Page 67 of Haunted

He smiles at me, so big and pure that it makes me feel giddy.

“Then you must allow me to walk you home,” he says as he opens the door onto Flint Street. “Like a gentleman.”

I look across the street at Aunt Shelley’s building, then back at Lance. “I don’t want to go home,” I say.

“Oh, thank God,” he says. “Because I wasn’t going to let you go anyway.”

“I’ll need a toothbrush,” I add. “And we’re not going to talk about how creepy that sounds, right?”

“No. We’re going to talk about toothbrushes. I have a spare.”

“Is it Kermit?”

“Get in the elevator.”

The doors close and Lance crouches in front of me. “Get on my back.”

“What? I’m way too heavy.”

“I used to run with fifty pounds of gear. I think I can give my boyfriend a piggyback ride.”

“If you put your back out, can I call you a dumbass?”

He waits. After a beat of hesitation, I lean forward awkwardly, and he steps in and takes my weight before I’ve committed to it, so that my only options are to cling to him or fall. I cling. He stands, locking my legs in place.

“It’s all about the weight distribution,” he tells me, and lurches just so I have to tighten my grip around his torso.

“You did that on purpose!”

“Yup.”

“Point proven. Set me down before you drop me on my ass.”

“Nope.” He locks his elbows around my legs.

The elevator stops on the fifth floor and the door opens. Lance’s neighbor, a young woman with flyaway hair, stops dead in the doorway.

“Hi. This is Jonny,” Lance says. “He sprained his ankle and needs some help getting home.”

She rolls her eyes, and I put my face into his shoulder so she can’t see me laughing. “Very bad ankle,” I manage as he bears me out of the elevator.

She makes a noise that says she isn’t buying it in the least and passes us in amused silence. Lance carries me all the way to his front door. “Could you get the door, please?”

I reach around and pull the key from his pocket, which takes longer than it should, and let us in. He carries me across the threshold to the bed and only unloads me when his calves touch the mattress. I’m still laughing when he turns and leans over to kiss me.

It’s simultaneously the most natural thing I’ve ever done and the most perfectly right. His mouth is warm and he tastes like maple syrup and coffee. I put my hand on the back of his neck and hold him there.

When we separate, he looks at me with an expression I’ve never seen on him before—something unguarded and almost disbelieving, like he can’t accept that this is real.

“Oh,” he says. “I have something for you.”

“I’ll bet,” I murmur.

“Aside from that.” He pulls me up from the bed and opens the closet. He looks at it hard. “Please don’t be mad. We only just found them and I was working up the courage to get them to you.”

He pushes the box out to me. Someone has written FROM THE TRUCK in Sharpie.

I crouch down and open it. The first thing I see is books.