It's A Wonderful Midlife Crisis (Good to the Last Death #1)(3)

The woman kind of moan-grunted in response. Since my life might still be on the line, I nodded and thanked her. Feeling the need to smack myself in the head, I refrained. If I dropped her hand, all hell could break loose.

After what felt like two hours, the two minutes were up. I stepped back and waited for her hand to crash to the floor. It didn’t. She held it up and moved her fingers. I was shocked that the superglue worked on her tendons too. Wait. Attributing normal to the impossible was nuts—like me.

“Wow,” I said with a surprised laugh. “Can’t believe that worked. Does it hurt?

As expected, she said nothing that made any sense, but she did give me a smile before she faded away.

I sat down heavily on the kitchen chair and mentally went over what had just happened. It was outlandish and unreal, and I couldn’t even talk to anyone about it. I was on my own in Crazytown.

I supposed if there was anything to be thankful for, it was that she wasn’t a flesh-eating zombie. She was just a dead person with a problem and I’d solved it for her. Note to self… stop watching horror movies.

The knock at my door pulled me back from my screwy introspective thought. Who was here at seven in the morning? The ghosts never knocked. They just appeared when they felt like it. I peeked through the peephole and audibly sighed in agony.

It was Stan—my latest mistake. Actually, my only mistake in a seriously long stretch of celibacy, but definitely a mistake.

Getting back into the dating scene twelve months after Steve died was too soon. I wasn’t ready for it. However, the bottle of wine I’d consumed at Patsy’s Bar and Grill last night didn’t agree with my assessment—not that it was a date. It was a booty call that never should have happened. Ever. At least I didn’t stay the night. A walk of shame at three in the morning was far classier than when the sun was out.

I’d already done surgery on a dead woman. It wasn’t fair that I now had to deal with Stan.

Happy birthday to me…

“Hi Stan,” I said as I opened my door enough to be polite, but not far enough to invite him in.

“Hello Daisy, you’re looking lovely today,” he said with an overly confident smile on his handsome face.

Glancing down, I realized I was still barely dressed. I hopped behind the door and poked my head out.

“Stan, what can I do for you? It’s kind of early.”

“I’m really sorry about last night, Daisy,” Stan said without any hint of apology in his perfectly cultured voice. I was sure he’d dressed in the pink polo shirt and starched madras pants with painstaking care. “I can usually go longer than that.”

Kill me now.

“It was great,” I lied and gave him a smile that I prayed didn’t look like I was constipated.

Stan was a nice guy with a job. He was extremely good-looking and had the personality of a box of hair. What on earth had I been thinking? Actually, it was the merlot that had done my thinking for me. I was an idiot. Casual sex wasn’t in my wheelhouse. I knew better. And accountants in madras pants didn’t equate to good sex—or even good conversation.

“I was just wondering when we had intimate relations last night… Did you… umm?”

“No. No, I didn’t, but no worries,” I insisted politely while trying desperately to ignore all of the floating entities that had popped up to see the show. Stan had no idea six semi-corporeal strangers were standing behind him watching my mortifying life play out in full color. Far be it from me to clue him in. I knew I was going crazy. No one else needed that info.

“I’d be happy to, you know…” Stan said as he made the peace sign with two fingers and then shoved his tongue between them.

“Good God, no!” I shouted on a gag and then slapped my hand over my mouth as the slightly decaying old man hovering over Stan’s left shoulder laughed like a loon. “I’m good—really. I have to go visit my gram at the nursing home in a bit and then get to work.”

“Can I see you again?” Stan asked as he made sure his meticulously gelled hair was still in place.

It was.

“I think maybe we should just be friends,” I said diplomatically, considering all I wanted him to do was leave.

“Is it because I could only go for ten minutes?” he asked with a slightly perplexed frown on his ridiculously pretty face.

“Actually, it was two minutes,” I corrected him. “But it’s not that at all. It was a very energetic two minutes.”

“Thank you,” he replied with a satisfied smirk.

It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. The laughing dead dude rolled his buggy eyes for me and I almost giggled.

“Welcome. However, I’m not in the right place for a relationship right now. It’s not you. It’s me. You’re just too… umm… perfect for someone else. You deserve someone who likes to shop at preppy stores. I, you know, don’t want to hold you back, and I’m not good at math, so… ahh,” I stuttered, searching for more inane crap to spew. He wasn’t an asshole. He just wasn’t for me.

And I wasn’t ready for any of this. It wasn’t Stan’s fault. I had my own intimacy issues. However, it was all kinds of stupid to have gotten drunk and tried to work them out with someone who was less appealing than eating a full bag of plain rice cakes.