Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

HIRO

The dead man’s eyes latch on to mine as I try to look every which way.

“Can you see me?” he asks.

“What happened?” Charlotte asks.

“Nothing. A bug.”

“Oh! I’ll call someone to take care of that!”

I quickly stop her hand. “Nope, that’s okay. Thank you, though.”

She seems suspicious about that as I turn to Maddox in the hopes of pretending like he’s the only one that matters.

“You touched me,” the dead man says, inching closer and closer. He’s so close I can feel his breath on my face. “Does this dude see dead people?” He’s trying to ask Natalie and Reggie who are now both looking everywhere but at him.

“Which one?” Reggie asks.

The man waves toward me. “This one.”

“What do you do for a living, Hiro?” Charlotte asks.

“This one?” Reggie asks as he points at Maddox. “No, but I haunt him because he’s a hunk.”

“Hunkalicious,” Natalie says. “I wish he would licious my hunk.”

All of us are confused by that. I feel like even Natalie is confused.

“CAN. YOU. HEAR. ME?” the ghost screams in my face.

Charlotte is staring me down, so I realize I should answer. “Uhhh, I own a bookstore.”

“Oh really? Like one of those tiny privately owned ones?”

“Yes.”

“Oh… was that a good financial choice?” she asks.

“brO. brO. Can you HEAR ME?” the guy shouts in my face.

“What about you?” she asks Maddox.

“Me? I’m a two-time national champion CEO. I own like ten buildings that span over fifteen countries.”

“Really?” she asks, clearly intrigued, while I’m over here trying to understand how he can have ten buildings in fifteen locations. I mean… I’m not phenomenal at math, but that sure doesn’t seem to add up. She doesn’t care.

“Now that is how you invest money,” she says.

The ghost won’t leave it alone. “This man touched me. He touched me.”

Suddenly all of the dead people in the plane snap their attention over to me.

“This man can touch people?” a woman asks.

“I want to be touched,” a second says.

“I can touch ya,” another ghost offers.

“Not you. I regret touching you,” she says.

What… what have I done? The plane isn’t off the ground yet, and there’s already been a big fucking mistake. A super big fucking mistake. Some woman is trying to marry me off to her daughter and give me financial advice. Oh, and Maddox is now some hotshot CEO who wants cougars.

“I’m also a male model,” Maddox says. “But only my feet.”

“How does that work?” Charlotte is quite invested now.

“When they need a photograph or video of feet, I’m their man. It was how I was able to afford my thirteen buildings.”

“You don’t say…”

“It was Hiro’s dream to be a foot model, but he has this one toe that’s just a little crooked.”

I snort, wondering how all of this went so wrong so quickly. “Excuse me, I have what?”

Maddox is laughing now. “I’m teasing. Thank you for the interest, Charlotte, but we are not looking for anything romantic.”

The ghost is grabbing for my face, and I have to do everything in my power to keep him from becoming corporeal or I’ll spend the next thirteen hours trying to deal with the dead.

Someone comes up behind me and I don’t notice them until they jostle into me.

“Hey, you’re right, I can touch him!”

“No! You touched me,” Reggie says. “Now fuck off. He’s mine. Only I am allowed to see him naked and count his moles. Mine.”

“Mine too,” Natalie claims as she sits on my lap while Reggie does some weird spooning from behind. It’s quite confusing.

Maddox leans into me. “You okay?”

“You nervous about flying?” Charlotte asks.

“I’m good, thank you,” I say, knowing I can’t tell him about the ghosts or that secret will be out for all of the ghosts to hear. “Nervous about the trip and there’s a lot of… stuff.”

“Stuff already bothering you?” he asks gently.

“Sure is.”

He looks concerned. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I’ve got a new book to read and thirteen hours to read it.”

I open it just as a ghost sits on it and since I can’t see through him, I’m left staring at a ghost groin while contemplating where it all went wrong. I was being so good. So careful. I was pretending that there were no ghosts on the plane at all.

“You sure this is the right guy? I’ve heard these tales before and like literally no one can actually see ghosts, right?” a woman says.

I close the book, unsure how much longer I can stare at his body while I pretend to read.

“Already done?” Maddox asks.

“It was thrilling,” I assure him as the plane finally starts to take off. I hope and beg that some of the ghosts are tied to this area and get sucked off the plane, but nope, they’re clearly in it for the long haul.

“Come on, I’m wanting to watch that,” Natalie says as she tries pushing a ghost out of the way.

“Fuck off,” the woman says, ready to brawl for the spot in front of my screen.

Natalie gasps. “You fuck off. I was here first. This is my human. We were best friends in life and now in death, I haunt him because he called me a bitch before I died,” she lies. I definitely have called her a bitch after she died, but more in a loving way. Like “Don’t be a bitch, get your ass out of the way” kind of thing.

I try reading on my phone, but I can’t see it through Natalie’s body, and if I put it to the side, I can’t see it through the body of the man I poked in the face.

I eventually just give up and lie against Maddox’s shoulder. “I’m taking a nap.”

“Would it help if we switched seats so you could lean?”

“No,” I say as I close my eyes and hope they get bored before I do because it’s impossible for me to sleep on planes. The issue is that the dead don’t have as much sense of time as I do. Nope, they could wait here all day.

Maddox leans into me. “Can I do anything?”

“No. But thank you. Tell me when the seat belt light is off… and I’ll try to deal with it.”

“Okay.”

When the light finally goes off, I hop up and hurry over to the bathroom where I’m stuck waiting in line before I slip inside, and the tiny area quickly becomes claustrophobic because of the ghosts jostling me around.

Please, don’t let me regret this. Please don’t let me regret this. “Okay, I can see you guys, but please be respectful about it. There is nothing I can do on this plane, so let me have peace, please? Just for the flight.”

“I knew you could see us. You need to help me,” the man I’d jabbed in the face says.

“With what?” I ask.

“I want to talk to my wife.”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t. How do you expect me to go over and just… talk to someone on the flight?”

“Oh, she’s not on the flight,” he says.

I gape at him. “You’ve… you’ve harassed me for nearly an hour, and the person you want me to talk to… isn’t… isn’t even here?” I whisper.

“Correct. I’m just on the plane because I love to travel. Disappointed the flight attendants no longer wear the cute miniskirts, though.” He tsks about his sexism.

“My sister’s on the flight,” a woman says. “Can you please talk to her?”

“I… I don’t know. I mean… some people just don’t want to know that their loved ones are still around.”

She looks so hopeful as her eyes lock with mine. “Please? She’d want to know. Trust me. Please?”

“Okay… I won’t promise anything, but I’ll try. What do you want to tell her?”

Relief washes over her face. “Okay, it’s something only she can know. You tell her… You tell her that Anna says she’s a fucking bitch. You tell her that. Then smack her drink into her smug-ass face. I wasn’t even in the fucking ground yet and that bitch was all over my man. I swear they were fucking on my casket. They’re heading to their honeymoon. HONEYMOON. Can you give them lice or something? Find someone with lice and give them to her. And then kick him in the balls.”

“I’m not… going to give someone lice. Like did you really think I would?” I ask in confusion. I turn to the next ghost. “Alright, what’s your issue?”

“Hi, I’m Marshall, and my issue is I have a thirteen-hour flight and am bored as fuck. My girl was like dead asleep the instant she sat down. She might lift her head to eat, but there will be no interaction for the next thirteen hours from that girl,” he says with a shake of his head.

“I could wake her up. Pinch her or something,” Reggie offers. “I’m actually really good at haunting people.”

“He is,” Natalie says.

“Uh… no, I don’t want her to be haunted.”

“Then why the fuck are you haunting my man, eh?” Reggie asks, looking like a little bantam rooster prepared to fuck the guy up.

“Huh. I… I see what you’re saying. FINE.” He disappears with a sigh, giving me one less ghost in here.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere until you call my sister a bitch,” Anna says as she folds her arms over her chest.

I think about this for a moment because the last thing I want to do is be stuck on a plane with a woman that I strut up to and call a bitch. “What if I like… write it on a note? If I do that, will you promise to leave?”

“Ooh, I like that idea,” she says, seeming excited.

“Who else?”

The final ghost just stares at me for a while. “My… body is on this plane.”

That seems to quiet everyone down. The rest appear to have been dead for a while, or at least long enough to function.

“I’m really sorry to hear that,” I say. “Is someone from your family here on the plane?”

He’s quiet for a minute. “No…. I’m alone.”

It makes me wonder how he was able to come onto the plane. Often people remain where they died until they’re strong enough to wander off… but maybe me being on the plane affected it and allowed him to go with the body. I have to assume the body is down in the cargo bay, but it surprises me he’s not down there with it at the very least. I’m glad he’s not, though. How awful would that feel to be stuck down there with nothing but your body for company? I’m glad he was able to come up here with us.

“Uh… why don’t you just sit with us? We can watch a movie or read some books. What’s your name?”

“Hudson.”

“Come sit with us. I’m going to deal with this… problem first. And then, hopefully we can read or watch TV or something. Is that good with everyone? Please?”

“Yeah, I guess,” the one says. “As long as you call her sister a bitch. That sounds hilarious .”

“Got it,” I say as I step outside and nearly run into a man.

He raises an eyebrow before pointing. “You… done in there?”

“Uh… yeah?” I respond, wondering how long I must have been in there.

“Do I have to wait for the other person to leave?” he asks as I realize that he’d heard me talking up a storm.

“No… I was… I was recording something on my phone. I wasn’t…”

The man looks skeptical but shrugs. I don’t get far before I see the flight attendant who’d welcomed me. “Excuse me?”

“Yes?” she asks as she gives me a warm smile, and her name tag reminds me that her name is Danielle.

“Do you have a slip of paper and a pen? I would really appreciate it.”

“Let me see what I can find,” Danielle says cheerfully before hurrying off. She’s not gone long before she brings both to me. “There you go. If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to ask.” And with that, she’s off to deal with someone’s call light.

I use the wall outside the bathroom to lean the paper against so I can write on it. “Okay, tell me what to write.”

“Put ‘You’re a bitch,’” Anna says, sounding giddy.

“Okay,” I agree as I write just that, wondering what the nice flight attendant would think if she realized what I was using her kindness for. “Good?”

“Put some stick figures of two people doing it,” Reggie suggests because of course he needs to be of some help.

“Ooh yes, do that,” the sister says.

I sigh and toss in some stick figures sixty-nining. “Are we good now?”

Natalie’s clearly not done. “I saw the woman and she’s got some biiiiiig boobs. Stick those in there.”

“They’re totally fake. Super fake,” Anna says.

I decide that this is plenty, fold it up, and with a sigh, I head out into the aisle. “Right there, right there,” Anna directs as she dances around two people who are snuggled up against each other. Of course they’re past Maddox, so he gives me a strange look as I head past him. Charlotte also raises an eyebrow, like maybe I got confused and am moving on to find a different seatmate. I see that while the sister in question is half on the man’s lap, much to the disgust of their seatmate crammed against the wall, she has a book on her lap. I simply stoop down, pretend I pick up the note, and hold it out to her.

“This fell out of your book,” I say.

She has to unweave herself from the man’s body as she reaches out to take it while I hurry off before I have to deal with any repercussions of what I’ve just done. I end up going to the end of the plane where I get in line for that bathroom so she doesn’t question what happened. I wait alone as my ghost entourage wraps around her, looking absolutely giddy and delighted.

The woman’s head snaps back to me as I pretend not to notice it, but now I’m wondering if I looked too guilty when I jerked my head away to stare at a wall like it’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen.

“She’s totally looking at you,” Keaton says.

“I can’t believe I did that.”

He laughs. “Her head is on a swivel; she’s looking everywhere like she’s trying to pinpoint who wrote it.”

I glance over and see that the woman who’d asked me to do it is absolutely thrilled by this. So thrilled, in fact, that I realize… “Hold on… did she just move on? Did I literally help a ghost move on by calling her sister a bitch?” I whisper.

“Sure looks like it.”

“Damn, I’m good. I should start calling people bitches more often.”

“I’m positive that’ll get you far,” Keaton jokes.

After spending an adequate time in the corner pretending like I was going to use the bathroom before heading back, I refuse to even look at the woman I’d given the note to as I reach my seat. Hudson is standing in the aisle looking lost, so I reach back and take his wrist. He appears startled about the contact, but he allows me to pull him in after me.

“Her eyes are boring holes in the back of your head,” Reggie informs me. “That was hilarious. Hiro, you need to call people bitches more often.”

“I thought maybe you got lost!” Charlotte says.

“Oh, I was feeling a bit motion sick, so I needed to walk for a second. I’m feeling better, though,” I assure her as I slip into the seat before leaning into Maddox so our nosy neighbor doesn’t hear.

“I… think I have the situation under control.”

“What’d you do?”

“Helped a woman pass on by calling her sister a bitch,” I say with a grin.

Maddox laughs. “You’re joking.”

“Totally not. I wrote it on a paper, though… I pretended like she dropped it. Then I acted like an innocent bystander.”

“And that was all she needed to move on?” he asks, rightfully skeptical.

“Sure was.”

He grins. “And the rest?”

“They promised to be well behaved. I’ll put something on for them to watch so I can read my book.”

The group returns, and once they’ve finished telling me all about how spooked the woman is, after much debate, they eventually agree on a movie to watch. With the subtitles up, I crack open my book so I can finally read, which I notice Hudson prefers, so I start over from page one and make sure he has time to read each page. Maddox reaches over and squeezes my leg. When I glance up at him, he smiles.

“We’re going to have so much fun.”

“We will.”