Lamppost sat in the back of the room.

  I looked around, but no one seemed to be paying the least bit of attention to the guy in the black leather jacket. Either the entire class was in on it, or I’d finally snapped. I was seeing ghosts in school. Our eyes locked for a second, and the corners of his lips tipped up before smoothing out again.

  I took my seat near the front and opened my book while Professor Hurley went over his expectations for the upcoming project. A group project, of course. I couldn’t catch a break if my life depended on it.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Hannah whispered from the seat behind me.

  I glanced back and caught the ghost’s eye again before whipping my head forward again to nod. In truth, I wasn’t at all sure I was okay. The minutes clicked by so slowly, I was certain the clock had frozen in place.

  By the time class ended, my muscles were so tense, I was afraid I might not be able to get up. But stiff muscles or not, I bolted out of my chair and out of the building so fast it made my head spin. I had no intention of sticking around long enough to find out if the ghost was still in the back or if he’d vanished during the lecture.

  Thankfully, I didn’t see him in my next class, and my neck was prickle free all the way to the dining hall.

  My crew was already sitting at our usual table when I set my tray down to eat.

  “… and you should have seen her hair. That’s the worst highlight job I’ve seen since my mom had me pull her hair through a cap in middle school.” Sam snorted. “Oh hi, Ava. Where the hell have you been?”

  “Class?”

  “Well, duh. But I haven’t seen you all day. You were supposed to meet me in the library after bio. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I…” I exhaled on a sigh. “It’s not important.”

  “Ghost problems?”

  My thoughts flipped back to the guy in the back of my European history lecture, and I shrugged.

  “Well, I know how to cheer you up.” She took a sip of her lemonade, and I raised my eyebrows and waited. “Will Clark—you haven’t met him yet, but he graduated with us. He’s having a party this weekend. It’s an annual tradition. The first party of the school year.”

  I bit back a groan. “Didn’t we just go to a party? Last party of the summer? Another annual tradition, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “That was summer. This is fall.” She laughed, pointing her fork at me. “You seriously need a boyfriend.”

  That time, I laughed. A boyfriend was the last thing I needed.

  “You should have seen the guy checking her out in our European history class.” Hannah dropped into the seat beside me and nudged me with her foot. “He was super cute. I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”

  “Nope. I was paying rapt attention to Professor Hurley’s fascinating lesson on the characteristics of medieval society.” Or I was too busy avoiding the ghost in the back of the room to notice some random guy checking me out. So unless the cute guy happened to be a leather-wearing ghost, I didn’t want to hear it.

  Hannah stole a fry from my tray. “Right.”

  “I was!” I reached over and snatched it back, stuffing the fry into my mouth.

  “You fell asleep, didn’t you?” Sam asked. “I fell asleep in biology sophomore year. I woke up wearing a dead frog as a hat. Mr. Burton had a sick sense of humor.”

  As Sam went on about the pranks her high school science teacher played on his students, I realized something. “What happened to Paige?” Not that I missed the bitchy ice princess, but her absence was almost as disconcerting as her presence.

  “Oh, she’s still trying to score with food bank guy. She texted me and said she saw him crossing the quad. She was in pursuit.” Hannah shrugged. “I think it’s become more of a challenge than anything. She’s never had a guy ignore her before.”

  “Never?” The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Paige might have been a total bitch, but the girl was gorgeous.

  “Never,” Sam whispered.

  After lunch, we split up and headed in different directions. Once or twice, I thought I caught a glimpse of my ghost on campus, but my eyes could have been playing tricks on me. Everywhere I looked, I saw something that made my breath catch in my throat. It seemed as if nowhere was safe from my delusions. If I didn’t find a way to get past my crazy obsession, I was going to drive myself completely insane.

  “Bonjour!” Madame Finkelstein greeted the class with her typical enthusiasm. Her ability to maintain that level of positive energy all the way through a late-afternoon class amazed me. Not that I was complaining. It didn’t seem to faze her in the least when Sam and I slipped into the room five minutes late.

  We took our seats in the front, as usual, and I fumbled to pull my book out of my bag before the professor called on me to recite something in French. On a normal day, that wouldn’t have been an issue, but after hallucinating Lamppost more times in a single day than all the others combined, my brain was fried.

  I glanced over at Sam. She looked like I felt. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was making faces at me that I felt sure had to be some sort of teenage girl code. But despite my current status as an actual teenage girl, I didn’t speak the language.

  “What?” I mouthed, keeping my head down as much as possible and pretending to pay attention to the page we were supposed to be following.

  I swear she mouthed the word “toast” before pointing to the cell phone hidden in her lap. I shook my head and nodded at the NO CELL PHONES sign tacked up on the front wall. Sam let out a frustrated grunt and pointed at her lap again.

  I rolled my eyes and worked to dislodge my phone from my jeans pocket without alerting the professor. Just as I’d pulled it all the way out, it buzzed in my hand, startling me. After fumbling with the damn thing for what seemed like an eternity, I dropped it. With a little fast thinking on my part, I shoved my book off the desk, making an even louder smack against the floor.

  “Mademoiselle Flynn, es-tu bien?” Madame Finkelstein glared at me from the front as if she’d caught me breaking her only posted law, but relaxed her features when she saw the book lying face down at my feet.

  “Um, oui? Just clumsy.” I flashed an innocent smile as I scooped up my phone without detection.

  “Nice save,” Sam whispered, and I shot her a death glare. “Hey, it’s not my fault you dropped the damn thing.”

  After flipping my book to the right page again, I pulled my phone out and checked the messages. The first one was from right after lunch.

  Abercrombie: Meet me in the stacks at three. I wanna show you something.

  As if.

  The next two were from a few minutes ago, and both were from Sam.

  Sam: Cute guy alert. Back right corner. I’m gonna need a cold shower.

  Sam: Tell me what your ghost looks like again.

  Those two messages couldn’t have been more unrelated. I tried to peek over my shoulder, but without turning completely around, I wouldn’t have been able to see the so-called “cute boy.” But since my current obsession was fresh in my mind, I had no trouble conjuring up his image.

  Me: Tall. Hard muscles but not bulky and gross. Messy dark hair, like after crazy sex. Sexy smirky smile. Dark dangerous eyes. And that black leather jacket.

  I stopped before I got carried away, hit send, then tucked it away so I wouldn’t get caught.

  I ignored the phone buzzing in my pocket.

  “Ava.” Sam’s ability to whisper was slipping. “Ava!”

  “Mademoiselle Stone?” Madame Finkelstein had finally lost the battle with her good humor—all because of Sam. “Pourquoi continuez-vous d’interrompre ma classe?”

  “Uh, I was just going to ask Ava—”

  “En Français.”

  “J’ai besoin…” Sam huffed out a breath then snatched a sheet of paper from my notebook and waved it in the air, flashing her orthodontically enhanced teeth in a wide smile. “To take notes.”

  Madame Finkelstein slid her electric-blue glasses down her nose as she scrutinized the two of us. She blew out a breath and seemed to give up the idea of trying to get us to speak her language. “There’s no need for notes yet. Just pay attention. And no more talking.”

  Sam pressed her lips into a tight line and nodded.

  I was fine with that. I had nothing to say.

  Sam stared a hole in the side of my head, trying to get my attention. Ignoring her had actually become somewhat of a game. But the longer I ignored her, the more my phone buzzed in my pocket. There was a serious risk of her head exploding if I didn’t check my messages.

  Keeping my eyes on the professor, I slid my phone out of my pocket, this time, making certain it didn’t slip through my fingers. I’d only gotten as far as the first text when an attack of palpitations hit me. Was it possible for someone to die of heart failure before the age of nineteen?

  The prickle shot down my spine and branched out through my extremities. I felt it in every pore of my body. Maybe I was having a stroke. My entire face had gone numb.

  “Are you sure?” I whispered, keeping my head facing forward. I didn’t dare look for myself.

  “Pretty sure.” Her response was so low, I wasn’t certain if I actually heard it or just imagined it.

  I read the text again to be sure I hadn’t passed out and was dreaming or something.

  Sam: I think your ghost is sitting in the back of the room.

  I sucked in a breath, holding it for as long as I could before blowing it back out. I needed to stay calm. If Lamppost was in the back of the room, that meant Sam could see him. And I wasn’t imagining him. And he was real. I’d just gotten used to the idea of him being a figment of my imagination, and now, faced with the possibility of him being real, I didn’t know how to react.

  My phone buzzed again, and I peeked down at the new message.

  Sam: What are you gonna do?

  I had no idea, but I figured the first thing would be to turn around and see if it was really him back there and not some other leather-wearing, palpitation-inducing guy.

  My knuckles went white from the death grip I had on my desk as I worked up the nerve to look. But what did I have to be afraid of? The guy turning out to be real should have been the least frightening thing I’d dealt with since moving. No. Since before Dad died. But somehow, the prospect of having a crush on a ghost was way less scary. Real guys terrified me.

  “If it’s not him, can I have him?” Sam’s whispered question snapped me out of the throes of an anxiety attack, and I had to cough to hide my laugh.

  “If it’s not him, yes.” I bit back a giggle before steeling myself for what I was about to do.

  As soon as Madame Finkelstein turned to write something on the board, I whipped around to check out the guy three rows behind me. My eyes zeroed in on him like a laser pointer, and the corners of his mouth curved into a slow smile. He winked at me, and I spun back to face the front, anxiety pouring off me in waves. He was here. In my classroom. In the actual flesh, it would seem. The same lips I’d tasted nearly every night for over a week in my dreams had grinned at me. Holy shit, what do I do now?

  “I guess that’s him then?”

  I nodded without looking at her.

  “Damn. You think he has a brother?”

  That did it. As the professor announced the end of class, setting off a symphony of chairs scraping against the old wood floors, I lost the fragile grip on my control and burst out laughing. Madame Finkelstein shouted out one last addition to our assignment as everyone filed out of the room.

  Sam waited for me as I got up and shoved my book into my bag. I couldn’t decide if I should just walk back there and talk to him or wait for him to come to me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the guy had played me all week. Sort of. I’d seen him several times and even pursued him once or twice, and he let me think he was a freaking hallucination.

  I spun around, channeling the feisty kitten inside me—arched eyebrow at the ready, fists balled at my sides—prepared to give him a piece of my mind.

  And he was gone.

  I deflated like a popped balloon.

  “I was just going to tell you. He snuck out the instant class ended.” Sam twisted her lips to the side, giving me a sympathetic smile.

  “Well, damn.” I stared at his empty chair and sighed. So much for him sticking around. “At least he’s consistent, right?”

  “And we know you have wicked good taste in guys.” She came to a complete stop in the doorway, and I ran straight into her. She spun on me, gripping my shoulders so hard I feared she might draw blood. “Do you know what this means?”

  I winced, shrugging out of her death grip. “It means my brother wrote on my mirror while I was naked in the tub.”

  “Oh, yeah, that too. Eww. But no, I was going to say, that means hot leather jacket guy is the one who gave you the hickey!”

  Oh, my God. “I really did make out with him at the bonfire.” And so help me, I wanted to do it again. And soon. “Thank God! I can permanently erase the image of Abercrombie kissing me from my brain.”

  All it took was one look from Sam, and we let out matching squeals. I didn’t even care how ridiculous I looked jumping up and down in the middle of the hallway until I heard a throat clear behind me.

  I felt the color drain from my cheeks as I turned and faced the literal guy of my dreams.

  He looked almost shy as he pushed away from the wall and took a step toward me. He stopped and gave me his signature smirk before turning to walk away. “See you tomorrow, Ava.”

  Chapter Seven

  For the first time since the lighthouse party, I made it through the entire night without a single dream. There were no obnoxious teenage boys shifting into dragons, no leather jackets transforming into medieval armor, and not a single lamppost in sight. I didn’t even dream about Annandale… or Dad. I slept like the dead and woke up completely refreshed.

  And then I panicked. For the first time since I’d moved to Port Michael, running into my mystery guy would be a certainty. He’d said it himself. See you tomorrow, Ava. And his last words to me—his only words to me, in fact—played through my head like the chorus of my favorite song. There would be no more wondering if I’d imagined him or if he was a ghost, no clandestine chases through the quad or seeing him disappear around corners before I could catch up to him. No. Today, I would actually see him, maybe even touch him, and not just in my dreams.

  I only hoped the reality lived up to the illusion and that I hadn’t made a huge mistake in pursuing him.

  “Are you really wearing that?” Sam stood in my doorway, staring at my half-nakedness as if I’d committed the biggest crime in the fashion world.

  “Jesus, Sam! You really need to stop doing that.” I clutched the Ziggy Stardust concert tee to my chest and willed my pulse to go back to normal.

  Sam flopped into the center of my bed, laughing her ass off. “Sorry. Your mom—”

  “Sent you up, I know.” I shot her a scowl and pulled the T-shirt in question over my head. “Either knock or make some noise next time.”

  “You’re always so jumpy.” She sat up and crisscrossed her legs in front of her. “And don’t pretend you didn’t hear me—you can’t wear that today.”

  I glanced down at the image stretched across my chest then back to Sam’s bored expression. “What’s wrong with Bowie?”

  She rolled her eyes as if it pained her to have to spell it out for me. And maybe it did, but I still had no idea what was wrong with what I’d picked out. “You can’t expect a super-hot guy to kiss you while you’re wearing an androgynous rock star across your chest. It’s dating one-oh-one.”

  “We’re not even dating.” A little voice in the back of my head asked if I even wanted to date him. My skin prickled at the thought. Yes. Yes, I did.

  She leaned back and propped herself up on her hands. “Well, you never will be if you don’t listen to me. Do you have anything a little sexier? Don’t get me wrong. I love your vintage rock style, but today we need something a bit more bow chicka wow wow. Ooh, like that!” She jumped up and snatched a baby-blue ruffled peasant blouse from my open drawer. She inspected it before throwing it back at me. “Wear this and the long pencil skirt you wore on the first day.” She moved her inspection down to my freshly pedicured toes. “Ghost guy is tall, so you can wear heels if you want to, but I’d stick with something more comfortable so you don’t trip and bust your ass while you’re hoofing it across campus.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I muttered.

  She winked at me. “Hey, I just call ’em like I see ’em.”

  As soon as I’d dressed in the clothes she’d picked out, Sam grabbed a lock of hair from either side of my face and twisted them until she’d created two cords. She pulled them back and secured them behind my head in a style that reminded me of my dream. Then she stood back to admire her work.

  I turned from side to side, checking myself out from every visible angle. “Well? How do I look?”

  “Beautiful.” She rested her hands on her hips, beaming at me with pride. “He won’t be able to resist you.”

  “Are you sure I don’t look like I’m trying too hard?” I caught my bottom lip between my teeth and checked my reflection one last time in the visor mirror.