He moves toward the door, then pauses, turning back to look at me. In three long strides, he’s standing before me. Before I can react, his hands come up to firmly cup my face.
“I’ll text you.” His eyes lock with mine. “Try not to miss me too much, kitten,” he murmurs, his voice like gravel and honey.
Then he’s gone, the door closing behind him with a soft click.
Frozen, I stand in the middle of the kitchen, coffee cooling in my hands, my face tingling from his touch.
“Well, shit.” I look over at Goonie, his cat eyes judging me from his perch on the counter. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”
Outside, Ryder’s truck rumbles to life.
My cat looks at me and chirrups, which I take as a definitive yes.
With a sigh, I head upstairs to shower and get dressed, trying to ignore the hollow feeling in my chest. Is it ridiculous to miss someone who’s been gone less than a minute, especially when that certain someone shouldn’t even exist?
As I step into my panties, my phone buzzes with a text.
SASHA:CALL ME IMMEDIATELY YOU TRAITOR. I NEED DETAILS. ASAP.
Rolling my eyes, I tap the call button.
She answers on the first ring. “It’s about damn time!” she huffs in my ear. “I’ve been dying over here!”
“Good morning to you too,” I chuckle, wedging the phone between my ear and shoulder as I pull on my jeans.
“Oh no, don’t you ‘good morning’ me, missy. You have a hot fictional guy in your house who just happened to materialize in your kitchen, not to mention you’ve ghosted me for days!”
“Hey. As I recall, after I called and told you what happened, I asked for your help and all you did was laugh and hang up on me!”
“And I stand by that decision!” Sasha cackles. “But seriously. In my defense, it was either laugh or call the paddy wagon. I figured laughing was the safer option for our friendship. Now. I need all the juicy details. Have you slept with him? Please tell me you at least made out.”
Putting the phone on speaker, I tug my sweater over my head, and check my reflection in the mirror. “We’ve kissed. Twice.”
“TWICE? And you didn’t call meimmediatelyafter? What kind of best friendareyou?”
“The kind who’s probably having a complete mental breakdown,” I mutter as I grab my phone and head back downstairs. “Sash, things are getting weird. Like, really weird.”
“Good weird or bad weird?”
I pour myself another cup of coffee and take a seat on the couch. “His truck showed up in my driveway yesterday, out of nowhere. And now he has an entire closet full of clothes, his wallet, keys to an apartment and a tattoo shop he owns that actually, before last night, never existed.”
Silence.
“Sash?”
“I’m… processing,” she answers slowly. “So you’re telling me that not only did you manifest your fictional book boyfriend, but now you’re manifesting pieces of his life?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Holy shit, Noia. That’s either the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard or the most terrifying.”
“How about both?” I groan, flopping onto my side against the cushions. “He left this morning to go to his tattoo shop—which again, shouldn’t even exist—to work on a client he’s technically never met but somehow remembers designing the tattoo for.”
“And how do you feel about all this?”
I turn onto my back and stare at the ceiling. “Scared,” I sigh after thinking about it a moment. “Excited. Confused. I’m starting to fall for someone who, for all I know, could disappear at any moment.”
“Sounds to me like you’re finally letting yourself feel something real for the first time in years.”
