Beyond Wild Imaginings (7 page)

With a huff of frustration, Kelly rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. Okay, yes, sleep made her feel better, but why could she suddenly not seem to get any? Why was it that, when she did manage to doze off for a second, her dreams were filled with disturbing memories of David instead of Garren’s comforting visage?

She rolled her eyes and sat up. “Because he’s in your living room, you idiot,” she grumbled to herself. “Can’t dream of the dude from your head if he’s not in your head.”

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, propped her elbows on her knees, and put her head in her hands with a sigh. She hated that she kept seeing David when she closed her eyes, and she hated that she missed the jerk at all. Most of all, she hated how she felt threatening tears prick her eyes. She was so tired of crying over him. He didn’t deserve her tears, and he certainly didn’t care that she was hurt. He was in Jersey with Office Barbie and probably hadn’t given her a second thought since he’d emptied his stuff out of her house.

With a sigh, Kelly stood and went over to her bedroom window. She pushed the curtain aside and looked out at the twinkling city for a moment. The city that never slept. It certainly was a contrast to the slower-paced New Jersey. She could only imagine what poor Garren must have thought. The last time she’d seen him, she’d been living in Syracuse with an enormous backyard full of greenery and plant life. Now all he got to look at was concrete and taxi cabs.

Kelly rolled her eyes again and padded softly out of her bedroom and toward the kitchen. She still couldn’t even believe that Garren was really there and, well, real…more or less. Part of her still feared for her sanity where he was concerned.

She stopped in the hallway as her eyes fell upon the man in question. He was awake as well, and leaning up against the wall by her living room window. His arms were folded across his chest, and he was gazing out at the city in much the same way she had been doing moments before. A small smile tugged at her lips. “You couldn’t sleep either?”

He turned his attention to her, and a smile split his sculpted lips.

She waved away any reply he might have given and continued into the kitchen. “I wouldn’t be able to either if I was wearing a studded belt and trying to sleep on a couch two sizes smaller than me.” She frowned as she looked down at the black combat boots he was still wearing. “Did you try to sleep with your boots on?”

He shook his head and pointed to the couch where the blanket she had given him was still lying untouched. “I haven’t tried to sleep. I’ve just been looking out this window for hours.”

She raised an eyebrow and decided to forego the drink of water she’d been after. She walked over to Garren and, peering out her window, wondered what was so fascinating. Nothing, as far as she could see, but she hadn’t been trapped in a void for twenty years either. She sighed and leaned against the other side of her window, mimicking Garren’s positioning. “What was it like?” she asked. “In the Creative Realm?”

“Lonely.”

Kelly glanced at him, and her heart lurched painfully in her chest. His voice was soft, sad, and his mind looked a million miles away.

He sighed and turned his gaze to the ground for a minute. “Well, not always. When the Lucienus were alive, it was beautiful.” He met her eyes. “The world you and your friends created for us was fantastic.”

Her brow furrowed slightly. “What happened when it disappeared? What was it like then?”

He turned his attention back to the window. “The Creative Realm is full of creative magic. It has an undeniable beauty to it even when there is nothing there, but it began to feel like a prison after awhile. Sometimes, I would see flashes of color in the distance where other things were being created, but nothing ever came to me.”

She wasn’t quite sure how to tackle that one. “Well,
can
you eat? I mean, do you have the ability?”

He frowned. “I imagine so. We just…don’t. There’s no need.”

She shook her head and reached over to grab his wrist. “That’s it, Garren. I can’t handle this. We’re going to go get you some food.”

He seemed bewildered for a moment as she pulled him after her toward her bedroom. “Where are you going in the middle of the night?”

She shoved on her shoes and pulled a sweatshirt on over her pajama top. “There’s a twenty-four-hour deli down the street. It’s not gonna be gourmet by any standards, but at least we can get a hoagie and some desserts.”

“What’s a hoagie?”

Kelly fought the urge to giggle. Goth people tended to have a certain look about them, like they had seen a lot more of the dark side of life than everyone else. They looked knowledgeable to a certain degree. Garren was no exception to this rule, and his childlike innocence contrasted greatly to his appearance, as well as cracked her up.

“Kelly?” he prodded. “What’s a hoagie? Is it like emo?”

She burst out laughing before she could stop herself. He stepped back, looking slightly hurt, and she shook her head, trying to banish the picture of an emo hoagie from her mind
. Yes, I’ll take the ham and cheese on wheat. Heavy on the eyeliner, please.
She shook her head again and scrunched her nose with another giggle. “No, a hoagie is a sandwich. You eat it.” At his pained expression, her heart warmed, and she reached for his hand again. This time, instead of grabbing him by the wrist, she laced her fingers with his. “Trust me, okay?”

His violet eyes seemed to light up, and he gave her a bright grin. “It doesn’t matter that you look like you’re holding hands with no one and talking to yourself?”

She glanced down at their twined fingers and shrugged. “New York is full of crazies. It’s not that strange.” His fingers tightened around hers, and she liked the look of joy that crossed over his features. She continued on to the deli, happy to be with Garren. It was a lot better than being alone in her apartment, thinking of David and sulking. Garren was a distraction. He was a childhood friend who reminded her of happier days. He just also happened to be the most amazingly gorgeous man she had ever met in real life.

Even if it wasn’t exactly
real
life, it was good enough for her.

Chapter Six

The roof was, by far, not the most inspiring place to show Garren, but it was private and safe and she could talk to him there without looking like a complete nut job. She’d spread out a blanket and forced him to eat a six-inch ham, turkey, salami, and provolone hoagie with the works. At first, he’d looked at it like it was an alien life form that he had no clue what to do with, but after a few tentative bites, he’d eaten it almost voraciously while making several different kinds of rapturous noises. He was now lying on his back, staring up at the sky with a kind of comatose wonder on his face.

Kelly smiled and leaned over him. “Happy, Garren?”

He shook his head and met her eyes. “I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”

She wondered briefly what it would feel like to taste food for the first time. There were so many things that humans took for granted. “If you think that’s good, wait till you taste this.” Along with the hoagies, she had also gotten four different kinds of dessert pastries. An éclair, something called a Napoleon, which was nothing more than a bunch of alternating layers of phyllo dough and sugar icing, a slice of strawberry swirl cheesecake, and a custard fruit tart. “Pick one,” she said, indicating the display of decadence.

He looked over at them and blinked, then propped himself up on his elbow and met Kelly’s eyes. “Surprise me?”

She grinned, picked up a fork, and cut a bite out of the cheesecake with it. “All right, we’ll start with this one.” She held the fork out to him, and he stared at it for a moment before carefully placing his lips around the fork and pulling the bite into his mouth. He closed his eyes in ecstasy and let out a heavenly sigh.

He opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow. “You want to know the specifics about my digestion? I told you I did not need food to sustain me. You are the one who insisted.”

She sighed. “Yes, I know, but—”

He grinned and sat up so that he was facing her. “You think too much,” he stated, brushing back a strand of her hair. “You never used to.”

She gave him a flat expression. “I never used to think? Yeah, that would be what has gotten me majorly screwed in the relationship department.”

He gave her a soft, enigmatic smile. “Not everything in this life is explainable, Kelly. It is just hard for you to comprehend with your limited mind.”

She looked down and let her breath out in a short huff. “It’s not just me, you know,” she said, sounding much more irritable than she’d meant to. “It’s all humans. I’m better than most.”

He tipped her chin up with his finger, and her heart fluttered at the way his amazing eyes sparkled. “Magical things exist. Wondrous things that are unable to be explained.”

She shook her head. “It’s just hard for me. It’s hard for me to be able to feel your touch and watch you eat, but know that no one else, except Chad, can even see you. It’s hard for me to watch you down a whole hoagie and not wonder where the heck it went, or if you even have a stomach at all.” She frowned. “That’s another thing, I really don’t understand why you have a heartbeat when you don’t have blood.”

He chuckled and continued to toy absently with her hair, wrapping a strand around his finger. “You created me, Kelly. I came from your imagination. I can only assume that I am able to do the things you mention because everyone you knew was the same. Why would a little girl create a thing that had no heart or that couldn’t eat if it wanted to, when everyone around her had a heart and ate on a regular basis?”

“It just doesn’t make sense. The physics are—”

“Not everything in this world makes sense.” He whispered the words against her ear, and a thousand electrical currents shot straight down her spine. She closed her eyes and drew in a shaky breath as pure, unadulterated lust washed over her in waves. Holy cow, if her mind had altered him to fit into her “more womanly” life, it had gone above and beyond the call of duty. It must think she was pathetic and desperate and needed some action because, regardless of Garren being number one: technically a lot older than her, and number two: not exactly real, he was the sexiest male she had ever set eyes on. Sensuality radiated off him just like his power did. Five points to her subconscious.

“All right, all right, I get it,” she said. “Not everything in life makes sense. Who cares if you have a stomach? I’ll just have to wonder the rest of my life.” His soft chuckle heated her blood even more, and she turned her attention up to him. He was studying her with his magnificent violet eyes and she shivered. They looked like they had seen so much. Was it weird to be attracted to your childhood imaginary friend? She was sure that it probably was in at least ten different ways, but she wasn’t really sure if she cared.

“Can I try that one now?” he asked, pointing to the Napoleon.

She looked over at the dessert and smiled. “Sure.” She picked it up and handed it to him.

He took a bite and savored that one as much as the first bite of cheesecake. “This is pure heaven, I swear,” he said. “Here, you have some.”

He held the Napoleon up, and she leaned in to take a bite. She giggled as the flaky pastry went all over her shirt and stuck to her lips as she chewed. Garren grinned and gently reached up to wipe the crumbs off her lips. Kelly’s heart faltered, then lurched in a violent way. Dang, he really needed to stop being so friggin’ sexy. And he wasn’t even trying. That made it even worse.