The Secrets of Ghosts by Sarah Painter Page B

‘My aunt Gwen isn’t bent. Not even a little bit. She’s always helping people. It’s like, literally, her life’s work.’
    ‘I’m not going to comment on your family,’ Max said. ‘I’m not that stupid.’
    ‘And what about nurses and those people who volunteer in Africa?’
    ‘I didn’t say people can’t do good things. People do good things all the time, but that doesn’t make them good.’
    ‘But we are just actions — there isn’t anything else. If you do good things you are good, if you do bad things, you are bad. That’s how it works.’
    ‘What about intention? What if you mean to do something good but it goes badly? Does that make you a bad person?’
    ‘I don’t—’
    ‘And what about if you do bad things and good things? That’s the usual thing.’
    ‘You have to weigh them up,’ Katie said. ‘Some bad things are worse than others. If someone does loads of brilliant things and saves lives and stuff and then they nick a Mars bar from a shop, that doesn’t cancel out all the good stuff.’
    ‘Just makes a tiny dent in it?’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘And what if someone does something really bad? Can they cancel it out if they do enough good stuff afterwards?’
    ‘Maybe,’ Katie said.
    Max smiled widely, genuinely amused. ‘You believe in redemption?’
    ‘Yes,’ Katie said, irritated. ‘Absolutely.’
    Max shook his head. ‘You’re too nice.’
    ‘I’m really not. Redemption isn’t the same as forgiveness.’
    ‘So, if I do lots of good stuff, you still won’t forgive me for lying to you?’
    ‘Oh.’ Katie stayed very still while she thought about it. ‘How good?’
    Max smiled and she felt a low hum begin in her stomach.
    ‘Like, maybe, kiss you,’ Max said. At once, his face seemed very close. He wasn’t leaning, though. Wasn’t touching her at all. He was just sitting next to her and staring at her with such intensity, as if his whole life depended on touching her lips with his own, as if she were the centre of his universe. ‘May I?’
    Katie thought that nobody had ever looked at her that way. Then she realised that she wasn’t breathing and took a gulp of air. When she managed to speak she had to clear her throat to stop it coming out all croaky. ‘I don’t know you. I don’t kiss people I don’t know.’
    ‘But you want to kiss me?’
    ‘I didn’t say that.’
    ‘Interesting.’ Max tilted his head, as if considering her. ‘If you never kiss anyone you don’t know, how do you get to know people?’
    ‘Talking. Words. You know, the usual way,’ Katie said. His confidence was making her feel more in control. If he carried on annoying her she wouldn’t feel dangerously lustful.
    ‘Kissing is quicker.’ He smiled. ‘You can tell a lot about a person from the way they kiss.’
    Without meaning to, Katie thought about Stuart. Her first — and only — boyfriend. He had taken the advice to be gentle a little too much to heart and prefaced kissing sessions with a hundred or so tiny, feather-light touches to her lips, cheeks, chin. Every Single Time. It had been like foreplay performed by a butterfly. Katie felt her cheeks flush. To cover her embarrassment she said, ‘You can tell a lot more from the total shite a person will say in order to cop a feel.’
    He grinned. ‘This is true.’
    That smile punched her in the stomach. If she didn’t move away, get distracted, right at this second she was going to take him up on his offer. What would kissing Max be like? She’d lay money it wasn’t like a butterfly.
    His smile widened, as if he knew what she was thinking. He leaned forwards, tilting his face to hers. ‘Why don’t you live a little?’ He smelled of clean skin and sunshine and that indefinable bloke smell. He put a hand on her jaw, angling her face and then stopped, raising his eyebrows slightly in a way that asked for permission.
    She tilted her head and leaned forward a fraction, closing her eyes so that she didn’t have to look at his