Unfinished Business

By B.G. Thomas

Mike Ellsworth was alive and well one minute, and dead the next. Only he’s not really dead—he’s a ghost. One with lots of unfinished business. He’s never told his wife that he has come to accept that he’s gay. He’s never told her that he has a secret lover. He’s never been able to tell his lover that he is in love with him. Now there’s nothing Mike can do about it. And that’s only the beginning! He soon finds out he can help other ghosts leave the spirit world and step into the light. So what’s keeping him stuck on earth? If only there were a way he could make up for all he’s done wrong, and finally do what’s truly right. And maybe, just maybe, there is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
• Release date: Jul 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781644058688

B.G. Thomas

B.G. Thomas lives in Kansas City with his two husbands—which yes, is different, but amazingly rewarding and wonderfully romantic. They have two sweet rescue dogs named Oliver (who the breed name Dorkie applies perfectly) and Frodo (who is just learning to be a dog). He is missing his soul dog Sarah Jane very much, but she will live on forever in several of his books and in his heart. He is also blessed to have a lovely daughter and they love to hang out. B.G. loves to read romance, comedy, fantasy, thrillers, mystery, science fiction, and even horror—as far as he is concerned, as long as the stories are character driven and entertaining, it doesn’t matter the genre. He has gone to literature conventions his entire adult life, where he’s been lucky enough to meet many of his favorite writers. He has made up stories since he was a child; it’s where he finds his joy. In the nineties, he wrote for gay adult magazines but stopped because the editors wanted all sex without plot, and edited his setups right out. “The sex is never as important as the characters,” he says. “Who cares what they are doing if we don’t care about them?” Excited about the growing male/male romance market—where setup and cute meets is where it’s at—he began writing again. He submitted a novella and was thrilled when it was accepted in four days. Since then the romantic tales have poured out of him. “It’s like I’m somehow making up for a lifetime’s worth of story-telling!” “Leap, and the net will appear” is his personal philosophy and his message. “It is never too late,” he testifies. “Pursue your dreams. They will come true!” You can read about whatever he’s working on right now or whatever he’s rambling on about at his website/blog at: bthomaswriter.wordpress.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/bgthomaswriter Twitter: twitter.com/BGThomasBooks He is always happy to hear from his readers!

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Unfinished Business

By B.G. Thomas

Mike Ellsworth was alive and well one minute, and dead the next. Only he’s not really dead—he’s a ghost. One with lots of unfinished business. He’s never told his wife that he has come to accept that he’s gay. He’s never told her that he has a secret lover. He’s never been able to tell his lover that he is in love with him. Now there’s nothing Mike can do about it. And that’s only the beginning! He soon finds out he can help other ghosts leave the spirit world and step into the light. So what’s keeping him stuck on earth? If only there were a way he could make up for all he’s done wrong, and finally do what’s truly right. And maybe, just maybe, there is.

Originally published in Spirit (Gothika #4) in October 2015.

Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that’s what.

~~ Salman Rushdie

1

THERE WAS a girl wearing a Siouxsie and the Banshees T-shirt walking down the center of the street. Mike Ellsworth couldn’t remember when he’d last heard someone even mention the goth rock group. What’s more, the shirt looked clean, brand-new.

Except, of course, for the blood. When he looked closer, he saw it was coming from a gash on the side of her head. She was very pale.

My God, he said with a gasp. Are you all right?

Stupid question! Of course she wasn’t all right.

And the girl? She cringed but continued on by without responding. When he turned, he saw she was walking right past the remains of his car. There were two police officers had arrived (when had they gotten there?). They didn’t pay any attention to the girl. Ignored her! She was bleeding. How could they ignore her?

Can’t you see her? he shouted. His heart was racing. He felt cold and clammy. Almost faint.

The police officers—one a woman with very short dark hair, and a man, stocky, older, meaner-looking somehow—were looking at his car. They were looking at him.

The him still in the car.

The him that looked dead.

God…!

2

MIKE WAS the one who had texted Joel, of course. He was only about eight blocks from their hotel—he would be in the room with his lover in no time—so why couldn’t he have just waited?

But he was so anxious. It had been six weeks since they’d seen each other—six long weeks—and he was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. His last trip had been cancelled due to a flu that had landed half a client’s employees at home in bed. Soon he’d be with Joel—holding him, fucking him—and, God, he was hard as he typed on the tiny screen.

Hey Baby. Guess where I am? Mike spelled it all out. He sucked at textspeak.

A few seconds later, his cell phone made that ba-bleep! sound, and when he looked, the response was RU N lobby?—because Joel was a master at it.

Sometimes it took Mike what felt like forever to figure out what Joel was saying—IMO, SMH, AFAIK, LMK…. Mike considered himself lucky that he knew LOL. And for months he’d thought it meant Lots of love. It was Lori, with an eye roll, who set him right.

Laugh out loud, honey. When you’re typing away and you laugh, you write that down. You put it in your text.

Why? he’d asked, totally perplexed.

"Because you’re texting instead of talking. It makes the conversation more real."

Whatever, he’d thought then, and thought now.

But RU and N was simple enough to understand, and with only seven blocks to go, he typed, I will there be soon. Are you naked yet?

No came the almost immediate answer. And then: Where RU?

About six blocks now. He grinned. Get your clothes off. I want you naked in bed when I get there.

And the quick response: Stop texting and driving, and, I <3 U.

Texting. God. How many times had he gotten on Lori for the same damned thing? How many of those stupid emails—and, more recently, posts on Facebook—had he seen with the photograph of a crumpled car and the caption: Was that last text worth your life? Share this if you agree! Don’t text and drive!

Later he thought, Stupid way to die.

Mike ended his texting days with, See you soon, instead of, Me too—he just wasn’t ready to use the word love yet, not to another man and not even for Joel—and then there was the incredibly loud sound of a car horn. He looked up and was astonished to see he had just sailed, easy-peasy as can be, through a red light and there was a car heading directly toward the driver’s side of his rental. He froze, mouth falling open, and time seemed to slow stop. The other car hit his, and then there was flying glass—a million tiny pieces seeming first to float and then to dance in the air—followed by the most horrible noise and pain like he’d never felt before.

And a second later, he was somehow standing beside the cars.

He was dizzy—he almost fell over—felt all light… headed? No…. That wasn’t quite right.

A woman was tumbling out of the car that hit him, and she was moving in slow motion as well, like the shards of glass, and her eyes were huge, her mouth working like a fish—he almost laughed at her comedic expression. She pointed. Gawked again.

He turned to see what she was pointing at, and what he saw would have made him scream if his throat hadn’t seized up, preventing him from making any sound at all.

What he saw was himself.

The woman’s car was deep in the side of his, and he was looking into his own staring eyes. There was blood. Quite a lot of it.

Everything that had been moving so slowly now froze in place. Nothing moved. There was no sound. Nothing. He couldn’t move. He could only look into his own face—trying to make sense of it, denying what he knew.

His face was so pale.

Dead.

Somehow, time reasserted itself then, the world moving at its regular pace, the noises of traffic were back—shouts, a car horn, a motorcycle.

The woman who had hit him was standing next to her own car, hand touching the door, her eyes blinking, lips moving, but no words coming out. Then she slumped to the pavement.

Mike ran to help her, but to his surprise, he couldn’t move her. Not an inch. Even the loose fabric of her blouse. It was as if she had been carved from stone. A statue.

Dreaming. I’m dreaming. Got to be….

She was conscious, she hadn’t passed out, and she was staring at him—but not at him. She was staring at his car. She was looking right through the him kneeling before her.

She doesn’t see me.

This is crazy. This isn’t real.

His heart was pounding and he staggered to his feet. He almost fell. He felt… how to describe it? Light. Almost as if he might float away. He could hear

Reviews for Unfinished Business

[serenayates · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a great sequel to 'Beggars and Choosers', and just as much of an emotional roller coaster as the first part of Cory and Brett's story. Although both men have already grown a lot, overcoming their abusive pasts just to be able to be together, now that they are in a committed relationship, there is a lot more to come. Some of it are new issues - like dealing with jealousy and aggressive would-be girlfriends for Brett and hopeful boyfriends for Cory. Some of it is dealing with what happened to Cory before, since the villain was never caught. But all of it is told in Cory and Brett's unmistakable voices, and I loved that.

If you want to know what's next for Cory and Brett, if you like emotional roller coasters, and if you enjoy seeing two men grow more than they ever thought possible, then you will probably like this novel. It's a worthy successor to the first volume and left me with a happy smile on my face.