Free Being Invisible by Penny Baldwin Page A

returning to me and
putting his hands on my back underneath my shirt.
    “Hi honey, we’re home!” Drew
yelled from the front of Colin’s apartment.
    “Where do you think they are?” Liz
played along.
    Colin shook his head and stood up,
pulling me up at the same time. He threw his shirt on and fixed mine for me
before heading out to the kitchen.
    “Did she ask you to be invisible
for it? Make it easier for her?” Liz giggled at Drew’s teasing.
    “No. But it would be nice if the
two of you disappeared.”   Colin
smacked Drew on the head.
    While the two of them bickered,
Liz and I decided to make spaghetti for everyone and hang out. The four of us spent
dinner   discussing Colin’s status as
a superhero, with Liz insisting on using her patented list-making skills to
come up with superhero names. Drew’s favorite was Waldo, because then everyone
would say ‘Where’s Waldo?’ when he disappeared. Colin didn’t think the list was
as hilarious as we did.
      After dinner, the guys decided to “lay
down the law.”   Drew told Liz that
she should tell every guy she knew that she had a boyfriend, and Colin insisted
that I call Jeff that night to tell him that I was no longer in the market for
dating.
    When I woke up that morning, I had
no idea that my day would end the way it did.
    That night when I went to bed I
was the girlfriend of a superhero.

 

Chapter Twelve
It’s in the Stars Mix

 
    Since I was no longer otherwise
engaged on my birthday, Colin made plans for just the two of us. He said that
the weekend could be for our friends, but Friday was his.
    He took me to Shades, my favorite
restaurant growing up, which he only knew because he talked to my mom to find
out.
    Afterwards, we snuck into my
favorite park that I went to as a child. It was technically after dusk, and
therefore off limits by park ranger standards. But with Colin’s new martial art
skills, we were able to trespass without a sound. That, and the fact that the
park ranger was in his seventies, mostly blind, and completely deaf.
      I actually tripped over a stump at one
point and yelled “son-of-a…” before Colin shushed me, and no one noticed, so
really Colin’s cunning was more for show.
    After taking a walk through the
woods, Colin took me to the swings, which he also knew were my favorite. After
pushing me on my swing, he grabbed his own. We swung for a while, relaxing and
enjoying the quiet.
    “Let’s have a contest to see who
can jump the farthest,” Colin broke the silence with his challenge.
      He motioned for me to jump. I swung a
couple times before jumping, making pretty good distance. I looked around to
see where he had landed, but he was nowhere to be found. Before I had a chance
to figure out where he was, I heard his voice in my ear.
      “Try to find me,” he murmured. I turned
to where I heard his voice but saw nothing.
    “That’s not fair. How do you find
something that you can’t see?” I asked in frustration.
    “Head in the direction of my
voice,” he laughed. He was enjoying this way too much.
    I did as he said, doing my best
detective from Law and Order impression. “I know what you are doing. As soon as I get close to you, all you
have to do is move.”
    “I guess you are going to have to
feel for me then.” He was directly behind me, his arms pulled around my waist.
I tried to turn around so that I could grab him before he got away, but he
pulled his arms tighter around me. Next, I felt a light tug on my ear from his
teeth, followed by my neck. He turned my head to him and kissed me. I could only
follow his lead, since I didn’t know where he was.
    Just when the kiss started turning
passionate, he was gone.
    “Come on, Luce. I’m not that hard
to find, am I?” He teased.
      That time I ran toward his voice, so that
I could get to him before he moved. I was able to catch part of his arm, but he
got away.
    Finally after about twenty minutes
of trying, I was able to get him and tackle him to