Page 93 of You'll Be the Death of Me

He grabbed her hand to kiss her fingertips. “You are always nice. It’s just a few light bulbs. Don’t worry about it.”

She smiled down at him. His dark eyes were at once dreamily sated and dancing with a hungry desire. “You said we could do this all night. There are more than two light bulbs in here.”

His bitten lips pulled up on the side. “You are correct on both counts.”

Chapter 16

They didn’t get a chance to go at it all night because a sudden, hard jolt rocked the bed with them in it.

“What was that?” Dell gasped and clutched Cole’s arms.

His eyes went wide from his position beneath her. “Earthquake?”

It was entirely plausible, given their location.

But the shake didn’t feel like a fault line slipping—a sensation Dell was very familiar with, having grown up in California. It was something bigger. And stronger.

She turned her head to the window, expecting to see the Lewises’ backyard garden, but instead saw hazy pink clouds, as if they were floating in the sky. She gasped again and looked down at Cole. Around him, the bedsheets had changed. They were no longer the soft blue of the Lewises’ guest room but gray. On that note, the headboard was now dark wood rather than a tufted cream cushion.

With a start, she sat up so she was straddling Cole. “What happened? Where are we?” As the words spilled from her mouth, shelooked around the room. It was no longer Cole’s childhood bedroom but instead a small, neat room with cool gray walls. Other than the bed, a nightstand with a lamp, and a dresser, there was nothing in it.

“Whoa,” Cole said when he sat up. “This is my apartment. How did we get here?” His voice was slow with confusion. He gripped Dell’s hips to remove her from his lap and scooted to the edge of the bed.

“Your apartment?” Dell asked. She pulled the sheet up around her bare chest. “The one your parents said they closed the lease on?”

Cole moved like he was underwater, disbelief shrouded over him like a blanket. “No. My apartment in the Afterlife Administration.”

“What?!” Dell shrieked. She scrambled to lean her back against the headboard and pulled more blankets up for protection. “What do you mean? We’re in the—the—afterlife?”

Cole hurried to her side of the bed and cupped her panicking face in his big hands. “Hey, it’s okay. Don’t worry. I’m here with you.”

“Yeah,in the afterlife!” she shouted. Her whole body had begun to tremble. “I was supposed to come back to life, not end up more dead!”

“I know!” Cole tried to soothe. “Something strange has happened, but we can figure it out.”

Dell was on the verge of losing her mind. The tiny gray room suddenly felt like it was suffocating her. “What are we going to do?”

Cole kissed her forehead and then turned for the dresser. “I don’t know, but we can start by getting dressed.” He pulled open a drawer and fished out a pair of boxers. Then he opened the sliding closet door to reveal two parallel rows of button-downs and slacks.

Dell glanced around for her nightie, but seeing as the whole room had somehow transformed, it was nowhere to be seen. “Do you happen to have anything in my size?”

Cole looked over his shoulder with a twist of his lips. “No.”

“Great. I’ll just cruise around the afterlife in the nude. That shouldn’t cause any issues.”

He grimaced as he stepped into a pair of pants. A doorbell rang and made Dell jump.

“Who’s that?” she asked, and clutched the sheets tighter.

“Um...” Cole muttered in an uncertain tone that made her heart skip. He reached for a shirt and threw his arms into it.

“I’ll go check. Stay here,” he ordered, and fastened a few buttons.

“No problem,” Dell said.

She listened to Cole move through what had to be a small apartment. The sound of him opening the front door came only a handful of seconds after he left the room.

“Mr. Lewis,” a man greeted in a bright voice.