My Invisible Lover

by Jamie Athelstan

  She had been jumpy for a few days, but she had imagined she was getting better. And if she was getting better, that could only mean one thing.

  That feeling on the back of her neck was real.

  She started paying attention more. Started turning around fast from time to time, as if there would be someone behind her. She was starting to feel like an idiot, whirling around only to see nothing and no one at all. Except, a few times, people staring right back at her like there was something wrong with her.

  Maybe they were right, but she trusted her gut. Her gut had told her that there was someone in her apartment even when she couldn’t see them, and her gut had been right. She knew she had to be right this time, too.

  Somehow, though, she didn’t feel scared. She had been walking alone and sitting at home alone. She had been vulnerable and exposed many times since it all happened. So, if someone was waiting to attack her, they were doing a pretty poor job of it.

  “What’s wrong with you lately?” Maya demanded after Jada had jumped into the air for about the sixteenth time when she came over to her desk. “You don’t usually spook this easy.”

  “Sorry,” Jada muttered, sighing and rubbing her forehead. “I guess I haven’t been sleeping too well.”

  “Huh,” Maya said, crossing her arms and leaning back against the side of Jada’s desk. She tossed her long, black hair over one shoulder, just to complete the picture, leaving no possible doubt that she was deliberately playing a game. “And why is that?”

  Jada glanced up and groaned. She knew the expression on Maya’s face. This was not going to end well. “It’s nothing like that,” she started to protest, but Maya was already laughing.

  “Come on – I’ve known you for how many years?” she chuckled. “I know there’s only one thing that makes you lose sleep every night for this long. So, who is he?”

  Jada shook her head again, frowning. “Honestly, Maya, there’s no one.”

  “So, what kind of demographic percentile will we be targeting?” Maya said suddenly, her tone shifting abruptly from teasing to business-like.

  Jada glanced up over the side of her cubicle and saw Melanie Cardelle approaching them. Their boss was known to vehemently oppose office gossip, believing that time spent talking for pleasure was to be counted as a break. With the number of times Maya wandered over for a chat, the two of them wouldn’t be getting any breaks for the next year if she knew.

  “We’re looking at a mixed audience for this campaign,” Jada said, smoothly playing along. “Our current round of A/B testing suggests that all ideal customers, regardless of demographic, rated this as the most interesting copy and graphics.”

  Melanie’s stiletto heels clicked past Jada’s cubicle, and on down the row of desks towards the other side of the room. Maya let out a relieved sigh, and visibly relaxed.

  “One of these days, we’re going to get caught,” Jada said, quirking one of her eyebrows up in the air.

  “One of these days, you’re going to admit you’re in looooove,” Maya shot back, quirking an eyebrow of her own to match.

  “Mayaaa,” Jada whined, picking up a pen as if that would be enough to convince her to drop it and let her work. “You’re so annoying.”

  Maya laughed, throwing her head back. One of the things Jada had always loved and admired about her friend was that she let her emotions show on her chest. If she thought something was funny, she would laugh her head off, no concern for how it looked or who was listening. “Only because I’m right,” she announced, leaning forward conspiratorially. “Now, tell me everything.”

  Jada sighed. There was no getting out of this. “Look, it’s not even a thing,” she started, reluctantly.

  “I knew it!” Maya crowed. “So, what’s his name?”

  Jada chewed her lip for a moment, uncertainty taking hold. Exactly how much of this could she tell Maya? Sure, they were best friends, but what she had seen wasn’t exactly easy to believe. Besides, Luke had trusted her with a secret. A serious secret. The kind of thing that would get him in trouble if anyone else found out. “Luke,” she said, hoping she could keep her answers as short as possible until Maya was satisfied.

  “And where did you meet?” Maya pressed with a very familiar twinkle in her eyes.

  Jada hesitated again. “Outside my apartment,” she said, finally. “We just bumped into each other.”

  It felt so hard to lie to her best friend. But at least what she had said was technically true, right? It wasn’t an outright lie – just an omission of the whole truth. She felt guilt creeping up on her, even as she tried to justify it to herself.

  “Oh, a meet-cute,” Maya giggled. “Is he cute? What does he look like?”

  “Well, he’s… blond,” Jada said. “Blue eyes. Tall, and pretty muscular.”

  “Muscular?” Maya repeated. Both her eyebrows shot up into the air.

  “Well, from what I’ve seen, from the way his clothes fit,” Jada said, blushing furiously. She hadn’t meant to mention that, really. Admitting that she had seen him with his shirt off was only going to invite more questions.

  Maya narrowed her eyes playfully. “I don’t know if I believe you, Miss Jada,” she said. “From the color of your cheeks, I’d say you’ve seen them up close and personal.”

  “It’s not like that,” Jada said, rolling her eyes and trying to regain her composure. “We’ve barely spoken. Honestly. We haven’t kissed or anything like that, nothing at all.”

  “He must be pretty special if he’s keeping you up at night, then,” Maya teased.

  Jada thought about it for a moment, the flush slowly returning to her cheeks. “Maybe,” she admitted.

  Maya hopped off the desk, grinning widely. “I better go back before someone realizes I’m not working,” she said. “But, girl, you are going to tell me everything – and I mean everything – sooner or later.”

  Jada watched her walk back across the office, groaning inwardly. She felt awful. She had lied and fudged the truth so much, the last thing she needed was another quizzing session. She had already made one slip-up – with Maya being able to read her like a book, there were bound to be more. And what would Maya think if she realized just how much Jada was keeping from her?

  For a moment, Jada realized just how isolated she felt. Not having anyone to talk to about all of this was making her feel a little crazy. If she could talk it all out with someone, maybe it wouldn’t all seem so bad.

  She considered the idea, turning it over like a stone in her mind, but the small flare of hope she had felt was quickly extinguished. No; there was no way she could break Luke’s confidence. Not when he had risked his life for her.

  ***

  Getting home that night, Jada had only one thing on her mind. She kicked her heels off in the hallway, slipped out of her work clothes and into a comfortable pajama set, and grabbed a bottle of wine that had been chilling overnight.

  The first glass went down extremely easily. Sometimes, unwinding was all about the classics: a glass of red, comfy clothes, dim lighting, and the prospect of a bubble bath. Well, maybe. Every time she looked into the bathroom, all she could picture was Luke slumped in there, his blood filling the tub. It wasn’t exactly a relaxing thought.

  After the first glass, it seemed rude not to pour a second. And, of course, there wasn’t any point in leaving the third glass inside the bottle.

  Some distant part of her realized that this was probably not a good idea, but Jada needed to unwind so desperately. It tasted good, and it made her feel good, and she couldn’t think much further than that just then.

  One key fact that she always managed to forget, however, was that she was only ever two types of drunk. So long as she was with good company and having a wild time, drunk Jada was always the life and soul of the party. She was daring, adventurous, and always made for good stories the next morning.

  But lonely drunk Jada? She was a real downer.

  Somewhere halfway down the third glass, she started to feel w
hat could only be termed morose. She had decided to put on a film, only to find that the cheesy romcom happened to have a heart: a serious storyline in which one of the prospective couples saw a sudden death. As the female character wept on screen about being left all alone, Jada’s hands tightened on her wine glass. She was all alone, too. All alone and left in the dark.

  It wasn’t fair. She deserved more than that. She deserved to know if he was at least alive. She had stitched him up with her own hands – and it had been hard, too. She wasn’t a nurse. She hadn’t signed up for that. And then he just… left her?

  No, she wasn’t going to let things lie like this. It wasn’t right. She grabbed up her laptop from the coffee table and started typing furiously into the search bar.

  Of course, then she realized she had no idea what Luke’s surname was.

  But she was resourceful, and she knew her way around a search engine. It couldn’t be that hard, right?

  She started searching, analyzing page after page of results that seemed to have no bearing on what she actually wanted. Thousands of pages of Luke and Garrett that weren’t even remotely related. Thousands more Luke and Garrett brothers who were the wrong color, or the wrong age, or dead. Page after page of invisible men that were only books, films, or TV shows. Invisible Luke Garrett didn’t get her any further. Although, it did kind of sound like a comic book character.

  Jada felt desperate. When was she ever going to be able to find out if he was alright? He had let her in on this secret existence, this new world of things she had never thought possible, and then vanished – just like that. She had so many unanswered questions. So many things she felt like she needed to know. Chief among them, she just wanted to know that he was alive.

  A sob escaped her throat, and she slammed the lid of her laptop closed. Shoving it onto the coffee table, knowing it wasn’t going to be any help to her, she couldn’t stop tears rolling down her cheeks. Whether it was the wine, the loneliness, or the fact that she had started to feel something for Luke, she couldn’t tell. All she knew was that she was desperate for this feeling of helplessness and isolation to go away.

  **

  The next day was hard. Dodging Maya’s questions, getting work done, and dealing with a hangover – a fatal combination. Jada breathed a sigh of relief when it was time to go home, two hours later than usual thanks to a project that she just hadn’t been able to conquer in her delicate state.

  Finally, walking up to the entrance to her apartment building, she felt it again. That prickling feeling on the back of her neck. It was a quiet time, the late evening with the city lit only by streetlights, and there weren’t many people around. She had to take a chance.

  Holding her keys in her hand, Jada paused before unlocking the door. “You’re watching me, aren’t you?” she asked, saying it out loud before her courage deserted her.

  Someone behind her coughed, and she turned to look. There was an older man, dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase, holding his own set of keys in his hand. He gestured towards the door. Jada blushed and stepped out of his way, too embarrassed to say anything else.

  Wow. What an idiot. This time, she really had let her paranoia get the better of her.

  She was almost about to follow her neighbor in through the door when a shadow caught the corner of her eye.

  Jada turned towards it instinctively and watched as Luke appeared out of thin air.

  He did it with such calmness and ease that it almost relaxed her, even though the sight of him materializing like that still took her breath away. How could it not? Everything she had known for her entire life was telling her that it was impossible, and yet there he was.

  “Hey,” he said, more than a little understated given his entrance.

  “Hey,” Jada replied, and she couldn’t help but smile at him. Relief flooded through her system. He was alive. He was fine. He was here.

  “I’ve, uh,” he hesitated, sticking his hands in his pockets like an awkward teenager. “I’ve been watching over you. I thought there might be a slim chance that Garrett would come back. He ought to be healed up by now.”

  “Are you?” Jada asked, looking pointedly towards his side. She wanted him to know that she had been worried about him, more than a little.

  Luke nodded. “Yeah. You really helped. I’m sorry I just left like that. I figured it would be safer for you.”

  “You could’ve at least let me know you were alright,” Jada said, snapping a little more than she had meant to. If she had to admit it to herself, she had been more than worried. She had been on the verge of frantic. Any longer, and she probably would have let it all out with Maya and been sent to a psych ward for her trouble.

  Luke stepped forward quickly, and there was a warmth to his expression that she had not seen before. “I didn’t think you would care too much,” he said.

  Jada stared at him a moment, taking him in. His messy blond hair, the broadness of his shoulders, the strength in his arms. The look in his eyes that somehow managed to be apologetic and hopeful and flattered all at once. She made her decision.

  “Why don’t you come upstairs?” she asked, brandishing her keys. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  “Sure,” Luke agreed easily, and he followed her through the door and into her apartment.

  Once they were settled on the sofa with a couple of glasses of wine and their initial small talk had faded, Jada took a breath. If there was one thing she knew, it was that being honest and open often saved a lot more heartache in the long run than it made in the short.

  “I’m glad you came back,” she said. “I was really worried about you. A little about him, too. Coming back, I mean.”

  Luke nodded and sighed. “The good news is I haven’t seen a glimpse of Garrett since that night,” he replied. “The bad news is I have no idea where he is. But, at least he isn’t here.”

  “And you’re really all healed up?” Jada pressed. She had never seen so much blood as that night. How he had managed to leave without assistance, and even clean everything up too, was beyond her.

  “You want to see for yourself?” Luke laughed. At first, she thought he was only teasing her, but then he reached down and took off his shirt in a smooth movement. Turning his side towards her so she could see it more clearly, he ran his fingers over the edges of the scar. It was barely visible.

  “How…?” Jada asked, in wonder. She reached over to touch it herself, blushing a little when she realized she was doing it without asking his permission. She was also very much noticing the fact that he had a fit and toned chest and defined six-pack, something she had been too panicked to think about the last time he had his shirt off around her. He took care of himself, that much was obvious. That flare of attraction she had felt when they met before had not gone away, and they had been through something together that went deeper than words. Even without acknowledging it, she knew why she had really invited him up here. The bottle of wine didn’t lie. She couldn’t ignore that she was feeling something for him.

  “I tend to heal up a little quicker than other people,” Luke grinned. “Once the initial damage is dealt with, anyway. Something to do with the properties of my skin. It likes to go back to how it used to be as soon as it can.”

  “Is that how you managed to clean everything up on your own?” Jada asked.

  For a moment Luke frowned, then something clicked behind his eyes, and he laughed again. “Oh, wow,” he said. “I’d like to claim responsibility for that, but no. I guess my blood is still smeared across your floors even now. It just goes a little invisible once it’s not in my body anymore.”

  Jada stared over at the spot where he had lain, stabbed, his blood ebbing out of him with every movement. There wasn’t a single indication now that anything had ever happened there. She remembered the faint droplets of blood on the floor the first time he had been inside the apartment, and how they were gone by the time the police came. It was all starting to make sense.

  “Suddenly I rea
lly feel like I need to go and wash out my bathtub,” Jada said, prompting fresh laughter from Luke. He looked so much more handsome when he smiled. It was like his whole face lit up and became something new. It was the kind of smile that made you want to do anything to keep it there.

  “So,” he said, glancing down at himself as if self-conscious, though there was a definite tease in his tone. “Satisfied now? Should I put my shirt back on?”

  Jada followed his gaze. She enjoyed what she saw, very much. And he had seen her in lingerie, after all. “I don’t know about that,” she flirted back, knowing from his face that he felt the same spark she did. “I think I’d prefer it if you didn’t put it back on at all.”

  “Yeah?” Luke said, a little quieter. Somehow, almost without realizing it, they had been leaning towards one another. They were so close now that it would only take a small movement for their faces to be touching.

  Jada smiled at him and closed the gap.

  He responded eagerly to her mouth, kissing her with a full passion that seemed to have been lurking underneath the surface all along. One of his hands cradled her cheek to hold her still. His fingers were slightly rough on her skin, but in a comforting way: the hands of a man who knew how to work hard, how to protect a woman.

  He knew how to kiss a woman, too. Jada felt a delicious fluttering in her core, a spark of energy like electricity that ordered her to move. She wanted him, after this kiss more than ever, and she wasn’t about to back down now that she had him in her grasp. Propriety be damned. Even though she was not the kind of woman to have a one-night-stand – never had, even in college – and even though they barely knew each other, they had a connection.

  Luke leaned into their kiss even further when she put her hands on his bare chest, moving them across the sweep of his shoulders and down over his ribs. He brought his other arm around to cradle her hips, pulling them closer towards him in the process.

  He was too much of a gentleman to initiate things any further than that. Jada could sense that he wanted to take things further; a quick flick of her eyes downwards towards his crotch all but confirmed that. But he was waiting for her permission. He wouldn’t go any further than the limits that she had already set.