I placed my hand beneath his so he could drop it in my palm. There was a flicker of sadness on Mel's face. Did he feel bad that he couldn't directly hand it to me? I felt bad, too, but I was a phantasm and he was human. We couldn't touch. If we tried, the cookie might fall to the floor and be wasted.
Wanting to distract him, I said, “Don't forget your camera.”
“Oh, right.” He pulled it out, cleared his throat and tapped the screen. “Welcome back, guys, to Mel's Hauntings! You are not gonna believe what's going on today. I have averyspecial guest... Now, I don't know how many of you can actuallyseeour special guest, but trust me when I say he's here right in front of me. Edgar, do you want to say something?”
I puffed out my chest. My first time in front of an audience was so exciting!
“Hello, friends of Mel! I am Edgar, the phantasm!”
Mel beamed. He was overjoyed that I got into the role.
“Now I'm zooming in on the cookie,” Mel said, still talking to his audience. “You can all see it, right? Just a normal sugar cookie. If you can't see Edgar, it looks like it's floating on its own, but it's not. Edgar the phantasm is holding it.”
He shot me up and down, getting the whole picture. Being the object of Mel's camera was oddly titillating. I didn't know I'd enjoy this sort of thing until now. But it wasn't the invisible crowd that I was performing for. It was for Mel alone. Even if nobody was watching, I'd still do this for him.
“Now, live on camera, Edgar is going to eat the cookie,” Mel went on. “You heard that right! A phantasm can actually eat, and here's proof!”
Mel silently gestured for me to go ahead.
I parted my lips and threw in the cookie. It was sweet and puffy, melting in my mouth. It was leagues better than anything else I'd ever eaten. It tasted so good, I moaned.
Behind the camera, Mel's cheeks turned pink. For a moment, he seemed too stunned to speak. Then he remembered his job.
“Did you all see that? The cookie disappeared.” He still sounded enthused, but in a different way than before, like he was distracted. “Edgar, would you like another one?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
With one hand holding his phone, Mel fumbled with the tin and thrust another delicious cookie towards me.
But this time, I was caught up in the moment—of the pastry's sweetness, of Mel's adorably flushed cheeks, of the pleasure of being filmed—and I forgot myself.
Instead of letting Mel drop the cookie in my palm, like we'd done earlier, I brushed up against his fingers.
And Ifelthim.
I gasped.
Mel gasped, too.
The phone and the cookie fell to the floor, clattering loudly in our stunned silence.
Mel and I stared at each other, unblinking. I didn't know if he felt the same way, but my hands felt electrified, my blood on fire. Lingering aftershocks of his touch sparked across my body.
Mel didn't move. He looked like a freeze-frame.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
He nodded slowly, his eyes wide and mouth agape.
“You... we touched,” he murmured.
If I thought my imaginative mind was running rampant, Mel's words confirmed what just happened. It was real. We reallydidtouch.
“I thought it was impossible,” I said, staring at the hand that grazed Mel's warm skin. “I've never touched anybody before.”
Hope flashed across Mel's eyes. Slowly, he bent to the floor, picked up the phone and put it away without looking at it. This was more important than whatever he filmed.
He approached me like a shy deer, his beautiful eyes shining up at me in wonder. He held out his hand.
