chapter 4

57 1 0

by crazycrazyladyahhhh

by crazycrazyladyahhhh

I really need to stop biting my nails.

This occurs to me as I'm picking up a pair of skates, stopping for a second to examine my bumpy, bitten-down fingernails. Oh, well. Nothing a nail file can't fix.

I resume my work, cleaning off the skates, spraying them down with disinfectant while softly humming along to the 2000s pop music playing over the speakers.

I glance around. It's another slow day at the roller rink. A few people are out there, skating silently around in circles, but aside from them, it's a total ghost town (get it?). It's been like this for a few days now. People stopped showing up after the ghost attack. Who knew haunted roller rinks were bad for business?

Anyway, now that I'm only handing out three pairs of skates a day, my new job is cleaning out the used ones, which is just as disgusting as it sounds. Still, though, it's been kind of nice, having the place (mostly) to myself.

I hear the door open. Phoebe stands there, this time wearing regular clothes instead of her Ghostbusters getup. She waves shyly as she walks over to me.

"Um. Hey, again."

"Nice to see you, stranger."

She tucks a loose curl behind her ear. "Yeah, sorry. I've been...really busy. Like, to an annoying extent." She glances around, noticing the sheer emptiness of the roller rink. "Guess the same couldn't be said about you."

As soon as she says that, she cringes. "Oh, no, sorry. I meant it as, like—there aren't a lot of people here. I'm sure you're a very busy person. Well, not...you know what I mean. I don't think you're lazy or anything."

I chuckle. "You here to skate?"

"Uh, no. I'm here to see you, actually."

"Oh!" I feel my stomach flip. "Any, um, particular reason why?"

"Yeah. Um, so..." She pauses, taking a quick breath, "There's this really cute diner up the road a little ways, and I thought it would be really...cool, and fun and stuff...if we, like, hung out there sometime. On, like, a date. But only if that sounds like something you'd want to do!" She says, backtracking immediately.

"Yeah! Yeah, totally! Of course!" I sputter, hoping I'm not actually blushing as hard as I think I am, "Yeah, that would be fun. Yeah."

"Cool." Her smile is totally contagious. "So...does tomorrow at eight sound good?"

"Mhm!"

"Okay, well...see you then!"

As she walks away, I'm left standing there, wondering how the hell I just landed a date with a Ghostbuster.