Party streamers tied to the crossbeam caught the light as Micah picked up the cross. The bottom was splintered and jagged, caked in dirt. It had clearly marked a grave at some point.
A heart, drawn in marker, adorned the back of the cross. Micah squinted at the faded lettering within:
DÉJÀ
+
COSMO
He gasped. Did she know it was Cosmo the entire time she was in the studio? Maybe that’s why she’d said there wasn’t a rowdy ghost and tried to pin it on Micah. She didn’t want to deal with a friend who’d passed away. He snapped a picture of the writing on the cross, then attached it to an email and sent it to Déjà with the phrase,You know my ghost.
After setting the cross carefully back where it came from, he headed to the car for the bouquet. He wasn’t sure what he wanted from Déjà. Her admission wouldn’t prove that the ghost wasn’t himself – he already knew that – and he no longer needed help getting Cosmo to leave. He didn’twantCosmo to leave. And more details about his life, his art, his music, his outfits, were only going to get Micah more worked up about the fantasy in his head. Still, maybe it would help Déjà to know that Cosmo was making efforts to move on to a place he’d be more at peace.
As he reached for the door handle, his phone vibrated. He opened Déjà’s reply, met with:Cosmo Kozlov isn’t your ghost. He isn’t dead. Where did you get that cross? It was from a party we threw years ago.
Micah stared at the message.
He isn’t dead.
It was a mix-up, then. But how could that be? There were too many coincidences for it to be the wrong Cosmo. He typed back,White artist with curly hair and hazel eyes who wears eccentric outfits and calls people “darling”?
He climbed into the car, the phone growing clammy in his grip.
Déjà wrote,That’s him. But he’s very much alive. Go check his Flashbulb profile.
Blood pounded in Micah’s temples, his finger hovering over the attached link. This made no sense. Cosmo had materialized in the studio at least twice, once with half his torso missing. Moonlight had shown through his incorporeal form, and he’d vanished before Micah’s eyes.
As he tapped the link, a profile appeared, displaying a grid of photos. Cosmo, with his arm around a woman’s waist, a mixed media sculpture on a pedestal beside them. Cosmo, pouting seductively for the camera, his pursed lips glossy and heavy earrings pulling at his lobes. Cosmo, a cigarette between his teeth as he arched his neck, the strap of his dress falling down.
Micah expanded the image, ensnared in the curve of his throat, his bare shoulder, his smoldering I-know-how-hot-I-am gaze.
He scrolled through dozens of comments, most of them flirty, some outright propositions.
Someone wrote,Damn, sexy! I’m sorry I missed that party.
Beneath it was a reply from Cosmo, dated only the day before:It was positively dull. I had to make my own fun. Would have been much better if you were there!
A torrent of confused feelings howled through Micah. He raced home, hands clenched on the wheel. When he got back, he emailed Déjà and attached both his phone number and the video of Cosmo appearing in his bathroom.
His phone rang, and before he could say hello, Déjà said, “What the hell is this?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t have a clue.”
“But this is Cosmo. Isn’t it? Your same, very alive Cosmo? Appearing out of thin air in my bathroom. He used to live in my studio.”
“He isn’t mine, and he may as well be dead to me. I see him around, but we don’t hang.” She sighed. “I don’t understand this.”
Neither did he, and if Déjà didn’t have an answer, the only other one who might was the “ghost” himself. Micah paced the front room, then picked up the tube of pink lipstick from the drafting table. “He was in my room last night. I saw moonlight go right through him.” It sounded delusional, and he was grateful he had proof of one appearance.
“What time?”
“Around midnight.”
“He was at a gallery event until one last night. There’s a video on his Flashbulb.”
“You aren’t friends, but you stalk his Flashbulb?”
