“Uh, babe...” Rae tapped her knuckles against the table to get my attention. “You look like you’re two seconds away from lighting someone on fire.”
“I think you meant to say something,” Merritt said around the rim of her glass before taking a sip.
Rae shook her head. “No, that’s a different face. This is the face she wears when she’s contemplating torture and death.” She wasn’t wrong about that. “So spill it. What is going on with you?”
I let out a heavy sigh and braced my elbows on the table, rubbing at the ache that had formed in the center of my forehead. I knew holding it all in would only make things worse, so I released a steadying breath and dove right in. Starting with what set the whole fight into motion. I thought I’d breeze right past the whole tulip and letter thing like I did and get to what really mattered, but apparently my friends had other ideas.
Merritt lifted her hands in front of her, palms out, as she stared at me, flabbergasted. “Wait, wait. You’re saying you have a stalker?”
“I wouldn’t saystalker. More like... a secret admirer. And I’m sure it’s just some innocent, shy, socially awkward guy who isn’t good at talking to women.”
Rae arched a single brow. “Aside from the ‘innocent’ part, I think you just described most serial killers.”
Neither of them looked convinced, which didn’t make me feel any better about the situation.
“I don’t know.” Merritt shook her head reluctantly. “This isn’t the kind of thing you want to blow off. You should be careful. Have you talked to your dad?”
I didn’t bother trying to hold in my harrumph. “Are you kidding? You’ve met my dad, right? The man who has his picture in the dictionary beneath the word overprotective?”
Cord Paulson had a reputation as a badass. All the guys he worked with at Alpha Omega back in the day did, and retirement hadn’t changed that for any of them. Mainly because theywerebadasses. They’d dealt with all kinds of criminals in their day, from stalkers and kidnappers to abusers and even murderers.
Long before I’d been so much as a gleam in his eye, he’d been shot and nearly killed trying to save one of my mom’s best friends, Eden, from some big-time baddies. Listening to other people tell those stories, they’d revered my dad and his friends as heroes, and I agreed whole-heartedly. However, given the things he’d seen, it made him a helicopter parent to the max. Especially when it came to his baby girl.
Dating when I’d been in high school was damn near impossible with him glaring down every poor boy who’d dared to ask me out. And Zach wasn’t any better. I was lucky to have been asked to prom and homecoming at all, and because of my family—specifically the males—neither of those relationships had lasted beyond those milestone events.
“He’d probably force me to move back home, lock me in my old room, and nail the windows shut so no one and nothing could get to me.”
“I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” Merritt said.
I snorted and shook my head. “I wish I was. He ran background checks on every guy I ever showed the slightest interest in. That’s why I keep my dating life private now and don’t share when little things like this happen. And anyway, Idon’t have a stalker,” I repeated, putting extra emphasis onthose last four words. I could tell by their expressions that they were still uncertain.
“Wait.” Rae sat up straight. “Is that why Raylan’s mean mugging every dude in this place? Because he thinks one of them might be your s...”—at the look I cut her way, she held up her hands and quickly amended what she was about to say—“secret admirer?”
“Partly. But there’s more to it.” I leaned in closer and kept my voice low so only they could hear me as I told them the rest of what had occurred the night before. Everything Raylan had admitted. His jealousy, how he took everything he was feeling out on me without meaning to. I poured it all out for them, like draining a wound to keep the bad from spreading. I vented every frustration he’d caused, and by the time I finished, I felt a little bit lighter. The anger and sadness were still there, but at least it no longer felt like I was slowly suffocating under the weight of it.
They both stared at me with matching expressions of disbelief—jaws hanging, eyes wide in shock. Like neither of them knew what to say. I knew the feeling. I still couldn’t wrap my brain around everything he’d confessed, much less figure out how the hell to feel, aside from being angry as hell.
“What did you do?” Merritt finally asked after a handful of slow blinks, her voice a hushed whisper.
Rae’s reaction was a little different. The shock quickly gave way to mad, and her face was pinched up in a way that promised a world of pain as she shifted her glare in Raylan’s direction. “Please tell me it involved his dick and your fist coming at it at a high rate of speed.”
“No, I didn’t dick punch him.” I sighed, wishing I’d had the wherewithal to have thought of that. “I didn’t know what the hell to do or say. I was just so?—”
“Hurt.”
My head shot Merritt’s way, blinking quickly as I absorbed that word. “I was going to say pissed off.”
Her head tilted to the side. “I’m sure. But it’s also okay to be seriously hurt too. What he did was really messed up.”
“Dick-punchably messed up,” Rae chimed in. “I bet I could get away with it. I can blame it on pregnancy hormones.” She caressed her still flat belly as she pieced her plan together. “I can just go up to him and punch him right in the dick, then say I don’t know what came over me. I’m an emotional wreck lately anyway. I mean, I lost it while watching an ad about female baldness.” Her chin began to tremble and she sniffled, leading me to believe the waterworks weren’t far off. “Those poor ladies just want thick, shiny hair. You know, everyone talks about men’s baldness,” she started to rant, going from sad to incensed in the blink of an eye. “But no one ever talks about the women who suffer with it.”
“I know sweetie,” Merritt said in a low, soothing voice as she patted our friend’s hand. “It’s okay. We know you care. That’s enough.”
Merritt glanced my way, seeing the bewilderment on my face and explained, “Rae’s started feeling some pretty big emotions recently. Which is totally normal,” she added quickly. Looked like those crazy pregnancy hormones had finally hit my sister-in-law. I didn’t envy Zach for the shit she was about to put him through, mainly because he’d earned it for all the years he’d taken pleasure in tormenting me in that way all big brothers did.
Rae sniffled again, lowering her eyelids and pulling in a deep breath before dabbing at her damp eyes with the cloth napkin that had been wrapped around her silverware. “Okay.” She exhaled slowly. “I’m good now. Back to center.” I hated the sympathy and concern I saw in her gaze when it met mine. I hated how off balanced I felt lately. I might have been a little wild and had a penchant for chaos every now and then, but itwas never like this. I’d never felt so out of control of my own life. “So what are you going to do? Because something tells me he isn’t planning on going away any time soon.”
I let out a heavy sigh as I scrubbed my hands over my face. “I don’t know. What would you do?” I hated the desperation in my voice. “Tell me. What do you think I should do?”
