After finally making it to the breakfast bar, I put down my bag and hurdled the counter to get to the kitchen. Mr. Coffee was waiting for his usual greeting, and I couldn’t let him down just because we’d been invaded. And I came up with a plan. I seemed to be full of plans lately. Maybe it was my new outlook on life. Don’t invite certain death without a backup plan. Maybe I could plan other things. Like a wedding shower for Cookie and Uncle Bob. Or a bar mitzvah.

While Mr. Coffee gurgled and sputtered, I summoned Angel with the power of my reaper mind. Okay, I just thought about him and sort of wished him beside me.

Annnnnd… Poof!

“What the f**k, pendeja? Didn’t I tell you not to do that anymore?”

I gestured to the women surrounding us. “Can you talk to them?”

“What do I look like, the ghost whisperer? They’re loony. I’d have better luck talking to my cousin Alfonso’s Chihuahua. At least Tía Juana knows Spanish.”

“Your cousin’s Chihuahua is named Tía Juana?” When he shrugged an affirmation, I said, “Just try. If anyone can talk to them, it’s you.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you’re dead. You’re one of them. You can do this.”

“Not for five hundred dollars a month, I can’t.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s a dog-eat-dog world, mijita. And my mom needs a new car.”

“This is so wrong.”

“I need at least —” He counted on his fingers “— seven hundred fifty dollars a month or I ain’t risking my life again for no one’s ass. Even yours.” He bent to get a better look. “Fine as it is.”

“Seven hundred fifty dollars a month?” I balked, gurgled, and sputtered like Mr. C. But in the back of my mind, I considered how much a real – as in living – detective would cost me, and it wasn’t no $750 a month. Then again, I couldn’t use any of his investigating in court. I couldn’t turn it in to APD as evidence of dick. So there was that to take into consideration. Still, he had saved my life a couple of times. That was worth something. “You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Garza.”

“Damn.” He shook his head. “You would have gone higher, huh?”

I winked. “You’ll never know. But what happens the next time your mom comes demanding answers? What then?”

He leaned against the counter and ran his fingers along the horrid chrome molding. “I don’t know. I think she bought the whole great-uncle thing.”

I lifted my hand to his cool cheek, ran my thumb along the fuzz over his top lip. “No, mijito, she didn’t.”

Angel and I had been together for over ten years, ever since I found him at an abandoned school, scared and alone. He meant so much to me.

Unfortunately, he’d died mid-puberty, and his hormones were the worse for it. He stepped closer and put his hands on the counter, one at each side, blocking me in. I rolled my eyes, but he just closed the distance between us and ran his mouth along my jaw, not kissing it. As though taking in the warmth, testing the texture.

“We could make this work, you know.”

“I will knee you in the groin.”

“I could give you a night you will never forget.”

“Because you will be writhing in agony all night and I will laugh unmercifully. It will be unforgettable.”

“You know what they say. Once you go dead —”

“Reyes lives next door.”

That did it. He stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest. “I told you not to let that pendejo into your life. We’re all going to pay for this.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Well, that’s pretty much it. We’re all going to pay if you two get together.”

“So I’ve been told, but if that’s all anybody has, then you can all bite me.”

“It’s wrong. It’s against nature,” he railed as I took my coffee and stepped over the woman in my kitchen archway. “You two can’t be together. It’s like milk and pretzels.”

“Look, Romeo, we came to an agreement with the pay, so can you talk to these women or not?”

“I already tried. They ain’t talking.”

I pressed my lips together, chastising. “You could have mentioned that.”

“You don’t understand. They’re here with you now. Just being around you will be healing to them. It’s like if you took the sun and shrank it down to the size of a basketball. It would still be the sun. It would still shine all bright and shit and burn just as hot. It would still be soothing. Healing. That’s you. Your light. It’s soothing like that menthol crap my mom used to rub on my chest. Your presence is like a salve.”

“I always thought my presence was more of an irritant. You know. Like paint thinner. Or napalm.”

8

It’s all fun and games until someone loses a testicle.

—T-SHIRT

Since Angel the pickup artist was no help whatsoever, I decided to see if Gemma could help. I tried calling her, but she didn’t answer. Did she not know me at all? That wouldn’t deter a grim reaper. Maybe a glum reaper or a bleak one, but never a grim.

I put down my coffee, grabbed my jacket, and wound through the throngs, dodging one who scurried between my legs and ducking under another hanging from the ceiling. My apartment would never be the same.

I opened the door only to find another gorgeous boy on my doorstep, only this one was still alive. He had blond hair and blue eyes and had stolen my heart the moment I first met him a couple of weeks back.