Love's a Bitch, then We all Die Ch. 01

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I glanced at Miranda as she pointed at her watch. I swallowed then looked back towards Garrett and J.B. I could hear them arguing, their voices getting louder and louder. Garrett pushed J.B. who apparently wasn't a fan of the hands-on-game. I saw him reach into his pocket and closed my eyes.

I didn't have long to wait. The shot came a minute later. I jumped, my eyes flying open. Garrett lay on the ground with a widening pool of darkness around him.J.B.'s head shot up in our direction. I saw his eyes widen as he jerked the gun up towards us, backing up a step.

To his credit, he managed to fire, but the bullets missed us by a mile. He wasn't so lucky. He stumbled over Garrett's body and fell backwards into the lake. He screamed a few times, bobbing and flailing, begging Miranda and I for help. We sat on the bridge and made ourselves comfortable. She offered me another gummy worm and I took it, chewing until J.B. Duff went under and stayed there.

"This is bullshit," I muttered. "I can't believe this is happening."

"Everyone dies, Ally.""

"Can the life lesson crap, Miranda. Tonight is not the night for this. God I need a cigarette,"

I patted my pockets down, trying not to look at the body lying on the ground just twenty feet from us. No matter how much time I spent around death and dying people, I still hadn't quite gotten over the 'eww gross' stage yet when I saw a dead body.

I had no problem with stripping them of their valuables. It wasn't a problem with my morals. Those went out the window the day I realized that my afterlife wasn't going to help me pay my bills or survive. Pocketing some loose change and a few billfolds here and there was supplemental income.

I didn't like all the blood and guts that you saw in my division. We handled all the messy deaths - murders, gruesome accidents, suicides, etc. I once had a headless guy sit next to me for forty-five minutes on the platform after a train accident. It's a whole different kind of creep factor.

I would have taken the headless guy tonight over having to look at Garrett's body. I didn't know how to feel. My emotions were jumbled like a ball of twine, knotting in my stomach till I wanted to puke.

Granted the man was partially responsible for my death. That wasn't a grudge that I would let go of easily. I liked it right where it was actually; keeping my heart nice and warm. He deserved my scorn and contempt, but somehow looking at his body sprawled there on the grass didn't fill me with my usual sardonic glee at the sick irony of the world and how it equally fucked everyone, going round and coming back again.

Actually it pissed me off.

I'd loved him once.

Hah, yeah right like you really mean that in the past tense

I frowned. I had been done in by a cork on my wedding day, buried in all my wedding finery (my mother's idea) and now I was living in a crapshoot apartment, waitressing during the daylight hours just to scrape enough together to get by. But Garrett got to live his life and go quick and clean and now move on to whatever happy place awaited for him.

It was bullshit.

"I can't believe you just stood there!"

I breathed a smoke ring over my head and looked calmly at J.B. Duff who was standing beside me. I passed the cigarette to Miranda who took a puff and then handed it back to me. I tapped some of the ash on J.B's shoe, taking some amusement in the fact it went straight through to the grass and spooked the shit out of him.

"What did you expect me to do? Jump in after you?"

"Any decent person would have!"

"Any decent person, sir, would not be standing in this park at 12:00a.m killing my fiancé."

He blinked then looked at Miranda who held up her hands. "Don't even look at me. I have my own pick-up to worry about."

"This is bullshit!"

Amen.

I stiffened, turning slowly as Garrett appeared behind us. He wore that bewildered expression you usually saw on the new ones. First came the blinking eyes and disorientation, then the disbelief. After that it got real interesting with attempts at deal-making and all sorts of other fun stuff.

Garrett rubbed a hand through his hair, looking first at Miranda then J.B and finally me. He blinked again, going pale which was a neat feat for someone that was dead. He blinked again, his mouth opening and closing a few times like a fish out of water. He looked back at Miranda and she hopped off the bridge, offering him a hand.

"Whoa...Ally? What the fuck?... What the hell happened? Wait what are you doing here? You're dead!"

Yeah, I'd always liked his brains myself.

"No. You're dead. She's undead," Miranda interrupted with a smile that was empty as a light-bulb but dazzling. "It's a difference we're pretty proud of actually.

"This isn't happening."

He looked at J.B again, pointing a finger. "You shot me, you son-of-a-bitch."

"Hey don't start pointing fingers at me, mate. I have enough problems of my own. Your little girly there just sat there and watched me drown. I want to speak to someone about that."

"You're free to write down your complaints, sir, and when you're finished you can shove them up your ass."

I grinned at Miranda, but felt it slip when Garrett pulled away from her, leaning towards me. I instinctively pulled back as he invaded my personal space. His brown eyes were dazed as he grabbed me by the shoulders, holding there.

"Am I really dead?"

"Yep."

"But I wasn't ready to die."

Hah. Like I hadn't heard that one before.

"Well then I guess you shouldn't have been picking up dope in the middle of the Park in the middle of the night. Not a real good life plan for anyone."

"What? I'm not a drug addict, Allison."

"No? So what pray-tell were you doing? Curious minds and all."

"He's a Narc, the no good bastard."

I felt my mouth drop open into a silent O of surprise. Miranda whistled low and then took J.B's hand and led him safely out of range.

"You're a cop?"

"Well I was until about ten minutes ago."

"I thought you sold insurance."

"I was undercover."

"I'll fucking say. No wonder the rate quotes you gave me for my Volvo were crappy."

He shot me a dirty look and looked over his shoulder at his body for a moment then back to me. "Christ, this is a fucking mess. It was supposed to be a standard transaction and pick-up."

"Aren't you supposed to have a partner or something?"

"Yeah, he's one of my best customers," J.B. chimed in. I grabbed Garrett by the front of his shirt as he tried to get at him.

"Whoa, ok. Look this has been a long night for all of us and I plan to go home and get so drunk I will be fascinated by the fact I have feet. So, Garrett, you need to go with Miranda over there and J.B., you need to come with me so you guys can move into the light and all that happy horseshit."

Garrett's eyes narrowed. He looked down at my hands, slowly sliding his over mine. "You look good, Ally. For being dead and all."

"I died but I am not dead, Garrett. I'm part of the undead."

"Like a vampire?"

"No. I'm a reaper and we shouldn't be having this conversation. We're not supposed to fraternize."

It was a load of crap but it sounded good and I tried to focus on the fact that he was dead to avoid focusing on my suddenly elevated heart rate. Hunky ghost or not, he was a dead man and I wasn't into kinky stuff. But I had to keep reminding myself of that fact when he touched me, his hands still big and calloused, confident as he kept me right where he wanted me.

It was dark, I was tired and I shouldn't have been thinking of how sexy my dead ex-fiancé was because it might have led to something equally stupid like the words, 'take me' falling out of my mouth. I hadn't had a drink in the last 36 hours so I had no excuse for suddenly wanting to drag him away from Miranda and J.B onto the nearest park bench.

The wind rustled through the trees and made me shiver as it kissed my skin. I suddenly felt more warm and alive than I had in the last five years. I cleared my throat and pushed his hands away, choosing anger as the lesser of the two evils that would get my heart rate up and the blood flowing to all the right places. I pointed my finger at his nose, taking J.B's hand with my free one.

"Look, Garrett, we had some fun, you dumped me and I moved on to a whole new life."

Literally.

I gave him my best 'talk and die look' knowing that if he opened his mouth again, I might be tempted to cover it with my mouth, licking into him, pulling him down on top of me so I could...

Fucking A.

"Look, I don't have time for this. You ruined my life and karma's a bitch. Now you go with that nice woman over there and enjoy your afterlife. I sure as hell am going to enjoy mine.

"Let's go, Duff."

I dragged J.B away, trying to figure out why karma only decided to show her bitch side to me.

"Hey Duffie, you don't mind if I call you, Duffie do you? How would you feel about stopping for an egg roll?

* * * * *

Someone was pounding at my bedroom door. The blinking lights on my alarm clock declared that I had been asleep for only two hours. That didn't bode well for the longevity of the person standing on the other side of that door.

"Go away."

"Allison, it's Miranda. Open this door. We have a problem."

"The only problem we have is you talking. Go away."

"Allison, open this door immediately."

I groaned, letting my face drop into the pillow, sinking deeper and deeper into it till it flattened out on either side of my head. I wanted to just lay there and slowly smother, but since I'd been there and done that, I sighed and rolled over. The floor was ice cold against my feet as I scuttled to the door on the balls of my feet. I yanked the door open, ready to give Miranda a piece of my mind.

I closed it immediately when I saw Garrett standing next to her.

Coward? Nah.

"Allison open this door."

"What the hell is he doing here?"

"He's the problem I was trying to tell you about. Now open this goddamn door or I'll just have him walk through it."

I sighed, tugging down the bottom of the oversized tee shirt I wore to bed so it covered a little more than just the curve of my butt. When I opened the door, Garrett was still on the other side. He grinned and I felt my heart flip-flop.

I shot him the bird then looked at Miranda. "Why is he here?"

"He wouldn't go into the light. This has never happened to me before. No one ever doesn't go into the light, Allison. There are rules. They die, we pick them up and they move on to wherever they're going. That's how it goes. But this one," she said pointing at Garrett, "said that he wasn't going anywhere until he saw you."

"Why the hell does he want to see me?"

"I don't know. He wouldn't say."

"Hello, I am standing right here, ladies."

We both ignored him.

"Cassandra isn't going to like this, Allison. You know how concerned she is about everything running smoothly."

That was a polite way of calling Cassandra a bitch. Wait, I take that back. Cassandra was driven and focused and expected the same of us at all costs, so correction, concerned was a PC way of calling her a heinous bitch. No matter what we called her, we both knew that this little situation had to go away before she found out about it.

Miranda looked more stressed than I had ever seen her and she wasn't the kind to get rattled easily. She'd been killed during a war protest in the sixties after she had chained herself to a gate. Not much fazed her after that, but tonight she had two spots of color high on her usually pale cheeks and I wasn't in the frame of mind to handle a reaper breakdown. I had my own problems, starting with the 6'2 one that was standing beside her, looking at my bare legs with too much interest for a dead guy.

I frowned, yanking the hem of the shirt down another inch. "Cassandra isn't going to find out about this," I said to Miranda. "And you," I said poking Garrett in the chest. "I don't know what you're trying to do here, but I can't help you. You're dead. Your time's up. It's time for you to move on and get the hell out of my apartment."

"I can't move on, Ally. It's like I told her. I just couldn't go into that light without seeing you."

"Well you saw me. Now go with Miranda before here has a melt-down. I need sleep."

I closed the door, blinking as he appeared through it a moment later. He looked surprised, and then grinned with such obvious pleasure at the neatness of that trick that I might have found it endearingly cute if I hadn't been pissed off.

"Whoa that's crazy. Why is it I can touch you but not anything else?"

"Because I'm an anomaly between life and death," I answered, distracted as Miranda yelled through the door.

"Allison, I can't handle this tonight," Miranda called through the door. "I am going out to go have a drink and pick up a guy at a bar who actually has a pulse. I'll see you later."

"You can't leave me alone with him, Miranda!"

I jumped as I heard a door slam. Garrett grinned at me, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Sounds like she's gone."

"And that means you should follow her. I mean it, Garrett. You're breaking all kinds of rules here."

"Who makes up the rules."

"Management."

"Who's management?"

"You don't want to go there."

I sighed, tousling my hair with both hands as I started to pace. I'd been a pacer when I was alive and had perfected it the first two weeks of my afterlife. I went through the carpet in less than a year so I invested in area rugs now. They were a lot cheaper and helped change up the color scheme in the room when I was feeling froggy.

Garrett looked around the room, examining the papers on my desk. Since he couldn't pick anything up, I ignored him and kept pacing, trying to figure out what to do with him. I knew that this was somehow all going to land on my plate. It always did - granted it was usually with good reason, especially since I had been less than the perfect little reaper when I was turned over, but I had improved.

Honestly I had.

I sighed as I looked back at Garrett who was eyeing my bed with interest, It was the only item in the room that I had actually splurged on. It was a queen size waterbed with an Egyptian cotton duvet and mounds of pillows. It was large enough to easily sleep two but I wasn't planning on having a bunkmate tonight.

"Garrett," I began.

"I need to make love to you, Ally."

Whatever words I had been planning to say went on hiatus. I blinked, blinked again and then reverted to staring.

Oh... My... God...

No he didn't.

Yes he did.

I shook my head and started laughing as this was too much even for my love of irony. "What the hell are you talking about, Garrett? You're dead. Last time I checked, ghosts don't get hard-ons."

When he didn't laugh, my grin wilted a little at the edges. "Garret, tell me you're joking."

I looked up at him as he crossed the room to stand in front of me. He smiled and I punched him as hard as I could in the shoulder. "Ow, what was that for?"

"What the hell kind of game are you playing? You're dead."

"Jesus, you pack a punch. Where the hell have you been working out?"

I punched him again, ignoring the urge to shake my hand out and jump around as pain flared through it. Being dead had changed nothing about him since the last time I'd seen him. The bastard was still causing me pain.

"Focus Garrett. You're dead. Dead men do not have romantic rendezvous or, if they know what's good for them, proposition the women they left at the altar."

"We have to discuss that."

"We have nothing to discuss! You caught a bad break tonight and it was your time to bite it. My roommate just happened to have to be the one to pick-up your soul and now she's probably out there courting some walking venereal disease because you're not cooperating!"

"Whoa, ok. We really need to discuss this. I did not leave you."

"Right, so I fell into a drunken stupor and accidentally killed myself with a champagne cork because I was toasting our happy nuptials."

"You were killed by a champagne cork? I didn't know that. All your parents told me was that it was an accident. They had a closed casket so I assumed it was a car accident or something. How the hell did you manage to kill yourself with a champagne cork?"

He arched a brow and I felt my cheeks start to burn with a dull heat. I knew that he could see it. When I was well and truly embarrassed my entire body turned the color of a cherry tomato, starting my ears and slowly working itself down so the humiliation continued for awhile.

I cleared my throat, trying to gather the remaining shred of my dignity, my voice coming out as chilly as a PMSing Puritan's. "That's none of your business. What were you doing at my funeral anyway? I'm surprised my father didn't tackle you at the door."

"He tried, but I had an explanation."

"I'm sure you did. You were always good at explanations." I laughed, wishing I had gone with Miranda for that drink. "Garrett, this is a pointless conversation and I am tired and want to go to sleep, so please, how about you take your excuses and just poof your way out that door?"

"No. We need to settle this once and for all."

I protested as he grabbed me, picking me up and tossing me over his shoulder. My hair fell into my eyes in a silky tangle, thankfully blocking my view of his backside as he walked us over to my bed. I pounded on his back with my fists, squealing when he returned my aggression with a hard pinch to my butt.

"Put me down, Garrett!"

My breath escaped in a whoosh as he tossed me down to the bed and covered my body with his, effectively pinning down my arms and legs like some ghostly arachnid. I wiggled, but he just pressed harder, the mattress sinking beneath us. My hands were curled helplessly against his chest and I tried not to think about the warm, masculine weight of him that I had missed more than I wanted to admit.

He felt solid and real and though I knew it was all bullshit, I couldn't help the soft sound of pleasure that escaped from my throat as he adjusted himself more snugly between my thighs, proving to me that even dead man could still feel the happy vibe.

"You are going to listen to me, damnit. I'm dead. The least you can do is grant me one last wish."

"I don't owe you anything!"

"No," he agreed somberly, "you don't, but I do owe you an explanation and you will get it, even if I have to lay here all night with you." He paused, his hazel eyes lightening with an impish glint. "Not that that's really any kind of torture."

I pressed my lips together tightly, trying to prevent the smile that was threatening to creep across my lips, hating myself for letting him get to me. I'd never been able to stay angry at him for long - well unless you counted the grudge I had been carting around for five years, but that was justifiable.

"Garrett, let me up."

"No. We need to talk about this. Just listen, please."

I wanted to say no. I knew that I should say no. But when he freed one hand to gently brush my hair back away from my face, his fingertips lingering, I just nodded.

"Ok..." he paused, taking in a breath. "God I didn't think this would be so hard. Look, I lied to you, Ally. I know it was wrong and you will never know how truly sorry I am for that, but I had to. It was part of my job."

"What are you talking about?"

"I was working for the DEA when we met. I was undercover and my assignment was to make my way into the drug cartel that was importing from Colombia. I'd been inside for over a year and a half when I met you. Before that I was married to my job and never got involved because my work was dangerous and I didn't want to drag anyone into a world where I might make them a widow a few months after I made them my wife. I wasn't counting on meeting you, Ally but when I did I couldn't stay away."