The Dead Romantics (74)

“You should play that one,” he suggested. “Nicki has a heart left and—”

“I’m not going to cheat—”

“What are you whispering?” Carver asked through a mouthful of pizza.

Alice added, tongue in cheek, “Your ghost friend helping you out?”

“No,” I rebuked.

Carver agreed. “If she had a ghost friend helping, she wouldn’t be losing so badly.”

Nicki slapped him on the arm. “Be nice!”

“I am!”

Ben bent down against my ear and said, the words a low rumble in his throat, “Annihilate them.”

I was thinking the same damn thing. It wasn’t cheating if no one knew. I pulled the queen of hearts from my hand and slammed it down in the middle of the table. And, like Ben said, Nicki had to play his hearts. I won the round.

And the next one. My family would play their hands and then Ben would advise me on what to play next, his voice tickling my ear.

When I took the fifth round in a row, Carver crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, this isn’t very fair.”

“Whatever do you mean?” I ask.

Mom recorded the score. “Florence, you’re only twenty behind.”

He threw his hands up. “That! You’re not this good.”

“What if I am?”

Mom set down her pen and gave me a level look. “Florence, is your ghost friend here?”

Alice rolled her eyes. “Mom, you know she won’t talk about it—”

“He is,” I interrupted my sister. Maybe it was the glass and a half of Maker’s in me, or maybe it was just being in proximity to Ben, feeling like I was safe. In a way I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

“He?” Carver enunciated.

Alice narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re cheating. Tell your ghostie friend to stop looking at my hand!”

“It’s Ben, preferably,” the ghost said.

“He’d rather be called Ben,” I told Alice.

“Sure, sure, Ben,” she said, and—as if sensing Ben moving over behind her—snapped closed her hand and put the cards facedown on the table. “Tell him if he’s going to be sitting here looking at our cards, he can at least play with us and let me kick your ass.”

“Strong words coming from someone whose highest card is a ten of puppy-toes.”

I blinked at him. “You mean clubs?”

“Puppy-toes,” he repeated with a shrug.

Alice eyed me suspiciously. “What about clovers?”

“Clovers? It’s clubs.”

“As I said: clovers.”

I ignored her. “He said you’ve got strong words for someone whose highest card is a ten of clubs,” I told her, and her eyes widened. She jabbed a finger at me. “Oh that’s not fair! Automatic dish duty! Cheater!”

Carver pressed his cards against his chest. “Has he seen my hand, too?”

“Seriously?” I added, baffled. “Not ‘Oh my god, ghosts are real!’ Or ‘Oh my god, this house is haunted!’?”

My family shook their heads—even Nicki.

“Xavier did the same thing, sweetie,” Mom clarified.

Carver agreed. “How else do you think he always won at those poker games?”

“Can your ghost—Ben, sorry—play spades?” Mom asked.

“I haven’t in a while,” Ben mused delightfully.

I nodded. “Yeah, he can.”

“Good! Because you’re terrible, sorry, sweetheart. He can help you—but no more cheating, are we clear?”

“Crystal, Mrs. Day,” Ben replied.

“He said”—and I adopted my best Ben impression—“?‘Crystal, Mrs. Day.’?”

“I do not sound like that.”

“You definitely do,” I replied.

Mom laughed. “Tell him to call me Bella. I hate Mrs. Day. Nicki, dear, it’s your turn.”

And that was that. Ben came back around to stand behind me and point at cards, muttering about the probability of my family members having certain hands, and which were safest to play. I always threw down cards as a chaos agent, but he was meticulous and strategic, much like how he kept his office. Sometimes when he leaned over me to point at a card, muttering low and quickly, a shiver would crawl down my spine because I loved the way he talked softly, pinpoints on the edges of his words— Loved.

Oh.

A few rounds later, we all decided to call it a game. Carver had won, which was no surprise to any of us, and Nicki politely thanked “the ghost” for playing. They left the kitchen, laughing about how I was still saddled with the dishes despite having ghostly help. I could hear them in the living room, talking loudly about the visitors from the wake.

As I pulled in all the cards and shoved them back into their box with the jokers, Mom said to me as she cleaned off the table, “He was always torn, you know, about the gift you shared. He wished you could’ve chosen instead of being burdened with something you didn’t want.”

That surprised me. “I never thought about it that way. I always thought . . . it would’ve been put to better use with someone like Alice or Carver. They’re so much better than I am.”

“I think you all would have had hills to climb. Alice is hotheaded and Carver is fickle. You give too much of your heart. Like your father.” She put the dishes in the sink and turned on the water, waiting for it to warm.