Falling Over You Page 2

  Get a grip on yourself, she thought silently as she descended into the closest subway station. You can't blame something which does not exist on your failed attempt at a job interview. But you can definitely blame the man, whoever he was.

  3

  Luckily for Lara, Mike the ghost hadn't followed her home. She lived in the suburbs of New York, out on Long Island, in a two story house. The neighborhood was nice and quiet, safe, and incredibly serene. Before Lara had gotten out to New York, she thought every part of it was city because that was what New York was known for. She soon realized it was so much more than just hustling and bustling. In fact, if she was honest, Lara thought that the suburbs were incredibly beautiful. Though she had grown up in southern California her entire life, where the seasons never changed, she was looking forward to watching the leaves change color, experiencing her first snowfall, watching the flowers bloom, and dancing during a summer rainstorm. She was sure that people who got to experience each individual season were used to it, but it was something she had always wanted to experience. For once, she wouldn't be wearing shorts on Christmas Day.

  When she reached her house and let herself in, the first thing she did was make a cup of coffee. She figured that she was still somewhat asleep. Not only did she talk to a man who claimed to be some sort of ghost, she’d actually believed him for a moment. She didn't actually tell him that she believed him, of course, but she had seen him walk off the sidewalk and into traffic, and then watched with awe as a car literally drove right through him. She had said it was an illusion, but.... She shook her head, glancing at the coffee maker in hopes that it would hurry up. Maybe she just needed someone to blame for screwing up her interview instead of taking responsibility for it.

  But she had seen him before her interview. She had bumped into him. She had felt him. She had seen his face outside the window. She couldn't be hallucinating, could she? Lara didn't drink, had never touched drugs except that one time she got high on weed and hated every minute of it, and she hadn’t even had coffee beforehand. Then, she saw him outside the building, had a conversation with him. Unless she was losing her mind, Mike had to be real. There was no other explanation. There couldn't be. She had touched him, for Crissake!

  Maybe...maybe this whole move from California to New York was causing all of this. Maybe subconsciously she was compressing her inner turmoil over everything and it turned up into some guy who claimed to be a ghost. She didn't even think she could be that creative, and if Lara was anything, she was creative.

  As she smelled the rich scent of the coffee, she idly wondered if she should bring up what was happening to her with her fiancé. Brett had moved out to New York six months before Lara had so he had obviously gone through some kind of change. Maybe he could give her some advice on how to handle the transition. Now, he had a great job on Wall Street, had made many friends, and obviously had purchased a house the couple now shared together.

  Lara furrowed her brow. Although, if she was being honest, the house they had purchased had come really cheap. Especially for a big, beautiful house in such a nice neighborhood. For a moment, she wondered why. Brett was initially the one who had handled everything because, at that time, Lara was still in California; he took care of the paperwork, the payments, everything. She didn’t remember him mentioning why they had gotten such a good deal on such a nice house.

  She had heard rumors though. Living in the suburbs constituted for some gossip. Some of the neighbors—especially the housewives—loved nothing more than to gossip. Since Lara was home a lot, sending out her résumés and hoping for call-backs, scheduling her appointments for interviews, keeping the house kempt, cooking.... Actually, Lara was quite busy at home. Whenever she went outside to grab the mail, she would somehow be sucked into conversations with the neighbors.

  "It's haunted," one of them, Mrs. McClain, had told her a couple of weeks ago, eyeing Lara's house suspiciously. "That's why the Lovitzes wanted to get out so quickly. That's why they sold it to that fiancé of yours for half of what it's worth. It's haunted."

  "Really?" Lara had asked flatly, turning to stare at the house as well. She obviously didn't believe what the older woman was saying but she wondered how such rumors were started in the first place.

  "I know that tone," Mrs. McClain said, shaking her head as her eyes went from the house over to Lara then back to the house again. "But Peggy Lovitz told me some stories that cannot be explained. Like whenever they returned home after a late dinner from the City, they would see a figure in the bedroom window. And sometimes, when they were fast asleep, footsteps would wake them up. Mr. Lovitz even responded to a voice—a male's voice once—but when he searched the house to see who had spoken, no one was there."

  "Uh huh," Lara said, not entirely interested in what the woman was saying anymore.

  "What about you, young lady?" the older woman asked, placing her hands on her hips. "Have you been experiencing anything unexplainable, anything supernatural?"

  Lara curled her lips into a smile which, surprisingly, was somewhat arrogant, and shook her head. "Nope, no ghosts here," she said. "Maybe whatever was here had already left, hmm? Maybe they thought it was fun to terrify the Lovitzes, so they decided to follow them."

  "That's not funny," Mrs. McClain said, shaking her head and narrowing her eyes directly into Lara's as though it was Lara's fault the Lovitzes had left. "You know, they had been in this house for three years before deciding to sell it. They lost a lot of money, but it would seem they just couldn't stand living here."

  Lara furrowed her brow, suddenly slightly curious about the history of her house. "What about the owners before that?" she asked, her tone more serious now.

  "There were no owners before that," Mrs. McClain said. Now it was she who had an arrogant smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. "At least, not for four years. Before that, a man lived there. I can't recall his name, but he lived there alone. Never went out, never socialized with us at all. And then one day, he just vanishes, disappears. No one told us what happened to him, but suddenly, his house went up for sale. Many people looked through it, but no one actually bought it. No one actually lived here until the Lovitzes."

  "So you're saying this ghost haunted the original owner—whoever that was—and then did the same to people interested in buying the house?" Lara asked, placing her fingertip against her bottom lip, deep in thought.

  "I can't say for sure," Mrs. McClain conceded. "But those are the rumors. I suggest you be very careful in that home. We don't want you and your fiancé to get spooked to the point of moving, do we? Not with such a beautiful house."

  That conversation had taken place a couple of weeks ago. Maybe her subconscious conjured up what she had said—

  "Enough, Lara," the young woman murmured to herself, pushing herself off the couch in the living room and glancing out the window. It was nearly dark now; she had been lost in her thoughts for the past few hours, coming up with no conclusion to her mystery. She grabbed her coffee cup and walked into the kitchen, placing it in the sink before running her long fingers through her hair.

  When she glanced up, however, she saw him, that face—the exact face that had caused her to screw up her interview. She was so surprised, she tripped over herself. Lara prepared herself for hitting the ground, but something prevented her from doing so. She opened her eyes, only to come in contact with Mike's deep, nearly black eyes. The two didn't break eye contact, not even as Mike helped Lara stand. He also didn't release her wrist—not yet, anyway.

  Lara felt goosebumps litter her bare arms at how penetrating his stare was, at how warm his touch was on her skin. "What are you doing in my house?" she asked him in a voice just above a whisper. For whatever reason, she wasn't afraid of him or his intentions, but she was unsure of everything, and once things were explained, she would no doubt calm down.

  "Your house?" he asked, his tone obviously puzzled as he furrowed his brow. "This is my house."

  4

  It was then th
at Lara Darling started to believe in ghosts. Okay, she knew it wasn't rational, and even she was surprised by this sudden change of heart. It took people tons and tons of weeks, months, maybe even years to start believing in ghosts if they didn't already. That, or a marathon of Ghost Hunters. That all changed in a blink of an eye. Lara was converted. There was no way a human could look through a sixteenth story window without any sort of equipment and then meet her downstairs so quickly. There was no way he could get into her locked and alarmed house without her knowing about it. Though she could see him, converse with him, and feel him —though he looked and sounded and felt like a human, he wasn't. He couldn't be. And he definitely wasn't in her head. Not when she could feel his long fingers coiled around her wrist. Not when....

  Okay Lara, get a grip on yourself. Come on.

  She closed her eyes before opening them once again, only to come in contact with his eyes once again. She was silent for another moment, noticing how easy it was for her to get lost in them.

  But that wasn't the point.

  "It was you, wasn't it?" Lara asked softly, furrowing her brow as she looked at him. "You're the one who scared off the Lovitzes. You're the one who scared off any interested buyers whenever there was an open house. You made the house impossible to sell. Why would you do that?"

  "I don't want some strangers living in my house," Mike said, shrugging his shoulders and glancing away. Her penetrating stare made him feel slightly uncomfortable for a reason he didn't want to speculate on, but he forced himself to look back at her.

  "It's not your house anymore, because you're dead," Lara pointed out as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. She gently pulled her wrist away from his hand and then dropped her arm by his side.

  "So now you believe that I'm a ghost?" he asked, his lips quirking up as his eyes began to sparkle. "And how can I possibly be dead when you can see me, hear me, touch me?" When he said the last thing, he reached out and brushed a long golden strand of hair behind her ear so Lara could feel his fingertips caress her skin.

  Lara wasn't exactly sure how to answer that one. She seemed to be frozen in place. Instead, she studied him up close, no detail escaping her sharp gaze. He had an oval-shaped face, his skin slightly pale but not sallow or unnatural in any way. As she had noticed before, his eyes were nearly black, something she had never really seen before. His nose was long and round, and his lips were thin but looked incredibly soft. And when they pulled up to smile, he had straight, white teeth. His dark brown hair nearly matched his eyes in color, and he wore it in a style that consisted of it being pushed back from his face. Lara wondered what it looked like when he first woke up. On that note, did ghosts even sleep?

  He was dressed in all black, and Lara wasn't sure if this was because of some ghost rule that said one wasn't allowed the have colors in their wardrobe or if it was just a personal preference. He wore a long-sleeved collared shirt, black slacks, even black loafers on his feet. Despite the fact that he couldn't be seen—at least not normally—he seemed intent on dressing well. The trench coat she had noticed him wearing before was gone, probably.... Where would a ghost keep all his clothes? Did he have more than just this set of clothing or was there more?

  There were too many questions and Lara highly doubted they had time to discuss each one.

  At that moment, both Mike and Lara heard the familiar sound of someone sliding a key in a lock and turning it.

  Mike furrowed his brow, unsure of who this could possibly be. He must have been on vacation longer than he thought; he would have noticed if people were occupying his home before now. Especially one who could see him. There had to be some reason why she could see him, out of all the people. But as he continued to think about it, he couldn't figure out why. It wasn't likely she was some sort of psychic or medium or something like that, so....

  Before he could continue his train of thought, the person who had been letting themselves in appeared in the kitchen. He was tall, though an inch shorter than Mike himself, with jet-black hair and a square-shaped, angular face. His eyes were dark as well, but there was no sparkle in them. His nose was round and when he smiled, instead of his lips curling into an eclipse, it turned into a square. He had broad shoulders, but due to his height, he looked somewhat scrawny. He was wearing a sharp suit, and if Mike had to guess, had just returned home—Mike's home—after work. Then, without warning, he leaned down to kiss Lara on the cheek and walked through Mike.

  Lara's mouth dropped upon seeing this, and Mike gave her a dry, told-you-so look. Though Brett had yet to actually speak, Mike could already feel himself getting annoyed with this guy, though he couldn't reason why.

  "Hey, honey," Lara said, forcing her eyes to look at her fiancé rather than at the ghost who currently looked attached to the man she was going to marry. Literally. "You, you're here early. I, uh, I thought you were going out for drinks with the guys after you got off of work." She wished her voice didn't come out so shaky, but it wasn't every day she was talking to a ghost.

  "Yeah, we changed our minds," Brett said, cocking his head to the side. "Hellman was really riding our asses today, and when we went to our hotspots, they were too crowded so we just decided it wasn't worth it." He glanced around. "So, honey, where's dinner? I thought that since you, you know, don't have a job or anything, you would be on top of things." He gave her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes; it was almost as though he was amused with her, but she couldn't understand why.

  "Right, I'll start something right now," she said, her voice quiet. "I just thought that you weren't going to be here, and so I didn't think I was going to have to—"

  "It's okay," Brett said, waving her explanation away dismissively. "I'll be in the living room watching football. It is Monday night, you know."

  "I thought we were going to watch House together...." She let her voice trail off; Brett had already left the kitchen and was heading where he had told her he would be. He hadn't even stayed to listen to her.

  "So," Mike said, surprising her as he popped up behind her. "Who is that guy?"

  "That guy," Lara said, making sure to keep her voice low in order to ensure that Brett wouldn't hear her and wonder why she was talking to herself. She bent down in order to grab a pot from the bottom cabinet before placing it on the stove for a moment. "Happens to be my fiancé."

  "Are you kidding me?" Mike said, rolling his eyes up to the sky. "Your fiancé? You're actually going to marry that tool.”

  "Oh, shut up," Lara said, taking the pot over to the sink and filling it with water. "Who do you think you are, anyway? You don't even know me. You don't even know him. You don't even know us, together, as a couple. What gives you the right to start judging other people, hmm?"

  "Well, this is my house," Mike pointed out, watching her turn on the stove. He didn't think he ever used the stove when he was alive. It was all microwaveable frozen dishes for him. In fact, unless it was cereal or oatmeal, he didn't think he could cook.

  "Sorry, bucko," she said, turning around and walking over to another cabinet, opening it and pulling out a box of angel-hair pasta. "But your name isn't on the lease; it's not on the deed. The house belongs to me and Brett." She walked back over to the stove and set the pasta on the counter before turning on the stove in order to boil the water. When she turned around again, she locked eyes with Mike. "And don't even think about trying to haunt us out of here. That might have worked if I couldn't see you, but I can and I know you would be trying to get rid of us, so...it just wouldn't work."

  "Honey?" Brett called from the living room. "Are you talking to yourself?" Lara turned a shade of crimson, causing Mike to smirk.

  "No," she called back. "I'm on the phone with my mom. I'll tell her you say hi." She looked over at Mike once more. "Now listen. We're all, somehow, going to get along. Don't try anything."

  This time, Mike's smile was enigmatic. "I'll try," he murmured, his fingers crossed behind his back.

  5

  Later that evenin
g, Lara slinked into bed after changing into a silky lavender-colored nightgown, pressing her brows up as she closed her eyes. To say that she had had an interesting day was definitely an understatement, but oddly enough, her body wasn't stressed, or at least, she didn't feel any tension hiding away in her mind or between her muscles.

  From her slitted eyes, Lara could see Mike pacing back and forth adjacent to her bed. His hands were tucked behind his back and his face was tilted upwards, staring up at the ceiling as though he was searching for some kind of answer to a question Lara didn't know. If she was being honest, Lara noticed that Mike was actually pretty adorable when he was thinking deeply about something. And for some odd reason, Lara found herself curious to know what was on his mind.

  Mike stopped abruptly then and locked eyes with her. He had an enigmatic expression on his pale skin, his nearly black eyes a beautiful contrast to his soft features. When he looked at her, Lara felt a strange sensation that somehow, he could see through her. It froze her to her spot, goosebumps pricking at her sensitive skin. It looked like he was about to say something when Brett entered the master bedroom from the connecting bathroom. He was only in boxers and had a smirk on his face. Without a word, he crawled onto the bed until he was completely over Lara's body, their faces inches apart.

  Lara had always been comfortable with her sexuality and enjoyed the act immensely with someone she loved and trusted. For some odd reason, Lara had no desire whatsoever to engage in such an act with Brett right now. At least not with Mike in the room. It felt awkward and wrong. She couldn't understand it and didn't want to think about it, but she didn't want to explain herself to Brett. What would she say, anyway? No, Brett, I don't want to have sex with you because there's a ghost in this room, and it's not likely he's going to be leaving anytime soon. Yeah, that would go over well.