Page 34

“Sorry,” I blurted, heat flooding my face. Belly cramping with guilt, I reached out to take his hand, then hesitated.

Elliot looked at my hand hovering uncertainly in the air and exhaled a miserable sigh, pulling his knees tighter to his chest and tipping his forehead onto them. He suddenly looked defeated. Like he thought I was disgusted by him now.

A sharp ache pierced my chest. I hated seeing him sad. Elliot wasn’t supposed to be sad. He was always grinning and cracking jokes and laughing.

“I’m a living person.”

He was. If he wasn’t… human, that didn’t make him less of a person. He was a person sitting right in front of me, alive and breathing and… amazing. He was amazing.

He was still the same person. He was still Elliot.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled as I remained silent. “I just… I like you so much, and I didn’t want to keep lying to you. I’ve never done this with a human before, and it felt… wrong to keep it from you.”

“Elliot,” I croaked, then finally moved, shifting closer on the couch and tugging on his knees until he reluctantly lowered them. Then I launched myself into his arms, hugging him tight.

He shuddered against me, fingers clutching at my back. “Ricky…”

“Thank you for telling me your secret.” I buried my face against his neck, eyes sliding shut as I breathed in his sweet scent. “I promise I won’t ever tell anyone.”

Slowly, he pulled back and stared at me in disbelief. His eyes were wet, cheeks and forehead flushed and splotchy. “I just… I just told you I have to eat people.”

“I—I know, but… you said you have to do it to survive.” I frowned. “So how is that your fault?”

He still looked stunned. “Ricky… I have to eat people. As in humans.”

I licked my lips and sat back. “As in… alive people?”

He shook his head quickly. “No. No, I would never… That’s why I work at Broth with a Bite. It’s, um, it’s actually a restaurant for ghouls. That’s why we have the special kitchen. Because we… cater to ghouls.”

Realization thudded into the pit of my stomach. “We serve people meat at work?”

A shaky snort left him. “Yeah. You don’t,” he rushed to add. “You just serve normal food. For the human customers.”

“Oh my gosh.” I scrubbed a hand through my hair, mind racing. When I finally figured it out, a triumphant grin stretched my mouth despite that unsettling piece of news. I wasn’t all that smart, so I was pretty pleased with myself for putting it together. “Oh my gosh, so the medical condition thing is just a front so you can make the food for ghouls without risking any humans accidentally eating it. That’s pretty smart, honestly.”

Elliot was still staring at me in disbelief. “Ricky… you’re taking this, like, really well.”

I shrugged sheepishly. “I mean, I’ve always kinda believed in supernatural stuff.” After a pause, I told him, “I saw a ghost once.”

He went still, then snuffled out a tiny laugh. “You did not.”

“Yes, I did!” I insisted. “I used to work at this chicken place, and one night when I was driving home after my shift, I was on this stretch of road with no other cars…”

“Yeah…?” He was watching me with curious intrigue. I held back my relieved grin, because I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that I’d actually managed to distract him. To stop him being so upset. To make him feel better.

It was quite possible that I’d never been prouder of myself.

“And this woman was standing in the middle of the road with her back to me.” I shuddered remembering it, hamming it up a touch more than I normally would’ve because it made Elliot’s eyes widen as he leaned in, eagerly waiting to hear the rest of the story. “Wearing this long white dress that was kinda torn and stuff. So I started slowing down to see if she was okay, and then she just, like, vanished.”

Elliot snorted, grinning at me fondly. After a moment of hesitation, he reached down and lightly traced my knuckles with a fingertip. “No way.”

“She did! And that’s not even the worst part. I was, like, totally confused and just sat there for a few minutes, then started driving again. I looked in the rearview mirror to see if she’d… I dunno, jumped to the side of the road or something, and she was there.”

He cocked his head. “Where?”

“Sitting in the freaking backseat of my car.” I shivered. “Just for a split second. I saw her sitting there, staring back at me, and then she was gone.”

Elliot chuckled, gently threading his fingers through mine. “No shit?”