Adventures in Murder Chasing (Funeral Crashing #3) excerpt

Chapter 1: Freaking

Ethan Ripley was my boyfriend. Officially. The first person I called and told was my ex-best friend, Ariel Walker. I knew she wouldn't be jealous, exactly, but maybe it would impress her a little. Besides, we had to make plans to meet up for peanut butter banana milkshakes.

I was even more impressed that Ariel agreed to meet me slightly less than two weeks later on a Saturday afternoon. It was prime weekend time and Ariel was making room for me in it. Of course, she did owe me her life. I had just saved it and gotten hurt doing it. I mean, I had only gotten out of the hospital two weeks ago. So, yeah, I had taken a major risk to help my ex-bff. She should make room for me in her crowded social schedule.

I knew it probably didn't mean too much and that Ariel was probably just being grateful, but I'd take what I could get. Truthfully, I was kind of excited about meeting up with her. We hadn't had peanut butter banana milkshakes since our freshman year of high school. I was a junior now, so it had been at least two years since we had actually hung out as friends. I wondered what it would be like. Then the worries started. Would it be awkward and horrible? Did we have anything to talk about? Well, I had Ethan and she had Troy, but that was kind of complicated. I mean, I had gone on a date with Troy before Ariel did and she had gone after Ethan before we had started going out so getting into detail about them might not be a good thing. At least it was only milkshakes. Worst case, we only had to spend the time it took to drink them together.

Still, I found myself dressing to impress. I knew Ariel saw me every day at school, even though we mostly didn't talk or acknowledge each other, but I wanted to look nice for meeting up with her. She was popular and I sort of felt like I had to dress to her expectations. Of course, I didn't have tons of designer clothes, but I had at least a couple of cute tops. I had made it a point to go shopping since starting to date Ethan. I wanted to look good for him, so I was starting to exchange some of my T-shirts for cuter, sexier shirts. It was a plus then that I had something to wear to hang out with Ariel.

It took me over an hour to get ready. I don't know why exactly, but I really felt like I had to look perfect. This was important. I called Ethan on my way there. My nerves were starting to go crazy. Did it mean anything that Ariel and I were having milkshakes together? Did she want to be friends again? Or was this just Ariel's way of saying thank you for saving her life and that was it? Or did almost dying change her view of our friendship? Like maybe it had gone from not important to a regret or something? Maybe I was getting way ahead of myself. Maybe Ariel just wanted a peanut butter banana milkshake and I was the only other person that she knew that liked them. Yeah, my brain was totally going haywire about this whole meeting up with Ariel thing.

"Hey," Ethan said on the other end of my cellphone, interrupting my rambling train of thought.

"Hey," I said back, smiling to myself, and automatically relaxing at the sound of his voice.

I totally like liked my boyfriend. Butterflies exploded in my stomach just hearing his voice. I wished I could kiss him, but he was at his house and I was in the car. Sigh.

"You on your way?" Ethan asked.

He knew what a huge day it was in my life, "Yeah."

"Nervous?" Ethan asked after I didn't say anything else.

"Totally," I said and found that I felt better simply by telling Ethan about my nerves. 

"Don't be," Ethan said. "Ariel's okay. Really."

It was easy for Ethan to say. He hadn't been dropped and replaced by Ariel with new bffs freshman year like it was no big deal. Plus, Ethan was popular. Everyone liked him. He had been best friends with his friends Dave and Mike since kindergarten and he had just kept gaining more and more friends along the way. He was super lucky in the friend department. I didn't have that problem. I was known as the funeral crashing graveyard girl teen sleuth. Actually, there were probably even more colorful adjectives added into that by now, but I had stopped keeping track. I was who I was. My boyfriend like liked me either way. That was good enough for me.