“Will you please be quiet?” I say. “Wait, did you say you were watching TV with my mom?”
He shrugs.“She doesn’t exactly know we’re watching together, but yeah.”
I sit up on the bed, folding my legs beneath me, refusing to smile at the image of him and my mother watching television on the couch. “I thought you weren’t a demon.”
Finn leans back, shaking his head.“Well, hello to you, too.”
“No—I’m pretty sure I summoned you.”
He drops onto the edge of my bed, licking his lips.“Summoned me? What, like, with a pentagram and candles?”He sweeps his gaze around the floor.
Heat creeps up my neck and over my cheeks. I’ve backed myself into a corner and am only now seeing it.
“Oh, please go on,” he says, far too smug for my liking.
“Let’s forget it. The housewives are waiting for you.”
He scooches farther up onto the bed. His sneaker passes through my knee. He doesn’t notice, but I can’t look away from the spot we should have touched.“What happened?”
I swallow thickly, my tongue having doubled in size in the last three seconds. He isn’t even a corporeal being, but having another person this close opens the latch on my panic.
“I was doing some research, driving myself crazy, and I must have said your name, and then—” I gesture at him. “Poof. You’re here.”
He pauses, and a smile bordering on mischievous lights up his face.“Thinking about me, huh?”
I narrow my eyes.
Finn clears his throat, bobbing his head at me.“So, what, you say my name three times, Bloody Mary–style?”
“One time,” I say. I press my tongue into my cheek, half my focus on figuring out how to get out of this hole I jumped in.
He flops onto his stomach, propped up on his elbows a few inches from my knee. He looks up at me and bats long, dark lashes.“This is for scientific purposes, Jo.”
I like the way he says my name, matter of fact, not dragged out like the last syllables are struggling to hold on.
I hate that he’s charming. That he’s nice. That he’s funny. If he were horrible, I could write him off entirely.
“Fine,” I say, because maybe it’ll get him out of here faster. “I said, ‘If you feel like giving me any answers, Finn…’ ”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
He humphs and pushes off the bed. “Let’s test it again,” he says.“Give me five seconds.”
“Wait—” I start, but he’s already gone, blinking out like a light. With a sigh, I count to five, and say, “Um…Finn?”
He materializes a few feet from where he vanished, and I flinch despite expecting it. “No way!” he says.“Let’s go again.”
After two more attempts, one from the backyard and another from the basement, Finn is convinced of what I knew two tries ago. He drops onto the bed on his back, arms out, like he’s wiped.
“That’s sick,” Finn says.“It’s like I heard your voice like you were right next to me, but you weren’t.”
“I’m glad we proved that incredibly useless skill.”
Finn flashes me a grin.“Hey, I think it’s cool.”He pushes up, twisting so he’s sitting cross-legged and facing me.“You said you were asking if I could give you answers or something when I showed up. What answers?”
I sneak a look at my laptop. “I was…” I clear my throat. “I was looking into your disappearance.”
