Want me to flex my magic for you, baby?

She clenched her fist in his T-shirt, put her other arm around those too-broad, too-real shoulders. When he tried to pull away, she held on tight. Kami felt the surrender in his mind a moment before he laid his face in the curve of her neck. The whole world was so real it hurt. Kami whispered into Jared's hair, "I'm always on your side.

I wish," Jared began, and stopped, breathing in. "Do you remember how you used to believe I wasn't real? Sometimes I wish that was true. If I was just a thought in the back of your mind, then I'd be with you, and I'd be better.

I realise people exist who don't read. But it's like I knew there were people who didn't breathe or eat: I can't imagine a life like that.

Jared told her he used to be an exotic dancer in San Francisco.' 'My body is a gift from God,' Jared said gravely. 'Except for my hips, which are clearly a gift from the devil.

I was thinking." "I see no evidence of that, Jared." Kami said.

She walked beside Jared, four inches of rain-dashed darkness between her hanging wrist and his.