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“Jay? Jay, wake up!”

He was pale, and bruised, but her father was here. In the flesh. Alive. Or as close to it as Jay ever could have hoped.

Jay glanced at Ryan and Kyle as she said the combination number, but only the briefest flicker in Kyle’s gaze as it locked on hers revealed that he’d just caught up to her plan.

The mob stopped just in front of the shed in Jay’s backyard.

Jay marched across her front yard toward the shimmering mob of ghosts with Kyle and Ryan in tow, but she stopped shy of the curb. The others couldn’t come onto her property—and there was no way she was going out into the street with them unless she had a reason to. Kyle and Ryan as backup were reassuring, but not that reassuring. She would rather avoid a full-on altercation with the ghosts if at all possible.

Jay’s father was one of the others. She’d just spent a couple hours painstakingly combing through online census records on her laptop at the kitchen counter to confirm it—her family tree went back to intersect with the family line of that crazy researcher named James… Roger’s dad’s research partner. Which meant maybe Jayana’s father couldn’t enter her family’s property, now that he was a ghost. The barrier to keep the others out might have overridden his tie to Jay’s mom by m

The sun was already coming up, brightening the sky which had previously been lit only by the moon and street lights. Jay tried not to worry about what she would do next as she, Ryan, and Kyle killed time roaming the aisles of a convenience store, eating snacks, until the bank was open, then headed straight inside the bank to pay her overdue mortgage payments. After all, this moment was worth being thankful for—Jay had been trying to catch up on these payments for months, and

The shed flashed with blinding blue light as Roger collided with the cube.

“Jay? Jay, wake up!”

“Is that a gate to the underworld in my backyard shed, Roger?” Jay spun to him in panic.

Jay pulled up to her house thirty minutes later, still feeling strangely fluttery, though she wasn’t sure if it was the aftermath of the skydiving or the dates or a combination. Darkness had moved in on her drive home, but Jay was surprised to see a light on inside her house as she pulled into her driveway. I don’t remember leaving a light on. She parked and climbed out of her car, holding her car key between her knuckles warily as she approached her front door.

Jay gaped at Ryan. “Skydiving?” Then the rest of his statement sank in. “With fire-breathing chickens?!”

Jay hesitated only a moment before taking Ryan’s hand. It seemed like more of a logistical gesture than a romantic one, as he led her gently through a maze of mood-lit tables and bustling servers before landing at a quiet table in the back corner, where he dropped her hand and pulled out a chair for her.

The sun drifted across the sky above them as they ate and chatted, shifting the light through the trees. Kyle was surprisingly good at making small talk, asking questions about where Jay had grown up, how long she'd lived here, and more, without Jay feeling the discomfort small talk usually brought her. When they finished eating, Kyle suggested they walk the trails.

“We could do it another time, if you’re not free. Or not at all. Really, I don’t want you to feel pressured.” A thread of disappointment hovered in Kyle’s voice, though Jay could tell he was trying to cover it.

“It’s not a date, Roger,” Jay hissed, though she wasn’t exactly sure she was happy about that.

“Hi. Jayana?” a pleasant male voice said on the phone.

Roger held his hand out, trembling, as his solid hand faded slowly back to a translucent one, then his wide eyes turned back to Jay. “Do it again, Jay. Do it again!”

Roger rolled his eyes. “Yes, Jay, how did you think we pop in and out so much? When we’re not with you, we’re in the in-between, and then when we need to be here, we come. Did you think we flew everywhere? That would be exhausting.”

Jay stopped home only long enough to grab her phone charger for the car, then climbed back into the vehicle.