Melody Bittersweet and The Girls' Ghostbusting Agency: A laugh out loud romantic comedy of Love, Life and ... Ghosts? Read Online Free

together. You cannot cut your hair, it would fuck with the system.’
    The system is new to me, but when I consider it she’s right. It’s taken us a decade to perfect our look, and for that we’ve earned the right to rock it for as long as we damn well choose. Besides, there’s no way I can go through life without cherry lip gloss. It keeps me going in between sugar fixes. The bob stays.
    I might not be changing my look, but the office has had a complete overhaul and even if I do say so myself, it’s looking pretty swish. With the obvious oversight of the grubby chair I’m sitting on, it’s been mopped, polished and vacuumed to within an inch of its life, and my start-up budget had run as far as a new magenta swivel chair for my clients to sit in and one of those fancy slatted blinds that all offices have to have in order to be considered professional. I’ve avoided the obvious; no Columbo-style mac stand or yucca plant skimming the ceiling, no heavy glass ashtrays overflowing with cigar stubs. This place is functional, with what I’d like to call a feminine touch, right down to the jug of fresh tulips on the coffee table in the relaxation area. The relaxation area! I know! Get me and my areas! It’s actually just a little grey flop-out sofa and an old wingback chair grouped around the fireplace and TV, but it counts as relaxing, right? I’m aiming for urban chic, or at the very least something that doesn’t scream boho ghost hunter. There will be no hippy dippy incense burning in this office.
    ‘Maybe you should get an incense burner,’ Marina grins, and I let my middle finger do the talking for me.
    She shrugs and slides from the desk, blowing me a kiss as she makes to leave.
    ‘Gotta shoot. Places to be.’ I know that means she needs to get back to take over caring for her elderly grandpa while her mother works. Marina’s family is big on family loyalty.
    ‘You’ll come back on Monday morning though?’
    ‘You think I’d be late for my first morning at work?’ She rolls her eyes. ‘Nine o’clock. You and me. Ghostbusting girls are a go. It’s gonna be bloody brilliant.’
    She throws me a wink as she skips out the door, calling ‘I’ll bring donuts,’ over her shoulder as she disappears. I listen to her fast footsteps recede over the cobbles and send up a silent thank you to her last boss for firing her a couple of weeks back. I don’t know the full details because this isn’t the first time she’s been let go, I expect Marina is one of those people who doesn’t do so well with being bossed around, even if the person giving the orders is her boss and supposed to tell her what to do. She wasn’t especially distressed about being let go; she doesn’t work because she needs the money as much as because she needs to get out of the family nest. She practically invited herself to come and work at the agency, and boy was I going to be glad of the company and the support.
    So that makes three. Marina, Glenda Jackson, and me. I know Glenda’s only doing a couple of hours a day but believe me when I say that there’s no need to count that as part-time where Glenda’s concerned.
    God, I’m knackered. This chair might be dusty but it’s pretty comfortable and I lean my head against the side wing and close my eyes. I’m just drifting pleasantly into a dream where Robert Downey Jr. – suited up as iron man – is on his knees proposing to me, when someone coughs pointedly. I haven’t heard the door open, so I keep my eyes firmly closed and sigh.
    ‘Unless you’re devastatingly handsome with eyes like hazelnut espresso, rapier-sharp wit, and are hopelessly in love with me, go away.’
    There’s silence, and then ‘I’m bald, sixty-two and I died three weeks ago in a freak accident, but I’ll give it a go if it means you’ll sit up and listen.’
    I groan and open my eyes to see an ageing bald guy standing by the fireplace in a high-vis jacket. He has ruddy cheeks for a dead man; probably a