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Keeping two fingers pressed to Sunday’s temple, I lean over to my phone on the coffee table and tap the screen to check the time.

“Um…it’s getting pretty late. You can stay if you want.”

“In your bed?” he asks innocently.

“Don’t push it.” I roll my eyes. “You’ll be safe here, though. This place is warded.”

He opens his mouth—probably to ask what warded means—and closes it again, giving me a look that sends a wave of nostalgia through me and squeezes my heart.

The moment is short-lived. His eyes slide to the spot over my right shoulder, the color draining from his face.

And then he starts screaming.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sunday

What. The. Fuck. Is. That?

“What the fuck is that!” I yell, my voice cracking embarrassingly as I launch myself out of Bellamy’s lap and leap over the coffee table. The rubber toe of my sneaker catches on the edge and I go flying, landing in a heap on the other side.

My disbelief intensifies when the half-translucent woman starts screeching at me.

At me! Like I’m the one that’s just appeared out of thin air.

She points at me, making these godawful noises that sound like someone’s just sat on a cat. I slap my hands over my ears as I back myself into a wooden cabinet, the little bottles and vials on top rattling as my spine collides with it.

“Oh my god, would you both shut up!” Bellamy yells, throwing his head back in a move that reminds me of a child mid-tantrum before he collapses on the couch and…screams into a pillow himself.

Okay, we are all screaming. What a fun three-way bonding activity this is.

“He called me ‘that’!” the ghostly apparition wails, and the shock is twofold. One, because I can understand what it—she?—is saying, and two, because holy fuck she’s a ghost. An actual, honest-to-god ghost.

“I am absolutely going to haunt him, Bellamy. Mark my words, I’ll do it!” she screeches, looming over him and pointing a finger at me.

“You know…” I start, only for her to whirl on me with a look so venomous I clamp down on my tongue. Bellamy halfheartedly removes the pillow from his face and gestures between us.

“Sunny, meet Delphine Montgomery. She’s my spirit guide.” He says the last word through clenched teeth, glaring at her in a way that should be menacing but comes off as adorable. The woman in question just pokes her nose in the air.

Am I…what am I supposed to do here? Judging by her clothes, she looks to be from the early 1800s, but a history degree only goes so far when you’re faced with an actual ghost from the Regency era. What’s the etiquette here? Do I kiss her hand? The women in Bridgerton like that, don’t they?

Not that I watch Bridgerton. Obviously.

“His energy is dismal. I’m leaving,” Delphine says, giving me a snooty look, but not before I catch her throwing a warning look in Bellamy’s direction.

Before I even get a chance to digest what happened in the last however many minutes, she disappears. From one step to another…just gone. My mouth opens and closes like a guppy’s.

I’m confused as fuck, but chasing on its tail is guilt. It sluices down my back, cold and horrible.

I didn’t believe him.

All that time growing up, Bellamy was struggling with this, and I didn’t believe him. I was an asshole about it, actually. I’m even more of an idiot than I thought.

I look over to where he’s lying on the couch, clutching one of his mismatched throw pillows, staring at the ceiling. Kicking off my shoes, I tuck them neatly under the coffee table before crawling across the floor to him. I don’t think he’s entirely conscious of his movements, but he shifts, pushing the pillow away and unfurling his body.

Something unspoken passes between us, and I crush my forehead into his stomach, squeezing my eyes shut against the tide of emotion. Guilt, so much fucking guilt.

“I am so fucking sorry, Bellamy,” I mutter into his rapidly cooling skin, knowing the words aren’t enough. I could say it a million times over, and I’ll never atone for the pain I caused him. “I should have been there for you.”