Chapter 1

After I died unexpectedly, I ended up as a creepy ghost girl, haunting my arch-nemesis, Liam Smith.

To mess with him, I'd give everything he was about to eat a ghostly suck before he could touch it.

Food that had been sucked by a ghost would lose all its flavor.

But he never noticed a thing and kept chowing down.

I got bolder, stirring up all kinds of spooky tricks right by his side.

Finally, someone noticed that something was wrong.

They suggested he find an exorcist to check it out.

Liam smirked slightly, but his gaze locked right onto me. "No worries. Maybe the ghost hanging around me is a horny spirit who's got a thing for my body."

*****

My name was Olivia Clark.

I died at the age of twenty-five years, four months, and three days.

I worked myself to death, right in the company's break room, holding a half-finished cup of instant coffee.

When they found me, my face was buried in my coffee mug, in a weird pose, like I was saying my final goodbye to my coffee.

Honestly, it was not bad. At least I went out with style.

But what really caught me off guard was that instead of going to heaven, I ended up as a ghost stuck in the world.

And to make things weirder, after turning into a ghost, I somehow got stuck with a man named Liam Smith, also my arch-nemesis.

From elementary school all the way through college, we were always battling for the top two spots in our grade. Most of the time, he was number one, and I was number two, but occasionally, I'd snag first place, and he'd be second.

But no matter who was on top, we couldn't stand each other.

He thought I was an overachiever, always pushing him to work harder. I thought he was a total poser. He was as obsessed with grades as I was, but always pretending he didn't care at all, claiming he aced every test without cracking a book.

For sixteen years, we couldn't stand each other, always locked in rivalry. After graduation, we went our separate ways, and I thought I'd never have to see him again.

However, after I died, I became a ghost and somehow ended up floating right by his side.

Maybe God was messing with me.

The first time I saw Liam as a ghost, he was eating.

He was digging into a plate of seafood pasta, steaming hot. The pasta was perfectly chewy, plump shrimp and tender squid soaked in flavor, the sauce rich and glossy. Seeing it made me drool.

I'd only been dead for a day, still not used to this whole ghost thing, so I instinctively floated closer to get a whiff.

And that was when I noticed something strange.

As I floated closer to the plate, the steam rising from the pasta started to thin out.

I hesitated, then hovered nearer. The steam thinned out more.

I floated in closer.

Just then, Liam sneezed. He paused, fork hovering in the air, frowned, and looked around.

I quickly floated away, hiding in the corner, my heart pounding.

After a few thumps, it hit me that I was a ghost, and I didn't have a heart. But honestly, I was totally spooked.

Could he actually sense me?

I tentatively floated back over and waved my hand right in front of his face. But he didn't react at all.

I felt relieved. It looked like it was a fluke.

Then I looked back at the plate of pasta.

The steam was coming off it, but it wasn't nearly as thick as before. I drifted closer to take a whiff. The aroma wasn't as strong anymore.

Suddenly, an idea hit me.

Could it be that I sucked it all away?

To see if I was right, I decided to do a little test.

*****

The next morning, Liam was having breakfast.

He had a fried egg, some bacon, toast, and a glass of milk.

I floated over. When he picked up a piece of bacon and was about to put it in his mouth, I swooped in and gave it a good ghostly suck.

The bacon's aroma practically evaporated right before my eyes.

Liam popped the bacon into his mouth and started chewing. Then, he frowned.

My heart started pounding. Did he notice something?

But he frowned for a moment, then shrugged it off and kept eating.

Once he finished that bland piece of bacon, he grabbed another. This time, I left it alone, and he ate it with real gusto.

I got it. Whenever I sucked the flavor out of his food, it totally lost its taste, but he never seemed to notice a thing.

To test my guess, I tried it a few more times.

At breakfast, I gave his fried egg a suck. He ate it and didn't notice a thing.

At lunch, I did the same to his salad. He ate it and didn't notice a thing.

At dinner, I sucked the flavor out of his steak. He ate it and still didn't notice a thing.

I floated in midair, watching him chew and swallow that steak I'd drained of all taste, and couldn't help but let out a sinister cackle.

I finally realized that, as a ghost, I could drain all the flavor from food, while the poor guy eating it had no clue.

This was basically a gift from God for payback.

Liam had almost ruled the top spot for sixteen years, but now the tables had turned.

I would make sure every meal he ate from now on tasted completely bland.

From then on, I went wild with my mischief.

I sucked his breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snack.

Sometimes, when he was eating with such relish, and I was in a bad mood, I'd make sure to drain the flavor from every single bite.

Watching him savor every mouthful of that totally tasteless food, I'd be floating nearby, cracking up so hard that I was practically rolling in the air.