Page 32 of Meet Me After Life

‘I’ve been assigned a new consignment. I should be here less over the next few weeks anyway.’

Even better.

‘So… do we like, shake on it or something? Do I sign my name in blood? Offer up my first born?’

His brows lower as he considers me with a head tilt. ‘Actually, spiritual binding contracts are done slightly different.’

‘They are?’ Shit, is this going to send me to an eternity of suffering if I break it?

He swallows once, nods and then stands to his feet. The way he walks towards me reminds me of a predator. Slow, languid. Certain.

‘What happens if we break it?’

A slow smile pulls at his lips. ‘You get hives for a year.’

I can live with that. Nothing a little C&C can’t fix. Calamine and concealer ftw.

Walker stops close enough for me to have to crane my neck to meet his eyes.

‘What now?’ I feel my heart beating wildly in my chest like some sort of caged animal.

‘Spirit binding contracts require a give and take.’ He steps closer into me, and like a magnet I draw nearer. No self-preservation instincts whatsoever. If I were a hare and he was the trap, I’d already be ensnared.

‘What can you give me, you’re a ghost?’ I watch the green in his eyes pulse before his pupils blow wide.

‘My breath.’

‘Excuse me?’ My heartbeat stutters.

‘We exchange breath,’ he explains again, studying my reaction. ‘Of course we don’t need to. You could just take me at my word.’

I snort. Unlikely.

But even still, even if I could trust him… well, you know – curiosity and the cat and all that. And what’s the worst that could happen, after all? He’s transparent. He’s a phantom. He’s my arch nemesis. A really, really good-looking, evil, enemy phantom. I wet my lips subconsciously.

‘So—’ I clear my throat. ‘How do we um…?’ I tuck my hair behind my ear, eyes darting around the room to look for something to pull me from this idiot decision.

A self-satisfied smirk arches his lips like a bow being drawn. This can’t be good. My head tilts back into the cool pressure of the palm of his hand, cradling me.

‘Are you ready?’

I nod dumbly.

His eyes strike like flint. ‘I’ll need a verbal confirmation on this one, Miller.’

‘Yes.’ The word floats from my lips on an exhale. The very same exhale Walker leans forwards to snatch from my mouth as his lips hover over mine.

I feel the air I breathe drawn towards him, pulled from my lungs on a line and reel. I stumble a little, almost falling through him, before the heady pull stops and he looks down at me through lowered lashes. The heat in his eyes either anger, annoyance, or something else…

‘Is that⁠—’

Before I have a chance to start, he shakes his head no.

‘Now you take from me.’

‘I—’

‘Breathe,’ he commands. And as I do, I feel an otherworldly pressure fill, expand and stretch my lungs. In this moment, I can feel him in every part of me. It’s as if his essence has fused with mine and we’ve become one. What a mistake. What a glorious, regrettable, ecstatic mistake. His eyes flit between mine until the sensation pulsing through me is too much, and I shut my eyes to redirect all my attention to just feeling.