Chapter 19: Shake it off

"Why don't you give me a piggy back ride Casperrr?" Audrey giggled. Her voice sounded too excited to my dismay.

"I won't and besides my name is Max"

"Whyyyyyy?", she whined.

"I can't" he grumbled.

I opened the door to see the utter mess my apartment had been transformed into. Cushions and shiny candy wrappers were everywhere. On the floor, sofas, even on my book shelves. How the hell did it get there?

Audrey on the other hand was running excitedly around the house while Max was on the sofa with a very bored expression on his face.

"I told you to take care of Audrey not turn her into a walking disaster"

"It's not my fault! Audrey didn't want to have the spinach lasagna you left for lunch so I had to give her all the candy that I found inside the cupboard".

I heaved out a frustrated sigh. Why was I putting up with this annoying entity again?

Ignoring the angry ghost I decided to fetch Audrey who was currently on the coffee table singing and using the flower vase as a mike.

"I stand up too left

Got nothing in my brain

That's what people sayyyy..."

Yeah that's Audrey for you. When she gets hyper, she loves to jam to Taylor Swift songs. With much coaxing I was able to get Audrey down the table and convinced her to take a shower. Currently I was ignoring Max as he didn't fulfill his responsibility like he was supposed to.

After Audrey was done I made her sit in front of the TV with Barney and friends on TV while I took a shower and changed into something nice to wear to the club. By then I was too tired to spend a night dancing among strangers but I had promised Casey.

I changed into a black sequined top and a baby pink draped skirt which landed just above my knees. I decided to go for my black wedges which was given by Roderick on my 17th Birthday when we were not dating.

Roderick and I started dating a year ago but before that we were best friends. Our parents knew each other really well as we were neighbors when we used to live here. My dad and Roderick's dad were both in the army, when my dad shifted from New York to Florida turned out his dad needed to transfer too. They bought houses close to each other at least they had someone close in this new city.

Roderick was my pal. We were the perfect partners in crime. We would go around the neighborhood calling ourselves the two musketeers, we thought we were too cool to have a third musketeer. Besides we were the new kids in Neighborhood, not many kids wanted to be our friends as they already had their own gang or squad as they call it these days.

Roderick was a year older than me, I think everyone assumed we were dating. We shared our first kiss when I was nine and he was ten under an oak tree behind out backyard as he was curious about how this kissing thing actually feels like. Of course nothing happened then, we were just kids but I remember hitting him with my stuffed toy and he promised me to never do it again.

We ended up going to different high schools as his parents were very much interested in sending him to a all boys school but we never lost touch with each other. Of course we got busy with our lives, I met Casey and Sophie while Roderick being the nerd he was started studying his ass off to enter a good college.

We would occasionally meet up. I had introduced him to Casey and Sophie while he introduced us to his senior high school friends. I even dated some of his friends. People would suggest we date but we would always laugh if off saying how we saw each other in our diapers and how we fart in front of each other all the time.

But then last year when Roderick was off to college we decided to spend the day together watching Law and Order (our favorite show) at Roderick's place and chugging beer which was expertly sneaked out by Roderick from his dad's drink cabinet, one last time for old times' sake.

We were getting a little nostalgic as we recalled all our fond memories together. I remember I was going through a very hard time. It was the time when my Mom died of heart attack and Audrey was a baby then. I was left all alone in this world with my baby sister and no one else.

We were admitting to each other how we were going to miss one another and how we were practically together for the rest of our life. Then we got to a weird topic about how people say we should end up together and he admitted how he had a crush on me in elementary school and of course he was too shy to tell me. And the next thing I knew Roderick and I were kissing- like a full blown make out session. I thought it was going to be weird but it wasn't.

The next day he left with a promise of continuing this thing between us. It was supposed to be hard to maintain a distance relationship but it wasn't for us. We still kept in touch through video calling and long distance phone calls. I guess we were used to being away from each other.

He would visit Florida between his semester breaks and we would spend the whole day together watching movies and going on dates. It was close to perfect, we complimented each other well.

"I need more cookies", Audrey bellowed as she came out of the shower wearing her mini robe.

"No more cookies for you" I got the cookie jar away from her reach before she got her hands on it.

I opened my wedges and climbed on the tool to place the jar on the kitchen shelf. The tool felt a little shaky under my feet but I ignored it. Kneeling down I picked up the jar from the counter and when I tried to get down after keeping the jar, the tool gave away under me.

I closed my eyes waiting for the impact of cool hard ground to hit me but surprisingly I fell onto something light. I opened my eyes to see Max holding me shielding me from the fall.

He steadied me to the ground while I straightened my dress getting myself up. His green eyes moved up and down my body and finally it bored into mine. Was he checking me out?

For a time we just looked into each other locked into a perpetual eye contact.

"You are beautiful", he mumbled.

"What did you just say?"

"Uhh- I mean you should have been careful! You could have done yourself some serious damage", he said raising his tone looking down not meeting his eyes with mine.

"I am sorry- I should have been more careful". I apologized and quickly retreated from the kitchen glad that I wasn't under his heated gaze anymore.

Okay that was...really weird. And did he just call me beautiful. I don't know why but the thought of that gave me an fluttering feeling in my stomach. There was no denying he was a fine sight to look at. As usual he was dressed in his signature wife beater which clung to his body like a second skin showing off his abs and v line. His messy hair always suited him and those green eyes were a bonus to that handsome face.

Unfortunately he's a ghost though. Did God stop manufacturing hot guys a decade ago?

The ringing of my cell phone bought me back to my senses showing me a missed call from Sophie. It's time to leave for the club.

I grabbed my purse, keys and my clutch from the counter where a green eyed entity was sitting or more like floating. He seemed lost in his thoughts as he jumbled an apple in the air without holding it. Yeah I think you guys know very well ghosts have an ability to make objects float.

"How come you can hold stuff and your hand doesn't go through it?" I asked.

"I am not holding them"- he took the apple from the air and showed me the apple- "see I am not holding it, its floating on my hand"

"Ohh that's cool. Good to know you have some harmless tricks up your sleeve other than controlling people's minds", I said recalling the departmental store incident.

"In my defense that was absolutely hilarious", he chuckled at the memory.

"Yeah right", I replied sarcastically.

"So where are you going dressed like that?" he asked casually leaning onto the counter.

"Just going out with Sophie".

"You mean partying", he scoffed. "You don't seem like the partying type" he stated looking amused.

"I can party!"offended I shot back. "Real hard".

He ran his hand across his disheveled hair and smiled looking me in the eyes. Then he leaned closer and whispered in my ears running a trail of shivers down my neck, "I will see you at the party then strawberry. I would love to show you how to party- Real hard".

Like a incubus he vanished into thin air, leaving me all hot and bothered. 

..................

I was supposed to publish this a few days later but I accidentally clicked the 'Publish' button when I was about to  save it.

And *drum roll* I just decided the cast:

Emma Stone as Grace Summers

Colton Haynes as Maxson Allister

Let me know your thoughts about it.

I also got a new cover! Do you guys like it?