Page 13 of Grave Humor

“He’s very well preserved, then. I wonder how he pulled that off? He looks about your age. You two are cute together.”

Ugh. Not only had I gotten the pervy ghost granny, she had matchmaking tendencies. “Black magic, obviously. And we are not cute together. He’s a swan, and I won’t call any duck ugly, so I’m going to go with being an earthworm in comparison. I’m probably just a cheap meal before he goes and finds someone better suited for his aesthetics.”

“You should allow him to make some adjustments to your self-esteem. He’s probably great in bed thanks to all that experience he surely has.”

“He’s probably diseased.”

“Neutralizer can fix that.”

I considered her point, nodding my agreement with her assessment. Neutralizer could fix a lot of things, including most sexually transmitted diseases. A few doses of neutralizer and some tender loving care would make Eoghan safe to take to my bed. At the very least, he could decorate my home. “He’s still the equivalent of a swan to my earthworm. I’ll pass.” Obviously, I hated myself, as only an idiot would pass at a chance to take a hot man to bed. Jumping out the window might save me, but then again, the truth would better serve me as a deterrent. “He’d hate me, as the experienced men typically dislike the added complexity of virgins.”

There. I could go to my grave fully humiliated. I’d also go to my grave wondering just how experienced Eoghan was. He probably got women to undress just from smiling and inviting them to come home with him.

I needed to hurry up, get over my issues with men, evict myself from the pool of virgins, and get the hell out of Sunset while I was at it.

“Any man who can’t take proper care of a virgin doesn’t deserve a good woman in the first place. He’s a doter. The doters are the best unless you like it rough, then you need to teach them to handle you like they mean it. He looks versatile.”

Heaven help me, I’d found the world’s most perviest granny. “You want him?”

“Oh, no. No, no. These old bones of mine would intimidate that stallion. I’ll save him for you. After all, I wouldn’t want to ruin him for all other women.”

Holy hell. The granny must have had one active sex life before she’d kicked the bucket. “That’s disturbing.” And irritating. I lived in a one-horse town, it’d take me at least four hours to walk home, and I’d spend the entire damned hike thinking about some deceased granny rejecting a ride with Eoghan because she worried she’d tire him out.

Damn it. I wanted my job back along with the illusion of stability. In reality, without my next paycheck, I’d be getting the wrong kind of slow screw. Without money, I wouldn’t be paying my rent.

If I couldn’t pay the rent, I foresaw myself falling prey to the antique’s scheming or trying my luck as a homeless woman living on the streets. I couldn’t guess what Eoghan wanted with me, so I assumed I’d be facing life as a homeless woman in search of viable work. While death would have simplified matters, I needed to play with the cards I’d been dealt. Regretting my decision to wager with Eoghan changed nothing.

No matter how I viewed it, screwed only scratched the surface of my issues. I sighed and considered my choices, which were few and far between.

“You could go hunt your pretty man and have him tuck you in,” the pervy granny suggested. “He’s probably at the hotel across the street, and I’d bet he’d like it if you crawled into bed with him. While naked. He looked hungry.”

The truth always worked best when faced with a pervy ghost granny on a matchmaking mission. “The last thing I need right now is a man.”

“Well, you’re stuck with that one, honey. He means business.”

That I could believe. “What’s the easiest way out of this joint?”

“At this time of night? Good luck. You can wander the floor, but they monitor the stairwells and elevators at night. You can get out if you say you’re in need of a smoke, though. They’ve got a section for the cranky who aren’t authorized to have pixie dust. They’d have much higher satisfaction rates if they just gave all the inmates pixie dust.”

She considered the patients to be inmates? Then again, the hospital had a rather confining atmosphere, and as a ghost, she’d be sticking around for a lot longer than she likely wanted. “Well, that sucks.”

“They’ll let you out more in the morning.”

“That sucks a little less, but it still sucks.”

“It would be easiest on you if you waited patiently until morning.”

Well, I had asked for what was easiest, and staying put was the path of least resistance—it just prevented my escape. Then again, escaping would send Eoghan an important message:

I would not be an easy conquest.

Four

They need to leave so I can thoroughly scold you.

A plaintive whine that I needed a smoke got me outside. The hospital boasted a well-traveled path to where those lighting up bitched and moaned about the cruelty of being forced to have their cigarettes outside while the pixie dust junkies got their hits inside.

A hit of pixie dust would make everything better, but I hadn’t qualified for it. I expected the money had something to do with it. The hospital-grade dust cost a lot more than the standard crap served in licensed coffee shops, and I couldn’t afford the standard crap.