I need to know that she’s happy.
There is a lot that I regret about us, about the way I treated her and the fact that I let her walk away without so much as lifting my pinkie finger to fight for her, but I don’t regret falling for her.
I watch as she unfolds from the front seat of her car. Like this, in her matching sweatpants and hoodie, she doesn’t look like the siren who danced on stage, making every single man in the audience wish for just one look from her golden eyes.
But what I wouldn’t give for just one look from those eyes of hers right now. If she senses me watching her, she doesn’t show it. She moves toward the staircase, opens the door, and then she’s gone.
It wouldn’t take much for me to find out which apartment is hers, and it would take even less effort for me to get inside the building and to her apartment. I’m not sure I need to do that yet, or ever.
This obsession will pass.
It’s only because she’s back from wherever she ran, and I’m curious. I don’t know where she went, and I don’t know why she’s back. There’s a reason behind her reemergence. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think she’s here because she missed North Carolina.
And she’s definitely not here because she missed me.
I stay at her apartment building longer than I should. When the sun begins to rise, I decide to head back home, an actual home instead of a shitbox. Shifting the pickup truck intoReverse, I back out and head back to the mountains, where I belong.
I’m only a few miles out of town when my phone rings. I’m surprised to be getting a call at this hour, so I touch the answer button on the truck’s screen. It’s Bullet, which is odd as fuck,because I can’t imagine he’d be anywhere but his bed at this hour.
“What’s up?” I ask as my greeting.
“Are you driving?”
“Coming back from Raleigh.”
There’s no reason for me to lie, though I have omitted the fact that I saw her. That Millie is back, because I’m not sure she is indeed back. She’s in North Carolina, but she’s not back. I’m not sure what I want from her, if anything. So I haven’t made her presence known… yet.
“Interesting. I got a call from the owner of the strip club. They got a problem.”
“Do they?” I ask, feigning innocence or maybe ignorance.
He clears his throat before he continues. “They got some guy casing the place. The bouncers are fucking useless, just like we said they would be.”
Fuck.
It’s me.
“And what did you say?” I ask.
“We can’t be part of them, not if we want to separate ourselves,” he murmurs.
“But we haven’t come up with another stream of revenue.”
I’m pointing out the obvious, I know I am, but it’s the truth. For all our brainstorming, we haven’t come up with anything else. I’m wondering if closing the surveillance business wasn’t a mistake, but what’s done is done. Just like Millie and me…
MILLIE
A black truck followed me home from the club tonight. I don’t know who was driving or why they followed me, but they did. Something about it didn’t scare me the way it should have.
It’s not the first time I’ve been followed home from work, been watched, been stalked. But it is the first time I wanted the person to get out of the car and show themselves. Whoever it was kept their distance enough that, if the roads had been busier, I would never have known it was even happening.
It felt more like a curiosity than a stalking situation. I guess when you’ve been in this predicament more than once, you get a feeling for who is watching you. And I’m watched all the time. I know who a predator is and who is simply curious. It’s just a gut feeling, and it’s not one I can turn off.
There was a connection there, and I can’t help but wonder if it was him.
If it was Axton.
I still think it was him in the club a month ago. I haven’t been able to get him out of my head since that night. Not that I’ve been able to get him out of my head for the past decade, either. But he’s in the forefront of my mind now, day in and day out. I search him out in the audience every single night to no avail.
