And lately, she’d come to know what being invisible felt like.
Reaching out, she took his trembling, thin hand. “Allhan, thank you. For coming. I’ve been feeling alone.”
“But you have all those people.” He glanced at the tail end of the wait line in surprise. “Here to see you.”
“They’re not… real.”
Neither am I anymore, she thought.
Abruptly, he tugged his hand back and turned away. “Gotta go. See you later—”
“Wait.” Except what could she say? “Hold on a sec—”
“You areembarrassingyourself, right now. Andme, too.”
As Marcia’s voice cracked like a whip, Lyric knew exactly why the male had gone into retreat mode.
Shaking her head, she didn’t even bother to look at her manager. “Gimme a minute.”
“No.”
Lyric wheeled around and loomed over the woman. Narrowing her eyes, she gritted out, “Yes.”
Then she once again took off after Allhan through the snow and ice. There was no dematerializing for a pretrans, and that meant he’d either Ubered here or been dropped off by someone—and considering he didn’t hang with anybody, he was clearly headed out into the wilds of Caldwell where he might or might not be able to get a car on a cold night like this.
And if anything happened to him?
“Allhan!”
“Getbackhere!” Marcia hollered.
Off in the lead, Allhan glanced over his shoulder at the woman and started flat-out running. Which meant Lyric started running. Which meant Marcia started running.
It was like something from a fucked-up rom-com, two women in high heels, one guy gunning for his life to get away, all of them slipping and sliding down the dark alley in the dirty city snow. And because the “zany hijinks”—which were feeling really desperate, actually, on all accounts—needed to be witnessed by a crowd of astonished strangers, the wait line congregating in the blue-and-green glow of Bathe’s entrance checked that box as that peanut gallery pulled a collective pivot.
Instantly, the for-the-most-part-female congregation recognized Lyric—OMG! It’s HER!—and order broke apart as they grabbed their phones and rushed forward to take pictures.
As Allhan got to the head of the alley, he skipped right through the gathering gate of people, but as Lyric closed in, she knew she wasn’t going to get away with that kind of magic trick—so she started in with the sorrys way ahead.
“I’ll be right back!” she told them, waving her hands. “Thankyou’scusemethankyou’scuse me—”
Give her a football and she was a Heisman candidate as she threaded through the spaces between the young human women, dropping apologies as fast as her feet were poking holes in the crusty slush with those heels. As she broke through and burst out onto Market Street, the wind lashed at her and her long blond hair tangled aroundher face. By the time she got the strands free from her eyelashes, three things were true: Allhan was gone. She was in the middle of the four-laner with cars honking and swerving around her.
And what thehellwas that screeching sound?
The noise was so loud that it cut through the roar of the icy gusts and the high-pitched fuck-you of the horns.
Spinning around, she looked up.
The purple billboard was mounted on the roof of the old-fashioned building diagonally across the intersection, and even though it had been secured with metal supports, the panels had been caught by the powerful wind and were ripping free.
Hadripped free.
It took only a split second to calculate where the impact was going to be as gravity took over what the gusts had started—and that logo and the face that went with it were the punchline to the fact that Lyric was standing at ground zero.
Or maybe they were a message from the universe that her priorities were going to kill her.
Lyric hauled ass.
