A gig! Thor had booked them a gig in a week. A week!
He wasn’t ready.
“What are you panicking about?”
Mike sat up when he heard Gizzy’s voice. He couldn’t see her, but her voice went straight into his head. Casting his gaze around the room there was nothing.
“I’m losing my mind. I finally make it into a band, and now I’m hearing voices. That’s it, my anxiety is finally going to kill me.”
“Damn, Mikey, you do belong on stage. So fucking dramatic.”
“Gizzy? Why can’t I see you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how this works,” she said.
“You’ve been dead for how long? And you don’t know how being a ghost works?”
“You’ve been playing guitar for how long, and this is your first band?”
Mike groaned.
“Don’t throw stones, little boy, we all have our own struggles.”
“I’m not a little boy,” Mikey groused.
“And I’m not used to being seen or heard, okay. At least, all you have to do is show up and play. You don’t have to interact with the crowd at all. You don’t have to be charming, you don’t have to sing. Let Thor be the fucking rock star he wants to be, and you can just play. That’s what you want, right?”
“Yeah.”
Gizzy was smart for some chick who barely looked older than nineteen. Mike knew better. Knew she was older. Older when she had died, older even more since she died before he was born.
He closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands. With his eyes closed, he could perfectly see his room. He sat in the middle of his bed, guitar at his feet. Gizzy was next to him on the bed. Her arm was out as if she was trying to stroke his hair and his back.
He sat up and glared into the empty space next to him.
“What?” She asked rather sharply. “What’d I do?”
“Are you next to me?” Mike lowered his voice, not wanting to be loud in case the noise broke something and Gizzy completely vanished.
“Yes, dumbass. You’re looking right at me.”
“I’m looking at air, Gizzy”
He heard her laughter. Even though she was clearly mocking him, it was somehow a comfort to know she was still around. He hated being alone when the anxiety hit. The whole situation had him thinking about moving back in with Mom more than once.
But the stigma of being a grown man living at home was somehow worse. How living in a comfortable apartment with people he liked was worse than spending too much money on a bedroom in a random house with an ever revolving cadre of roommates was worse, he didn’t exactly know. It just was.
He closed his eyes and released a heavy breath, trying to let go of the nervous energy that was fucking with his head.
He laughed. “I can see you.”
“Ain’t that just the way of it? I have to be dead, and you have to have your eyes closed for me to be really seen.”
“What do you mean?” Mike lay back down. It was weird. He could be oriented to all of his stuff with his eyes open, but he’d rather see Gizzy.
She was off the bed and glaring at the turn table.
“Get over here and put something on.” She demanded. She was cute. Spunky. The kind of girl Mike never knew how to talk to, but wanted to.
He was off the bed and flipping through the album selection. “What do you want?”
“I don’t care. Not Elysium.”
Mike put on a piece of nuevo classical flamenco. It wasn’t rock, it was guitar playing at it’s finest. He returned to his bed and flopped back. He rolled his legs up, so he could pull his boots off. They made a loud boom as they hit the far wall and then the floor.
He folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes.
Gizzy still stood in front of the turntable. If he had moved through her, he had no way of knowing. She stared as the album spun, as if she could see the musicians playing. She swayed to the music. The fingers of her left hand twitched as she picked up the patterns of the music.
What do you do when your imaginary friends start pestering you with images of sexy male strippers and hot were-shifters? You write stories about them. Well, that's what I did! Oh, and then I combine them and toss them in a kilt for good measure!
Hi, my name is Lulu and I write sexy hot contemporary and paranormal romance. Welcome to my website.
Making the Para "Normal" and the Supernatural Extraordinary.