Aprilynne Pike - Life After Theft

“Just long,” I said with a shrug. “Lots of homework.”

She reached up and patted my head in a way that was comforting in spite of the awkward grandmotherliness of it. “You’ll get it all done. You’re a smart boy.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling a little. “I better go upstairs and get to work.”

But rather than start on my homework, I fired up my Xbox. After what I’d just seen, I deserved to chill out a little. I played GTA for about an hour and imagined everything my car ran into was Kimberlee, or one of her boxes of stolen stuff. I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see her or hear one of her smart-ass comments, but all I heard was the cathartic symphony of gunfire and people screaming.

Why was this whole ghost thing happening to me? Kimberlee said I was the first person to see her—ever. Nothing in my life was all that special. I certainly wasn’t special.

Maybe it was something about Santa Monica. In the three weeks since we’d moved here my life had turned upside down. My mom was on TV, my dad was a retired workaholic who couldn’t keep his fingers out of the old business, and I had a ghost. And a housekeeper. A year ago, any of those things would have sounded like a joke. Getting them all at once—well, who could blame me if I needed some time to adjust? But last time I checked, seeing ghosts wasn’t a symptom of homesickness or stress.

I did have to give Santa Monica points for the redhead I’d spotted at school, though. Serafina, Kimberlee had said. Man, she was gorgeous. But I couldn’t even think about her for more than a few seconds before coming back to the same humongous problem that suddenly overshadowed every aspect of my life.

Kimberlee.

I wondered if Santa Monica had any good exorcists.

“JEFF? JEFF?”

“I’m up, Mom.”

“Open your eyes, Jeff.”

I rubbed my face with my hands and squinted with one eye.

“Holy hell!” I shouted as Kimberlee came into focus. I jerked away from her and pulled my blankets around me. “Get out of my room!”

“Why?” she asked, noting the death grip I had on my bedding. “Naked under there?”

“Yes. Now leave!”

She scrunched up her nose. “Ew, gross. I was totally kidding.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not naked. But I’m just in my boxers.”

Kimberlee shrugged. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.” She grabbed for the end of my comforter.

I gripped the blanket tighter and tried to scoot out of reach. When her hand passed right through the comforter and my face went white, she laughed like it was the most hilarious thing in the world.

“You’re such a freak,” she said, studying me with her arms crossed over her chest.

“You wanted to see my underwear.”

“I showed you mine. It’s your turn.”

“Turn around so I can put some jeans on.”

She spun with her arms over her head like a ballerina.

“Ready?” she asked as soon as I jerked my zipper up.

“Yeah, sure.”

She turned back and looked me up and down. “Sexy. A little skinny, though.”

“Like it matters to you.”

“Hey, I like a little eye candy as much as the next undead.”

“Are you here to beg and plead with me to help you again?” I walked into my bathroom and grabbed my toothbrush. “’Cause if you are, you can forget about it.”

She laughed mirthlessly; a laugh that embodied the word sinister. It made my skin crawl. “Beg and plead? Who do you think I am? I don’t beg and plead; I threaten. After today, you agree to help me, or I’ll do some real haunting.”

I spat and tried to sound braver than that laugh made me feel. “What, yell ‘Boo!’ in my face? That’ll convince me.”

“That stuff’s for amateurs. I’ll just sit and watch you in the shower.”

“I could get used to that,” I said. Eventually.

She chuckled, making the hairs on my neck stand on end. “I wasn’t finished. I’ll sit my ass in the middle of your lunch at school—bon appétit, accompany you on dates and freak out whoever is with you, and then yell and scream all night until you go insane from sleep deprivation. It’s easy.”

Crap. “That’s not fair.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Do you think it’s fair that I sit here all day, every day with no one to talk to and no way to help myself?” she shouted. “To be stuck in a world I don’t belong to and where I can’t do anything?” Her face stayed angry for a few seconds, then crumpled into despair.

There’s a reason girls always win arguments with me. Tears are like Kryptonite. “Don’t cry, Kimberlee,” I said with a sigh.

“You would cry, t-t-too,” she wailed, “if you only had one person in the whole world who you could talk to.”

I could feel my will crumbling as I walked over and slumped down onto my bed.

Kimberlee stayed by my bathroom doorway.

I cleared my throat and patted the spot beside me. “Okay,” I said as she slowly sat. “If I help you, and I do mean if, there’ve got to be a few rules.”

She sniffed but nodded.

“Rule number the first is, no coming into my room until I’m dressed. Got it?”

She took a deep breath and swiped her sleeve across her face, wiping away her sad expression along with any traces of tears. “Fine. What else?”

There was only one other person I’d seen turn tears off that quickly. Like an on/off switch. My mom. The actress. “None of that . . . other stuff you talked about,” I said, starting to feel like a total sucker.

Kimberlee just shrugged. “No problem. Any other demands?”

“I’ll . . . make up more rules as we go along.” Now I was just pissed at her fake breakdown.

“’Kay,” she said, suddenly very businesslike. “Go shower or you’ll be late.”

“All right, but you stay out here. No peeking, no popping through the shower wall, no nothing.”

“Like I’d want to,” she muttered.

I hurried into the bathroom and showered as fast as I could. It was true that I didn’t want to be late, but the main reason was so Kimberlee wouldn’t change her mind and decide to come play a little peek-a-boo. I got out and jumped into my uniform half-wet; at least I was covered. I pulled out my electric razor and turned it on.

“Stop! Stop!” Kimberlee melted through the wall with her hands over her eyes. “Put the razor down. Do you really shave?” she asked, peeking through her fingers.

I pointed to the razor with my best duh look.

“No, I mean do you have to shave? You get stubble and everything?”

“Yeah.”

“Lemme see.” She leaned close and studied the fringe of hair on my chin and around my mouth. “That’s sexy; you can’t get rid of that.”

“But the dress code says no facial hair.”

“Oh, please. They won’t bust you for stubble.”

“Why would I want stubble?”

“Girls love stubble. If you can grow it, it shows you’re more virile.”

I rolled my eyes. “Do you even know what that word means?”

“Capable of performing sexually as a male,” she said proudly. “I looked it up.”

I looked at my chin in the mirror and my thoughts flashed to Serafina. That wrestler guy yesterday probably had a little stubble, too. “Virile. You know, I’m feeling virile.”

“Whatever—do your hair.”

I took a comb and parted my hair, then brushed it back with my fingers.

“You’re kidding me.”

“What? It’s the messy look.”

“I know the messy look, Jeff, and that is not it. Do you have any gel?”

Last straw. “Listen, I am not changing my hair. If you want me to help you, you take me the way I am or no deal.”

Kimberlee folded her arms across her chest. “Whatever,” she said. “But if no girl will touch you, don’t say I didn’t try.”