“That’s different,” he argued, lowering. It looked like the coffee table ate half his body. “Just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I don’t need my privacy.”

“As if you respect anyone else’s privacy.” I reached for my phone on the end table. I hit the screen, seeing only a handful of hours had passed since I’d fallen asleep. Not nearly enough to get any true rest.

But long enough for Zayne to get into any amount of trouble.

“Who cares about privacy right now? You’ve been gone all night and something...something happened.” Not known for toning down the dramatics, he smacked his hands against his cheeks. “It happened.”

“What happened?” I asked as I shoved the blanket off and rose. Knowing Peanut, whatever he was freaking out about was probably something normal. Like “it happening” was him hearing the refrigerator running.

“Something superweird, dudette.”

Bones and muscles stiff, I shuffled toward the kitchen, feeling like a hundred years old. “What happened, Peanut?” I opened the fridge door and grabbed a Coke.

Peanut drifted out of the coffee table and turned toward the kitchen. His lower body became more solid. “I don’t know what it was,” he said as I snapped open the can and lifted it to my mouth. “But I was sucked into the nothing.”

The bubbly carbonated goodness hit my throat, burning in the best way just as he spoke. I almost choked as I swallowed hard. “What? The nothing?”

He drew close enough for me to see how big his eyes were. “Yes. That is exactly what I said. I was chilling with Gena down below,” he said, and I made a mental note that now I knew the girl lived on one of the lower floors—one of the many lower floors. For some concerning reason, Peanut was supervague when it came to this girl. “And then it felt like an invisible string had grabbed ahold of me and there was an intense flash of white light, but the light was, like, falling? I thought, no way, I’m going into the afterlife whether I want it or not.”

I stared at him, taking another drink while wondering if it was possible for ghosts to do drugs. And if so, was I going to have to have a talk with him.

“But it wasn’t the afterlife. No. I was suddenly in this place that was supergray and stagnant, with all these people that I’d never seen before. And I mean lots of people.” He came through the kitchen island and to my side, so that he was two inches from me. “You see how close we are?”

“Uh. Yeah.”