by R. L. Naquin
I shook my head and closed the cabinet door. No wonder he had all those muscles under his tight shirts.
Ashamed of my lack of healthy habits in my own kitchen, I moved into the living room. I didn’t linger long. Aside from a pair of socks under the coffee table and a home improvement magazine sitting on the sofa, it was pristine. I checked a drawer in the table, found three remotes, closed it, and moved on.
The bathroom was a little messier. A yellow bath towel lay discarded on the floor. I glanced up and found a hook on the wall. The towel had probably fallen. The shower curtain hadn’t been pulled all the way shut, and a damp washcloth lay spread over the rim of the sink to dry.
I opened the medicine cabinet because that’s what every good snooper was supposed to do. Toothpaste. Floss. Aspirin. Deodorant. Nothing interesting. The single drawer beneath the sink yielded nail clippers and a crap-ton of condoms.
“Now you have my attention, sir.” Impressed, I closed the drawer and moved across the hall to the bedroom.
And that’s where I found the mess. Discarded clothes. Work boots piled in the corner. Wadded sheets and blankets in the middle of the bed. And best of all, papers strewn everywhere. Crumpled balls covered the floor, and smooth pages spread across the desk. Whatever Mark was working on, it was frustrating the hell out of him. If I couldn’t find the answer to what he was making here, I’d never find it on my own.
It was also a huge relief to find out my neighbor wasn’t perfect.
I bent over the desk and tried to decipher the sketches he’d made. Most were seemingly random squares and circles. Some were a little more interesting, though. One featured what looked like a dinosaur made up of geometric shapes. It also could have been a dragon. I wasn’t sure. Another looked like a tree with holes cut out at precise intervals.
The problem with being invisible was how much I had to concentrate in order to touch anything. Sitting on a chair was easy. Apparently, the gods who’d created this system had set it up so we interacted normally with our environment. This kept me from falling through stairs or sinking into the floor. Going through doors, now that I’d done it a few times, was possible without thinking about it. But individual items were a bitch to negotiate.
Obviously, I was doing something wrong.
Every time I tried to move one of the pages so I could look at one under it, my hand went through the desk. And forget about trying to smooth out the discards on the floor to see what secrets they held. Opening the cupboards had been difficult enough.
If I was going to get anywhere, I had to shut off the invisibility on my belt. This was probably a terrible idea. If I got caught, I’d have no way of explaining why I was there or how I’d gotten in. I’d only spoken to the guy a few times. Our next conversation really shouldn’t have to be as he was calling the police.
But I had a deadline, and he was failing. Which meant I was failing.
I pressed the button on my belt and tested my solidity by tapping the desk. My fingers touched the polished wood instead of falling through.
Immediately, I panicked. “Fingerprints, fingerprints!” I tugged my blouse out from under the golden belt and used the material to scrub the desk in a vigorous motion. “And stop talking to yourself! You’re not silenced anymore, either.”
I took a step back and tripped, falling on my ass in the middle of the room, sending balls of paper rolling in every direction. For a moment I sat on the bedroom floor, trying to slow my breathing and get control of myself again. When I was a little less freaked out that I was sitting in my neighbor’s house going through his stuff without the aid of magical camouflage, I reached for the nearest paper ball and smoothed it flat with hands that shook a little less than they would have a few minutes before.
I squinted at the page. Once I had the wrinkles ironed out enough to see the pencil lines, it appeared to be a fish. The series of three fins on its back were oddly flat, as if something was supposed to sit on it.
The next page showed a pirate ship with the Jolly Roger flying above it. Those strange circles dotted the sides, similar to the tree I’d seen before.
A third page yielded a picture of a two-headed animal of some kind—maybe a llama. One head was up and the other down. Both heads were flat, like the fins on the fish.
“You clever son of a bitch.” I grinned at the pile of drawings. “You’re trying to build a playground.” I couldn’t prove it, exactly, but urban renewal combined with these whimsical sketches told me I was right.
But Mark couldn’t decide on the theme.
“Oh, honey. How the hell are you going to build something of this magnitude in less than a month if you can’t even decide what to build?”
I examined each picture. He had great ideas. But they weren’t cohesive.
A key rattled in the door and I froze. “No, no, no,” I whispered.
In a burst of motion, I scuttled around the floor, wadding up the papers I’d smoothed and tossing them around in as natural a pattern as I could manage.
The front door opened and shut. Frantic, I reached to press the button on my belt, but the belt had shifted when I fell, and the fabric of my blouse was tangled from when I pulled it out to wipe off my fingerprints.
The kitchen faucet turned on and ran for a moment, then turned off. Shaking, I stuffed my blouse under the belt and tried to straighten the chain. The Beastie Dust bottle was caught, and the buckle I was searching for had migrated over my left hip.
Clunky footsteps strode down the hallway toward me. My fingers touched the button and I clicked it. Mark walked into the bedroom and looked right at me.
He frowned. “I thought I mailed those.”
My eyes grew wide as he walked toward me. “I can explain.” Why did people always say that? It was rarely true. I held my hands up, as if in self-defense, but he walked through me to the desk. I shivered from the weird contact—or lack of contact—and spun around.
Mark reached for two envelopes I hadn’t noticed sitting on his desk. He shuffled them, then left the room. After a moment, the kitchen door opened and shut, and I was left alone to deal with an over-abundance of adrenalin.
I sat on the edge of Mark’s bed and took a few deep breaths. “So stupid.” I dropped my head in my hands. “Never again.”
And yet, a small voice in the back of my head gave a little yip of excitement. I’d never really done anything dangerous or even slightly daring before. I was not a risk taker. I’d spent my life following the path of least resistance.
Pushing the envelope was kind of a rush.
I squashed the excitement I was feeling and waited for Mark to come back from the mailbox. No more risks for me. At least not for a long while. I would play it straight and follow the rules.
Whatever the rules were.
When Mark came back in, I had my bubble wand at the ready and my bottle open and waiting. He meandered from the kitchen to the living room and back again, avoiding the bedroom where I wanted him to go. He needed to work.
He needed to stop waffling.
I followed where he went, relentless. Small bubbles in a steady stream, large ones that glided on their own wind currents. I blew slowly and sent a large bubble to land between his shoulder blades.
If my Thought Bubbles had been made of the same substance as regular bubbles, Mark would have been drenched in sticky liquid.
“Come on.” I blew another long stream at him. “Go sit down and hash this out. You know what you want to create. You just don’t trust yourself. Unless you draw it, you can’t make it.” I blew a long squiggly bubble. “The thing in your head can be real. You know how to do it.”
I doubted he heard me, exactly, but he did stop wandering around like he’d lost his wallet or something. He settled in front of his desk and took out a fresh piece of paper and a pencil.
I blew a massive bubble at his head. I blew so hard, it popped in my face, and I had to try again.
The resulting bubble was a great, ponderous blob that wobbled at him in a p
ainfully slow line. I closed my eyes and put all the positive, encouraging energy I could into it. “You’ve got this, Mark. What’s your fabulous idea? Be brave.”
The bubble hit him on the back of the head and bounced. I blew a little air at it to make it change course and it returned to him, popped, and splattered.
Mark tensed as if he’d felt it, and I waited, fingers crossed. He blew out a lungful of air and touched his pencil to the page.
And the phone rang, breaking the spell.
“Son of a bitch,” I said.
“Son of a bitch,” he said.
I moved closer to his ear, hoping he would hear me, even if he couldn’t hear me. “Don’t answer it. Whoever it is will leave a message. We’re so close.”
The phone continued to ring. Mark sighed and answered it. “Hello?”
I smacked my face. “No, you knucklehead. I told you not to answer it.”
Mark nodded. “Yeah, Pete. I’ve been working on some ideas to show you at dinner next week. Once we go over it together, I’ll get the ball rolling.” He listened for a moment, the fingers of one hand drumming on the desk. “No, yeah. We’ll get it done before her birthday. No worries. I’ve got this. Yeah. You too, Pete. Take care.” He disconnected the call and stared at the phone in his hand for a long moment. “I don’t have this.” He sounded miserable.
“You do have this, Mark. I saw these drawings.” I gestured at the crumpled paper on the floor as if he could see and hear me. “I’ve never known anyone with half your creativity. You have to believe in yourself.” I drew close to him, looking him in the eyes. “I do.”
He sighed and put his phone in his pocket and rose from his chair. If he hadn’t gone right through me, I’d have been knocked over. He clomped out of the room to the kitchen.
“Hey.” I trotted behind him. “What are you doing? We’re not done.”
He opened the fridge, scanned the contents, then slammed it shut. He leaned against the counter and rubbed his face, looking tired and worried. With another deep sigh, he grabbed his car keys and headed for the door.
“Hey,” I said, scowling. “Where are you going?”
“I’m out of beer,” he said. “I need a drink.” He shut the door and locked it.
I stood in the kitchen and watched him out the window until I realized what had happened.
Mark had answered me.
Chapter 14
Mark must have gone to Colorado for that beer, because he was gone all evening. I gave up after an hour and went home. I had to hope the work I’d done with him earlier had greased the gears a little. Maybe a few drinks would finish the job.
The truth was, Mark had stressed me out. And I didn’t think I could help him unless I got myself in a better mindset.
Fortunately, I had a date with a gladiator the next day. That ought to do it.
I went into the office Friday morning before taking the day off. I was, after all, brand new. Maybe Fridays were a day of departmental meetings and I’d be notably absent. Maybe everybody brought potluck. Hell, I’d have been surprised if anybody had been there. But they weren’t. And the biggest reason I’d come in was to check my inbox to be sure I didn’t have a new assignment.
My inbox was mercifully empty.
I stopped in the prop room and refilled my Thought Bubbles. Mark had used up half a bottle with all the craziness the night before. I didn’t want to get caught unprepared.
With nobody to stop me, I walked out with no intention of visiting any clients that day. My stomach had butterflies, but I didn’t change my mind. At the end of the day, nobody cared but me.
I stepped out of the elevator and found Rick waiting outside the cafeteria. He wore totally normal clothes this time—jeans and a blue, buttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He smelled clean like he’d stepped out of the shower five minutes earlier.
Rick grinned at me. “Good morning. You look beautiful.”
I’d chosen a yellow print dress with a short, fluttery skirt and sandals with low heels, since I didn’t know where we were going. Mom always told me yellow brought out the blue in my eyes and made my blonde hair shine like gold. Mom was weird like that. But she was surprisingly good at fashion advice.
“Morning.” I smiled back. “And thank you.”
His grin widened, and he held open the cafeteria door. “Shall we start with coffee and then go from there?”
I glanced up at him as I walked past, and my smile wavered. His adorable dimples were gone. And his eyes were definitely blue. How did a person change their eye color and lose their dimples?
For the first time, I wondered what Rick really looked like. Was this the real version?
He brought the coffee to our table, and I waited for him to settle into the booth. He handed me my cup and took a sip from his own.
“Rick?”
“Yeah?”
“Before we go any further with all this, maybe you should tell me a little more about your job. And, you know, your costumes. How they work.”
This time, Rick’s smile faltered. “It’s all in the details, isn’t it?”
I tilted my head and looked closer at his face. “The cowboy duds and the gladiator getup weren’t really costumes, were they?”
His cheekbones were a little higher today, his nose a bit narrower. Both earlobes were pierced, but I didn’t recall having seen them that way before. Both times before, his hair had been a shiny, bright blond, but now it was more of an ash blond. He was still attractive as hell, but he was also different. In fact, the previous versions of him had almost been too perfect. This Rick had a little razor burn on his neck, and his left eyebrow had a small scar. He wasn’t nearly as intimidating with a few small imperfections.
Rick shook his head. “Not exactly, no.” He leaned into the cushioned seat. “This is what I wanted to explain to you about my job. I am whatever I need to be for the dream role I’m cast in for the night.”
“So, you’re saying you don’t have a wardrobe department.”
“No. Not exactly. More like a graphic arts department.” He took a long gulp of coffee. “And a spa treatment.”
I smirked. “What?”
“It’s kind of a long process. First, we receive the dream assignments from various departments. Sometimes they come from Fate, sometimes a client needs a shaking up from the Furies, and sometimes the dreams are assigned internally. They come from all over, really. We script it, cast it, then a designer pulls a character profile from the database and tweaks it or creates a new one altogether. The result is uploaded to a shower bomb.”
I held my hand up. “Whoa. A shower bomb?”
He chuckled. “Not a bomb bomb. A shower bomb. Like a bath bomb, but for showers. The water hits it and the bomb dissolves, releasing the magical essence of the character rather than the smelly stuff in a regular shower bomb.”
My eyes may have glazed over for a second as I imagined him in the shower naked every day in this very building. I shook myself and tried not to blush. “So, then what? You transform in the shower and walk out in a wet costume?”
“Well, the costume is dry, but yeah.” He gave me a sheepish look. “So, that’s why I didn’t see you every day this week. Sometimes I don’t look very much like myself.”
I frowned. “How much not like yourself?”
“On Tuesday, I was covered in green fur, and Wednesday I kind of looked like a giant tuna with tentacles.” His expression was serious, though his words sounded like a joke.
I blinked. “Not uh.”
“Ya huh. And I can’t wash it off, so I’m stuck here until it wears off. It’s one thing to walk around in a black hat and chaps, it’s another to scare people and put them off their breakfast.” He paused. “Or, you know, chase you away before I’d even had a chance to take you out.”
I gripped my cup in both hands and smiled. “I guess your plan worked then. So where are we going?”
The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Well, we can go through your portal or min
e. I’m afraid mine’s not exactly exotic, but if you’d like to see the capitol of Kansas, we can go through mine.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise. “You live in Topeka?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. Like I said, not really exciting.”
I grinned over the lid of my cup. “Oh, I don’t know. Some of the best people live there. Me, for example.”
He sat up straighter. “No!”
“Yes!”
“Well, then. I guess we’re going through the Topeka portal. How do you feel about picnics?”
~*~
Apparently, Rick had been planning to talk me into a picnic all along. The fact that we belonged to the same portal made it easier on him, since he had everything we needed already in the trunk of his car.
We left my car parked up the street—I didn’t want the fake homeless dude to report my hooky-playing ways if that’s what his job was—and drove out to Perry Lake for the day.
My insides were at war with each other throughout the day. Here I was with this gorgeous, thoughtful guy, and I was having trouble relaxing with him. Just as he’d somehow known how much I loved cinnamon lattes, the contents of his picnic basket were strangely compatible with my likes and tastes.
The sandwiches were Swiss and ham on buttery croissants with mayo and a dab of mustard. Seriously, he’d nailed it, even down to the condiments. Nectarines, sea salt bagel chips, and white cupcakes with vanilla frosting. He’d also brought ice-cold bottles of water for after we drank the cans of strawberry soda he’d brought.
It was a little scary. My mother could have packed me that lunch.
I tried to tell myself I was holding back because I’d only broken up with Freddy a couple of weeks ago. It was probably too soon to start something new. But it was more than that.
We sat on a blanket together, listening to the waves lap against the rocks. My stomach was full of some of my favorite things to eat, the sun warmed my back, and a gorgeous guy sat next to me.
He sat so close, the hairs on our arms brushed. I shivered.