Haunted by Meg Cabot Page A

really mad at him. More, of course, because he was right than anything else. Also because he was assuming that Jesse even returned my feelings, which sadly, I knew was not true. Why else would he have stayed away from me so assiduously these past few weeks?
    Then Paul plunged the knife deeper.
    “Besides, if the two of you were really right for each other, would you even be here? And would you have been kissing me like you were a minute ago?”
    That did it. Now I was furious. Because he was right. That was the thing. He was right.
    And it was breaking my heart. Worse than Jesse already had.
    “If you don’t get off me,” I said, through gritted teeth, “I will jab my thumb into your eye socket.”
    Paul chuckled. Although I noticed he stopped chuckling when my thumb did actually meet with the corner of his eye.
    “Ow!” he yelled, rolling off me fast. “What the—”
    I was up and off that bed faster than you could say paranormal activity. I grabbed my shoes, my bag, and what was left of my dignity, and got the heck out of there.
    “Suze!” Paul yelled from his bedroom. “Get back here! Suze!”
    I didn’t pay any attention. I just kept on running. I tore past Grandpa Slater’s room—he was still watching an old rerun of Family Feud —then started down the twisting staircase to the front door.
    I would have made it, too, if a three-hundred- pound Hell’s Angel hadn’t suddenly materialized between me and the door.
    That’s right. One minute my way was clear, and the next it was blocked by Biker Bob. Or should I say, the ghost of Biker Bob.
    “Whoa,” I said, as I nearly barreled into him. The guy had a handlebar mustache and heavily tattooed arms, which he had crossed in front of him. He was also, I shouldn’t need to point out, quite, quite dead. “Where’d you come from?”
    “Never you mind that, little lady,” he said. “I think Mr. Slater’d still like a word with you.”
    I heard footsteps at the top of the stairs and looked up. Paul was there, one hand still over his eye.
    “Suze,” he said. “Don’t go.”
    “ Minions ?” I called up to him incredulously. “You have ghostly minions to do your bidding? What are you?”
    “I told you,” Paul said. “I’m a shifter. So are you. And you are way overreacting about this whole thing. Can’t we just talk, Suze? I swear I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
    “Where have I heard that before?” I asked.
    Then, as Biker Bob took a threatening step toward me, I did the only thing that, under the circumstances, I felt that I could. I lifted up one of my Jimmy Choos and smacked him in the head with it.
    This is not, I am sure, the purpose for which Mr. Choo designed that particular mule. It did, however, work quite handily. With a very surprised Biker Bob incapacitated, it was only a matter of shoving him out of the way, throwing open the door, and making a run for it. Which I did, with alacrity.
    I was tearing down the long cement steps from Paul’s front door to his driveway when I heard him calling after me, “Suze! Suze, come on. I’m sorry for what I said about Jesse. I didn’t mean it.”
    I turned in the driveway to face him. I am sorry to say that I responded to his statement by making a rude, single-fingered gesture.
    “Suze.” Paul had taken his hand down from his face, so that I could see that his eye was not, as I had hoped, dangling out of its socket. It just looked red. “At least let me drive you home.”
    “No, thank you,” I called to him, pausing to slip on my Jimmy Choos. “I prefer to walk.”
    “Suze,” Paul said. “It’s like five miles from here to your house.”
    “Never speak to me again, please,” I said, and started walking, hoping he wouldn’t try to follow me. Because of course if he did, and attempted to kiss me again, there was a very good chance I would kiss him back. I knew that now. Knew it only too well.
    He didn’t follow me. I made it down his driveway and out onto the oceanfront