Page 5 of Squad Ghouls

“UH…NOT REALLY?”

“I mean…fair play,” I said, dodging another pendulum. “But I still need to get rid of you, so maybe you could just go quietly into the night? Do me a solid?”

“I WAS GOING TO ASK YOU THE SAME THING, ACTUALLY.”

I dodged the last one and crept closer to the sound of the voice, PolterPulse at the ready as I plastered my sweaty body into the corner. “I could maybe consider it. On one condition…”

“WHAT’S THAT?” The voice sounded ecstatic and I had to question its intelligence level. Maybe its brains had rotted before it reached the ghostly plane.

“You let me blast you in the face first to make us even,” I said as I spun around the corner, PolterPulse cupped in both hands…and froze.

The ghost did the same, a megaphone dangling from a limp hand and honey brown eyes behind black frames wide as saucers as they stared at me.

The nuisance’s pink mouth moved in a mew of shock while my brain stilled my finger on the trigger as it took in the rest of the details of this strange anomaly in front of me.

He was hot.

Nerd hot.

Dork gorgeous.

Bookworm fox.

I’d never found a ghost hot before though.

I wasn’t one to judge—I’d heard enough rumours around the ExorSquad headquarters about ghostly boyfriends—but cold, dead and questionably fresh wasn’t exactly my personal vibe. I’d just never been tempted before.

The operative word there being before.

I did another once-over to try and make it make sense.

My eyes moved from the tips of ugly-ass brown loafers to mustard yellow socks. Milky white legs with not a hair on them went up, up, up until they met full thighs encased in the tightest and smallest orange shorts known to humankind.

My dick tried to move up, up, up too.

I willed it to behave as my gaze continued its involuntary journey to a bright yellow turtleneck that looked more weather appropriate than the shorts, even if it threatened to sear my retinas. (I took another look…for weather science or some shit.) I ended at dark brown hair that looked like it had been dragged through a hedge backwards.

And still, he was delectable.

What the actual fuck?

It took me a full ten seconds to realise those shorts were getting further away from me. A crime. And they were also connected to an arse that wouldn’t quit. It was the arse that launched a thousand ships. The one arse to rule them all.

What did he even need all that for out here in the arse crack of nowhere? Heh. Maybe I should chill out on the arse puns and metaphors. But it seemed like cruel and unusual punishment to the rest of the human race to have this beauty locked away in a crumbling B&B on the side of a cliff!

And the beauty was getting further away while I stood there gawking.

I didn’t know what came over me, but all my knowledge about ghosts and training went straight out the sagging windows. I was brought back to my natural instincts before all this. The stuff that had been ingrained in me since I was a kid, roughhousing on the playground with my best friend, Noel.

Forgetting the Pulser, I dove for the blurry shape and tried to tackle it to the ground.

I fully expected to phase right through and smash my face on the floor as good sense caught up to my leaping figure, but I met something that stayed surprisingly solid and we both went tumbling.

We hit the wonky floor and the ghost under me let out a suspicious “Oof!” like they had gotten the wind knocked out of them. I frowned as I got my bearings and pushed myself up onto my hands to look down at their back…and then lower.

Yup.

My poltergeist owned the best arse in the United Kingdom. It was official.