rests his hands on the table. “Are you a natural redhead?”
“Yeah,” I say, annoyed but used to getting that question a lot. “I am.”
“You’re very beautiful.”
“Thanks.” I set my wine glass back down.
“You look like my sister. I thought you were her when I first saw your profile. I couldn’t swipe fast enough.”
And now I’m picking my wine back up. “Oh. That’s, um, interesting.”
His eyes drop to my breasts again. “She wore green a lot too.”
“You two must be close.”
“We were.” He sits up, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. “But then she got married.”
I finish the rest of the wine in my glass. If I’m going to make it through the rest of dinner, I have a feeling I’m going to need the whole bottle.
“You were right. I should have stayed home with you.” I shoot the deadbolt in place and let out a sigh, crouching down on the ground to take off my heels but get bombarded with slobbery kisses from Hunter, my German Shepherd. “But the night is young, and we can salvage it with junk food and horror movies.”
As if he can understand me, Hunter excitedly runs from the front door and jumps on the couch.
“Give me a minute to change,” I tell him and pull off my shoes. “I swear, pushup bras are nothing more than modernized medieval torture devices.” I shrug off my purse and reach behind me, unbuckling my bra as I walk through my small brick house.
“Hey, little dude,” I say to my sleeping ferret when I get into my bedroom. Pulling my bra through the sleeve of my dress, I drop it on the floor, topping the pile of laundry I swore I was going to put away yesterday. Romeo wakes up, stretching and yawning as I strip out of my clothes. Someone dumped him off in front of the vet clinic my first year there as a vet-tech, and I’m a sucker for a sad, homeless animal. I change into PJs, refill Romeo’s food and water, and go into my small kitchen.
“Need to go out?” I ask Hunter, who’s sitting by the backdoor waiting for me. My yard is tiny but fenced in, not that I necessarily need it. Hunter is very well behaved, thanks to whoever owned him before. I found him wandering through my parents’ neighborhood five years ago, and after getting him scanned for a microchip—he didn’t have one—and contacting over a dozen shelters and vets in central New York, he officially became mine.
I open the back door, letting Hunter bound out into the night, and stick a bag of popcorn into the microwave. I grab a bottle of pink Moscato from my fridge and pour myself half a glass. I like wine as much as the next twenty-something-year-old-wino, but it’s hard to keep the mental shields that block out the ghosts up when I’ve had too much to drink.
Taking a small sip of my wine, I step outside, standing on the small cement square I call my patio. It’s relatively quiet on my street, and both neighbors on either side of me are in their eighties and keep to themselves. I look up at the sky, watching thin dark clouds slowly roll over the crescent moon.
Hunter bounds over, leaping up the three steps onto the patio and pushing his way inside. The microwave beeps a few seconds after I get the back door locked, and I grab the bag and go into the living room, settling on the couch with Hunter at my side.
“True crime or eighties horror?” I ask as I flip through my suggested shows on Netflix. “Or something light-hearted and funny?”
Hunter nudges me with his nose, wanting popcorn and not caring what I put on. I open the bag and give him a handful of popcorn. I decide on watching reruns of Charmed and fall asleep on the couch like the old lady I am only an hour or so later.
It’s not uncommon for me to have weird, vivid dreams. I assume it has something to do with being a medium. Not only do I see and hear spirits, but I feel their emotions from their last moments on earth…which usually aren’t pleasant. Most of the time, it comes on suddenly without warning as I pass by the emotional stain left on the earth.
I stopped trying to make sense of my dreams years ago, but I have one repetitive dream in particular that has always bothered me, not because it’s any more cryptic than