Marner asked me if I wanted my parents to pick me up after questioning, but I couldn’t deal with my mother. Somehow, she would passive-aggressively suggest that I was at fault for nearly getting myself killed. Instead, I took an Uber, with a stop at the liquor store, and invited Alyssa over, but she was on a date with Michael. She offered to ditch him but I told her not to. I felt fine, just…weird. Not like before, when I was being compressed by grief. It was more restlessness than depression. Like this should be the ending, but it was more of a beginning than anything else.

I pulled up a show on my DVR that was light and fluffy. A cupcake competition, complete with burned batter, runny buttercream and tears. I kept looking at my phone, thinking, hoping, Jake would text me, but he didn’t.

Pulling a blanket over myself, despite the fact that it was ninety degrees outside, I popped my feet out from under the bottom and stared at my toes. The polish was chipped. When had that happened?

Ryan sat down next to me. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

We stayed silent beyond that, and after a minute I stood up. “Remember how you always wanted people to do a shot of Jameson at your funeral? A ton of people did, but I couldn’t. My throat felt closed.” I padded over to my kitchen. “But I bought a bottle of whiskey today.” I turned. “Today I’m taking a shot for you. For your life. For our friendship.”

He looked touched. “That’s pretty awesome. I appreciate that.”

“The timing seems better.” I had shot glasses, though I wasn’t sure why. They must have been remnants of my days wanting to fit in in college before I realized I was never going to be able to drink like a fish. I pulled two shooters down from the cabinet and opened the bottle and poured a finger in each. I knew Ryan couldn’t drink it, but it seemed the polite thing to do.

“Sláinte,” I said, and raised my glass. I had grown up with the Irish toast to good health on everyone’s lips and so had Ryan.

He said it as well as I shuddered from the burn pouring down my throat.

“Sláinte. Now you have to take the second shot.”

I gave a little cough and pounded my chest. I had almost died at the hands of an insurance agent, of all ridiculous things. I could deal with the whiskey. “You got it.”

“Here’s to women’s kisses, and to whiskey, amber clear; not as sweet as a woman’s kiss, but a darn sight more sincere.”

“I’ve never kissed anyone insincerely,” I told him wryly.

Ryan gave a snort. “I’ll have to ask Marner.”

He had to bring that up. I tossed this shot back readily. I didn’t want to discuss Marner with him. I set the glass down on the countertop and looked at Ryan.

In that moment, it occurred to me that this might be it—the last time I would see him. He was going to get his one-way ticket to that bounce house in the sky and this time, it would be for real. I would never see him again. He seemed to realize that too. He actually was surprisingly somber for Ryan.

“Thanks, Bai. I mean that. I couldn’t have done this without you.” He tried to draw me into his arms, but of course I couldn’t press on him or feel his touch.

I pretended I could. I leaned to an approximation of where his chest would be and looked up the length of his body to his face. His expression so rare for him, yet his face so familiar. I hoped that he had found peace. Hell, I hoped I had. “You’re welcome. I’ve always loved you, Ryan.” There, I said it. Not in a romantic kind of love way, but as the platonic love that it had always been, even when I hadn’t understood that.

It was said with no expectation of him saying anything in return. He wasn’t sentimental. But he surprised me. His voice was gruff, but he managed, “I love you too.”

Then I think we were both waiting for him to get sucked away. The air seemed to be suspended around us and I could have sworn I heard the whistle of a train way in the distance. Coming to get him? But then again, I live in a fairly urban neighborhood. We do have a train. So it probably wasn’t the Ethereal Express coming to give Ryan a ride to the afterlife.

The moment went on and on and moved from comforting and melancholy to anticipatory, and then just plain awkward. I took a step back. Our celestial hug had gone on too long.

“What the hell?” Ryan asked when the silence was deafening. “Now what?”

“I don’t know. Did you pass your exam?” I had forgotten about that. His Intro to Death class had been giving him hell. No pun intended.

“I mean, barely, but I passed.” He looked around. “Is there a waiting period or something? Do I have to be quarantined until I’m cleared by customs?”

If I was a betting woman, I’d put up my house against the fact that Ryan had missed something in the manual somewhere. He was a skimmer.

My e-cigarette was in the spice cabinet. I know, a poor attempt at camouflage. It wasn’t like lingering among the curry and the Old Bay was going to prevent me from smoking it. I pulled it down and pushed the little button and took a hit. I justified it by the fact that it had been three days since I’d used it, and I had faced down the barrel of a gun.

“If you hadn’t almost been killed today I would reprimand you. But I won’t.”

“Wow, thanks, that wasn’t passive-aggressive at all.”

We looked at each other and started laughing. I poured myself another shot. Last one, pinky swear.

Ten minutes later Ryan was lying on my couch like he was in therapy and I was drunk. “Why am I still here?” he asked.

If that wasn’t the burning question I didn’t now what was. “I don’t know. Why are any of us here?”

I was in my big overstuffed chair, puffing away and feeling very warm in my extremities.

He gave me a look. “Thanks, Socrates.”

“The only thing I know is that I know nothing,” I said, pulling a true Socratic quote from the depths of my whiskey-soaked brain. “I thought you said once we solved your murder you would get to cross over.” And he was still here, showing up at random intervals and criticizing my flat butt.

“I may have miscalculated.”

“Are you okay?” I asked him. “With the way everything went down?” I didn’t want him to wander around indefinitely with regret and guilt.

“Yeah. It is what it is. My own fault.” He rolled onto his side and propped his head up with his hand. “Just tell my mom that I love her, okay? That she did right by me.”

“She knows that.”

His nose twitched. “Yeah.”

We were a couple of sad sacks, that was for sure. “Have you gotten a text or anything?” I asked. “You know, from the Office of Purgatory?” I felt ridiculous saying that out loud.

“Nope. They’re icing me out. Bastards.”

“I’m not sure I would mess with them if you want to get a pass to heaven.”

“Hmm.” He started doing stomach crunches. “I wonder if I should keep up my workout regimen.”

Obviously he was very concerned about his future (not.) “I’m hungry. I wonder if I have any cheese.” Chips didn’t usually tempt me, but dairy was my soul mate. The whiskey had me feeling relaxed, warm.

The minute I stepped into the kitchen that disappeared instantly. A scream caught in the back of my throat and my heart jumped into high gear. My buzz instantly wore off as I took in the sight of Hannah, Ryan’s paramour, sitting at my kitchen table. “How did you get in here?” I asked, glancing to the back door. Still locked.

Oh hell no…

She was trying to touch an orange piled high in my fruit bowl. Her finger kept going through it. Slowly she turned and looked at me. Her jaw worked but she didn’t speak. There was terror in her eyes, and her mascara was staining her cheeks in angry black streaks.

“Uh, Ryan, can you come in here, please?” I called out, frozen in place. I was actually afraid to spook the spook. She didn’t seem to know where she was and her face displayed no recognition of me.

“Is this where you flash me?” he responded. “I’m telling Marner.”

“Just get in here!”

He groaned but he peeled himself off the couch and came toward the kitchen. “What… Hannah? Hey. What are you doing here? God, it’s good to see you.”

He was going to go to her, that was obvious, but I stepped in front of him and gave him a warning look. “Ryan,” I whispered urgently. “Hannah’s dead.”

He stopped in his tracks and his eyes widened. “For real?” He peered around my head like if he moved too fast she would evaporate. “Oh crap. That’s a problem.”

“What is going on here?” I asked.

“Help me,” Hannah said, her voice plaintive and frightened, completely at odds with the confident street-smart woman I had met. “He’s after me.”

“Ryan, you need to pull out your death manual, because I think we might have just found your next task.”

Though why she was sitting in my house I had no answer. One ghost was manageable. Two was a crowd.

My status as third wheel was firmly entrenched.

Ryan went to comfort Hannah.

I went for the hunk of mozzarella tempting me from my fridge.

Then poured the rest of the whiskey down the sink and braced myself for what appeared to be my new reality—counselor to the recently departed.

From home stager to BGG—Best Ghost Girlfriend. That’s me.