Page 50 of Laced in Longing

Of course, it gets weirder.

By the time I reach my cubicle, I’ve passed six people, and exactly zero of them registered another human being was in the hallway. One woman actually stepped sideways to avoid me without so much as looking down, the way one might from a wet floor sign the brain acknowledged in secret. Her shoulder didn’t even brush mine. It’s like she just knew to move.

My pulse skips. I’ve seen that happen before—during a blizzard when endless people parted around a spot on the pavement where a tall man waited for me. None of them saw him, either, yet each of them somehow refused to touch the space he occupied.

Wonderful. Did Ash becoming physical make me invisible? No, that wouldn’t make sense.

I sink into my chair, power on my computer, and stare at the login screen while my stomach churns.

I make it two hours of pretending to answer emails. Nobody stops by or messages. My manager holds a stand-up meeting eight feet from my desk and does not once glance at the person standing at the side.

I could scream.

If I ripped my shirt off and danced on the copier, I genuinely believe not one of these people would blink.

I won’t test that theory, but I think about it.

Around noon, I’m chewing on a rock of a granola bar, debating whether it counts as lunch, when the air behind me thickens. That’s the only way I can describe it now—like the room sucks in a breath and holds it. The hairs on my arms lift and this warm, waiting pressure slithers up the back of my neck. I don’t even startle at his appearance anymore, which could be considered alarming. Another thing I won’t mention to Dr. Voss.

“You have to stop doing that,” I say without turning. “Announcing yourself like a normal creep would be nice.”

“Where is the fun in that?” His voice pours into the cubicle, low and unhurried. Heat crawls through my spine and settles low. I spin my chair.

He’s here—physical, still. He’s folded himself into the corner of my sad excuse of an office as if he belongs there, which he absolutely does not; a millennium-old god crammed against a filing cabinet with a motivational cat poster the previous employee left behind is not a sentence that should ever be said.

“You look ridiculous,” I tell him.

“You look tired, my flower.”

“Wow. Buy a girl dinner before letting her know how terrible she looks.”

Wait—am I flirting? I don’t flirt.

His head tilts, that little movement I’ve come to read as amusement instead of curiosity, and I hate how much I like it. I glance past him at the hallway, where people continue ghosting by without a flicker of interest, and a sour knife twists under my ribs.

“Is this you?” My voice down, even though clearly I could belt it. “The—” I wave a hand at the office, at all of them. “Nobody can see me today. It’s like I’m—” I stop. Like you. I don’t say it. I want to ask if he’s doing it on purpose, dimming me out of the world so I have nothing left but him, forcing me to lean on him and need him the way he wants. It would be such a him thing to do after getting a physical form. My lips snap shut to prevent me from continuing.

He stills, studying me through that white drape, and I get the sense he heard the question I didn’t ask anyway.

“Maven.” Just my name. The way it leaps from his tongue makes me feel important. Like I mean something.

I open my mouth to volley back something, but I notice the people before any words leave me.

People. In the hallway. Though instead of passing by my cubicle, they’re stopping outside.

Two of them at first—a guy from marketing and someone I don’t think works in our office. They chat all while drifting closer to my designated space. Then a third joins. A fourth. They cluster near the opening of my little gray box, laughing about something. None of them look at me, but all of them edge in toward the corner—no, they’re gravitating toward him.

Ash hasn’t noticed. His attention sticks to me, whole and heavy. Nothing else exists to him, and I snap my fingers in front of the fabric, pointing behind him. “Uh, company.”

* * *

ASH

It takes a shameful moment to pull my focus from her.

I could watch her forever and never grow bored of it—the pitch of her brow and the way she snaps her fingers at me is perfect. She’s always had teeth. Even now, in this life, she has those teeth, and I love her for it more than she will ever understand.

But she is right—company approaches.