mine hasn’t gone off yet.”

“Precisely my point. If it were detecting genuine electromagnetic variance, the baseline readings near this building’s electrical system alone would have triggered it by now.”

Theo shakes his detector, giving it a hopeful little smack against his palm. He gets nothing and his face falls.

I feel awful. The kid just wants his ghost, and I’m standing four feet away personally ensuring he doesn’t get one. Sorry, buddy.

Evie stands beside me, close enough that I can feel her heat along my arm. Her scarf is wound loosely at her throat, cream sweater falling past her wrists. The wind keeps dragging a strand of hair across her mouth. She pushes it back twice, then gives up and lets it stay there, which is worse for me than if she’d fixed it.

I hook the strand from her lips with one knuckle and drag it behind the warm shell of her ear, my fingers lingering longer than necessary. The permission of it is absurdly thrilling: touching her where anyone might see, letting the contact linger because she hasn’t moved away. Color climbs out from under her collar and settles high on her cheek. I almost pull back, certain I’ve crossed a line. Then she leans into my hand, and my body responds with humiliating enthusiasm.

“Thank you.” She studies the gravel.

I think this is a date.

I’ve never been on one before. The concept has fascinated me since I first encountered it, filed in the same category as “book club” and “farmers market” in my ongoing study of the human experience.

But I’ve prepared for the possibility the way I prepare for everything, which is to say obsessively and from questionable sources. Most of my research came from a stack of magazines dedicated to helping the anxious classify their own experiences.

According to 12 Signs Your Hangout Is Actually a Date (He’s Into You!), the criteria are as follows: a planned activity outside the home. Check. Physical proximity maintained without practical reason. Check, gloriously. At least one participant putting in noticeable effort with their appearance. Also check. The final criterion had its own pull-quote: prolonged eye contact and small, unnecessary touches.

I’ve now touched Evie’s hair and not left her side all evening. By Cosmopolitan’s rigorous standards, it qualifies as a date. This may, in fact, be the most date-like date ever documented.

A breeze rolls off the river and Evie’s shoulders hitch upward. The sweater isn’t warm enough. She wore it anyway because she likes the way it looks, which I know because she stood in front of the mirror longer than usual before we left. And she kept her hair down, which she almost never does. It keeps moving in the wind, soft around her face, catching on the gloss at the corner of her mouth. She presses her lips together, then stops as if she’s remembered there’s something on them. Like she’s not sure the effort was worth being noticed.

It was. But the effort isn’t what gets me. I’ve seen her exhausted, irritated, half-asleep, and buried in inn paperwork, and I wanted to look at her then too. The more of Evie I learn, the worse this gets. I’m so completely consumed it isn’t funny.

I step in behind her and wrap my arms around her middle, letting the heat I carry constantly settle around her. Demon physiology runs hot. Uncomfortably so, in Hell. It’s a trait I’ve never had a use for until now. I feel a frankly unreasonable surge of pride when she melts back against me without being asked, tucking her cold hands over my forearms.

“Better?” I murmur near her ear.

She tilts her head slightly. “Your heart’s going fast.”

“I’m aware.”

“Any particular reason?”

I tighten my arms and press my mouth to the crown of her head. “I’ve decided we’re on a date.”

A laugh shakes through her. “You can’t unilaterally declare date status.”