Grim and Bear It

Rule #1: Reapers are forbidden to remain in contact with human persons from their human life.

– The Reaper Code of Ethics, official handbook.

Poppy

October I knew spying on the love of my life without him knowing was super creepy. In my defense, he couldn’t see me—I’d been dead for twelve years. But I could see him, and if I had saliva, I’d be drooling. Jake was wearing faded, paint-stained jeans and a tight white T-shirt. He sat in a beat-up computer chair, pushing himself around with his non-injured leg as he used a long pole to paint the twelve-foot walls in Blackburn House’s drawing room.

“Welcome back.” Sebastian, Jake’s ghost roommate who’d died in the mid-1800s, appeared next to me wearing his finest Victorian-era suit. I was a little jealous. The outfit I’d been wearing when I died was a bit embarrassing. But at least I got to cover it with a long purple cloak. “Enjoying the view?”

“Always. How’s researching the venom going?” I prompted. Sebastian and I had become close friends from my frequent visits, and he’d been keeping me up to date on Jake’s latest case with SHAP, Supernatural Human Accountability Partnership.

“Tedious,” he sighed, crossing his hands over his stomach. Sebastian worked as a ghost agent, often on the same cases as Jake. “But Jake’s good at what he does and there have been minimal complications.”

“Does he ever sleep?”

“You already know the answer to that. He has to care for everyone himself.”

I watched Jake’s back muscles flex with each pull of the roller and wondered what it would be like to wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his neck. Would he be warm and solid? Would he smell the same as he did in high school? Would his stubble feel scratchy against my skin? “That’s probably my fault for dying on him.”

“I’m not an expert on grim reapers, but I assume that you didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.”

I snorted. “You can’t pick your ancestors.”

Sebastian forced a smile but didn’t reply, a specialty of his when something hit too close to home. A light laugh filled the air and I looked over to see Mina, Jake’s former SHAP partner, wiping paint out of her blonde faux mohawk. Her girlfriend, Carma, was on the top of a very tall ladder with a dripping paintbrush in her hand.

I smiled as Carma blew Mina a kiss before scraping some paint off her brush. I was impressed at Carma’s lack of fear of being eight feet off the ground. I was dead and would still hesitate to climb up that high.

“Will I see you next week for Mina’s mother’s nuptials?”

Before I had a chance to answer, Reggie—Sebastian’s best friend and SHAP partner—poofed in at my other side. “Esqueleto, twice this month? Will you be at the wedding here next week? Mina’s mom is getting married.”

Sebastian crossed his arms. “I just inquired myself, but she has yet to respond.”

I smiled at Reggie’s nickname for me, skeleton. “Sí,” I promised, switching to Spanish. I knew five languages, like most reapers. Being multilingual made communicating with souls easier. Sebastian wasn’t fluent in Spanish, but in the year since Reggie’s appearance, he’d learned the basics.

Since his death, Reggie couldn’t speak to most of his family. When he found out I could speak Spanish, he had been thrilled, since most ghosts in Applechester, Michigan, only spoke English. While I had originally learned Mexican Spanish, I’d begun studying Reggie’s Guatemalan dialect and was getting better with every visit.

I nodded about Mina’s mom’s wedding. “Me encantan las bodas.” I loved weddings.

“Ya sabemos,” they both said in unison, exasperated.

I waved my hand and clucked my tongue. Whatever. I glanced at Reggie. “How’s Lola?” I asked in Spanish. “She stop trying to exorcise you yet?” Reggie lived with his brother Alan who had partial custody of Reggie’s niece Lola, who was very afraid of ghosts.

He lifted a shoulder. “She searched ‘how to talk to dead people’ instead of ‘how to perform an exorcism’ last week.”

“That’s progress.”

We sat in companionable silence for a moment, watching Jake cover a hideous orange with a pink so light it was almost white. It made the room look bigger and I bet the sunset would make the color glow.

“He should’ve used a primer. The orange will show through,” I said.

Reggie waved away my concern. “Paint’s changed a lot in twelve years. There’s a primer mixed in. Promises complete coverage.”

That would’ve been awesome to have when I was trying to repaint my childhood bedroom from magenta to mint green. Jake had helped me put on three coats before we gave up and bought a primer. I wondered what the new owners painted that room. Probably something boring like beige.

“It’s weird that you come back to visit,” Reggie said. “I can’t go back.”

I shrugged. “I tried to stay away, but I need to know he’s alive and well. I can deal with the memories.” Most of the time.

Sebastian tilted his head in question and I translated, before switching to English.

“Even if he can’t see you?” Sebastian asked.

I pressed my hand to my chest. “I hope he never can.” Humans only saw grim reapers when they were about to die. Jake seeing me would be the worst day of my unlife. Even worse than the day I died. “I hope he’s moved on, but I also hope he thinks of me,” I whispered.

I watched as Jake pushed himself to the back corner of the room, where an old bar used to reside. Now, it was little more than a discolored square of faded paint. Whenever our parents brought us here for Founders Festival tours or holiday open houses, we would always meet at the corner, where a large storage cabinet had hidden the rest of the room from view. Then we’d sneak off to the kitchens or to explore closed off rooms.

It had been the spot where he first took my hand when I was ten and he was twelve. Where he called me beautiful when I was twelve and he was fourteen. Where I waited for him at fifteen to show him my new holiday dress. Where he whispered, “kiss me,” despite our parents forbidding a relationship between us, and I pressed my lips against his for the first time. Every room in this house held a memory of us, but that corner held the most.

He dipped his roller into the paint tray then lifted it, pausing in midair.

“Jake,” I whispered, wishing for the five-millionth time he could see me, hear me, feel me, before desperately shoving the wish deep into the recesses of my dead heart.

He closed his eyes, shook his head, and continued painting.

Reggie leaned his head against my shoulder. “We can tell him about you, you know,” he whispered. “You don’t have to be a stranger like this.”

I laid my head back on his for a moment, then straightened and stepped away. “It does have to be like this. If he could communicate with me, I…” I shook my head at the thought. “I couldn’t… I wouldn’t…”

I didn’t need to finish the sentence. They knew. Sebastian looked out the large window, the crescent moon high in the sky. I recognized that haunted look in his eyes and wanted to ask but didn’t. Pushing him to open up would just make him shut down and my friends were precious commodities. I was an introvert by nature, something dying hadn’t changed.

“You’re my date next week,” Reggie claimed.

Sebastian blinked before focusing on him. “Incorrect, sir. She’s my date. You have a boyfriend.”

Reggie winked at him. “Just checking if you were paying attention.”

I rolled my eyes. A sharp tug at the center of my chest silently warned me my break time was up. I blew them both a kiss and shot one last lingering look at Jake. “Miss you,” I whispered. He didn’t look over his shoulder as I disappeared.

Jake

One week later

I was cursed, at least when it came to weddings. After the first one—my dad and stepmom Magnolia’s wedding—my grandpa was diagnosed with dementia. After the second, coincidentally their vow renewal, my first love, Poppy, disappeared. The third was an almost wedding; my sister’s fiancé died two weeks before.

As for the fourth? I was late and now had a bloodstain on my suit coat. Should’ve taken off the coat before trying to break up a venom handoff.

“Behind you!” My new partner, Paris, shouted before elbowing her assailant in the neck, then flipping him to his back. She had come from the research and development department, eager to dig into the oral vampire venom case. I was lucky that her twin brother also worked in the field and had cross-trained her. She’d passed her field work test immediately and was assigned as my new partner, since my former partner left.

I didn’t have time to watch her cuff the guy before I turned around and used my cane to hit my attacker on the shoulder hard enough to bring him to his knees. I knocked him out with another stroke and rolled him, tucking my cane in my armpit as I zip-tied his wrists together. I should’ve brought the gray cane with the knife in it, instead of my civilian black, but I was supposed to be at a wedding.

This had been the biggest bust this month and we were getting closer to the top of the venom distribution food chain. As soon as this job was done, I was finished with field work. Another few weeks and I would get to mentor my niece, Daisy, and give my bones a much-needed rest.

The footsteps behind me might as well have been an airhorn. I swung around, fist connecting with a man’s jaw. He crumpled and Paris dove down to finish restraining him. I stumbled forward and caught myself on her shoulder before righting myself with my cane.

“I’ve got an ice pack in my lunchbox. Grab it before you head out,” she offered.

“Thanks.” Two knee surgeries, shrapnel to my thigh and hip, and a touch of arthritis from repeat injuries had left me in chronic pain. Most days were tolerable, but the fighting days kicked my ass. I had a freezer full of ice packs and a heating pad in nearly every room of my place.

I sighed in relief as two SHAP vans rolled up followed by my sister’s minivan. “You good?”

Paris gave me a thumbs-up.

“You don’t want to come and say hi?” I teased. For whatever reason, Paris and my younger stepsister, Eliza, couldn’t stand each other. I maintained if they just spent more time together, they’d get along.

“Don’t forget the ice pack,” she replied.

I shuffled to her car—she’d picked me up from my place—grabbed the pack and moved to Eliza’s passenger door. With a groan, I hoisted myself in and slapped the ice on my leg, then buckled up. I was going to need to add heat to my hip later, but this would help for now.

“Well, at least there’s no blood on your face,” Eliza said before navigating out of the parking lot. “We’ll sneak you in the back.”

“Paris had my back, thankfully.”

She just rolled her eyes. “Stop trying to make me like her. She better have your back, anyway.”

I held up my hands in surrender. “You didn’t tell Mina, right?”

“Cross my heart.”

I nodded. “Good.”

Mina, my best friend and former partner, had enough on her plate today. Mina was the maid of honor in her mom’s second wedding, her girlfriend Carma the event planner, and Eliza, a bridesmaid. To add more stress to her plate, this was Carma’s first event in her new bed and breakfast, Blackburn Mansion. Plus, Carma was meeting my stepmom today. Mina was so nervous, it almost made me nervous.

Mina was no longer part of SHAP, having been terminated for her relationship with her new girlfriend, who was our mark during our last case. The case I was still working at breaking open. The case that was a pain in my ass, as demonstrated by the bloodstain on my coat. I rubbed at the large spot on my sleeve and grumbled an expletive.

“SHAP cleaners will get that out,” Eliza promised.

“We have fifteen minutes before pictures.”

She grimaced. “Yeah, you’re screwed.” She made a hard right and then a left, pulling into the back parking lot of Blackburn House and bypassing the valet.

“I should be upset that the takedown was in Applechester, but today I’m glad,” I admitted.

“Same. Mom would’ve lost her mind if we were late.”

She was right. It didn’t matter that I was thirty and Eliza was twenty-eight. My stepmom, Magnolia, lived by the three P code: punctuality, politeness, perseverance (and Jesus). My mom had died when I was a toddler and Magnolia had been the only mother I’d known. Out of respect for her…and because she still scared me a little, I always tried to be punctual.

I opened the van door and Sebastian appeared, touching the brim of his top hat. “Perfect timing. I shall distract Mina from the goings-on. The bathroom to the left of the kitchen is unoccupied.”

I slid out of the seat, swallowing a groan. “Roger.”

He disappeared.

Eliza tugged at my coat. “Come on, I’ll help.”

I brushed her off. “I’ve got it. Don’t get blood on your dress. You’re all pretty and shit.” Her red hair had been pulled back in some fancy low bun and her blue dress matched her eyes, which for once weren’t full of sadness.

“I can be pretty and help.”

“Yes, but today is not that day. Go away before anyone gets suspicious.”

With a roll of her eyes, she held the door open for me, then ran down the hall in the opposite direction, adjusting her hair as she moved. I moved to the bathroom Sebastian had recommended, concentrating on being inconspicuous.

My plan failed. Mina was one of the best SHAP field agents in North America. It wasn’t hard for her to deduce why Eliza, Sebastian, and I disappeared at the same time. I had barely gotten the sleeve wet before Mina walked in, closing the door behind her and locking it.

“You thought I really wouldn’t notice?”

I shrugged. “I’d hoped. You have enough on your plate.”

She crossed her arms. “I’m only giving you a pass because this is Carma’s first official event and she’s stressed.”

“I can’t believe she offered to host.”

Mina threw her hands up. “Right?! I had to redo all the invitations. But it is much better than city hall and a church basement.”

“Agreed. And your mom’s in love with her forever now.”

Mina smiled in a way I’d only ever seen her do in relation to Carma. “Yeah. Me too.”

My heart thudded hard once at the thought of Poppy, the girl who used to make me smile like that. There were so many memories of her in these walls, and I swore if I looked hard enough, I could almost see her. I had promised to love her forever and she’d promised me back. Turned out we were liars.

I cleared my throat. “You look magnificent,” I told Mina. I didn’t know a lot about dresses, but I did know the light blue fabric fit her perfectly.

“Thank you.” Her fair cheeks turned pink and I almost started laughing. I didn’t even know Mina knew how to blush until she met Carma. “You keep flexing your right hand. Did you punch someone? Need ice?”

I looked at my soon-to-be bruised knuckles. My white skin was tan from spending so much time outside over the summer, but even a tan couldn’t hide the red splotches. I was sore, but nothing I hadn’t dealt with a hundred times. “It’s the coat I’m worried about.” I turned off the water and squeezed out the sleeve, then laid it over the side of the sink. “I think the stain is actually worse.”

“Not gonna get blood out with generic hand soap, buddy. Mom isn’t gonna care if you’re in a coat. Isaac isn’t even wearing one and he’s the groom.”

I put my back against the wall, leaning on my cane to take the pressure off my left leg. I felt sixty years old today. “Magnolia will have thoughts.”

Mina smirked. “She always does.” She pursed her lips and tilted her head, her tell for when she was connecting the dots. “A venom deal in broad daylight? In Applechester? That’s scary shit.”

I just raised my gaze to hers and stayed silent. I couldn’t tell her anything about the investigation. Mina didn’t know how deep the illegal distribution ring of oral vampire venom ran, with Carma’s mom merely a figurehead of the operation. We had taken down three groups in the last month alone.

While we hadn’t spotted any more rogue vampires running around the city, it didn’t mean we were in the clear. Mina’s eyes widened for a moment, but she nodded. She could read my silence.

Two ghosts walked through the wall to the left of Mina. One was Sebastian, and the other was his best friend, Reggie. Reggie was a Guatemalan-American man in his early thirties, with tawny skin and dark hair.

“Gracias a Dios, I died wearing dress pants,” Reggie said. “If I had to go to the wedding in jeans I would simply just die. Again.”

“Eliza’s dress is spotless, and Carma is repairing Eliza’s hair,” Sebastian added, turning to Mina. “Your mom’s ready for family photographs.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “What are we going to say happened to my suit coat?”

Mina walked over, unbuttoned my sleeves and rolled them twice up my forearms. Then she moved her fingers swiftly through my dark hair. “Nothing.”

Reggie and Sebastian gasped in unison, as if what she said was against all rational thought. “Jake is going to break out in hives,” Reggie whispered.

“Make sure you don’t have any blood under your fingernails and hurry up. Carma is in charge of the schedule today and if you stress her out, I will kill you with my high heel.”

I looked at myself in the mirror and straightened my hair. It was a little longer than I usually wore it, mostly because I didn’t have time to get a haircut. “You made me look like more of a mess.”

She shook her head. “I made you look artfully casual. Totally different and looks intentional.”

“Magnolia’s still going to have thoughts.”

“Would you rather her be annoyed at you for looking casual or for making a drug bust a half hour before the wedding?”

I winced. I had promised not to work today and Magnolia never forgot a promise. “Casual it is.”

I looked over at the ghosts. “I know you both have thoughts.”

Reggie sighed. “You’re still unfairly attractive. Are you sure I’m not your type?”

I laughed. “I do prefer my partners to have a pulse.” While I was pansexual and open to exploring a relationship with all gender identities, I had a preference for living people. “And ones that don’t already have a boyfriend.”

He held out his arm for Sebastian. “Let’s go find Clint and get a good seat.”

“Hey,” I said as soon as the ghosts left, “you okay?” Mina had taken her mom’s engagement hard.

She smiled. “I am really happy to welcome Isaac into the family officially. I know he’s practically my age, but he and Mom are good for each other. As long as she’s happy, I’m happy.”

“Wow, Summers, I never thought I’d see the day you’d have as much emotional maturity as my eight-year-old niece. You’ve definitely graduated from wet toilet paper. Remind me to thank Carma.”

“Do you think our moms will be mad if I broke your nose?”

“Wait until after the pictures, babe. You look smoking in that dress. Don’t ruin it with my blood.”

With a shake of her head, she walked over and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “Love you, you weirdo.”

“Love you, too. Now move it. We’re late.”