“As if we were going to let you sleep alone after a day like today,” Melody said, barging in, Olivia right on her heels.
“You don’t have to…” I started, but really, I already felt the relief of not spending the night with my own thoughts.
“I think my brother would kill me if I ever let anythinghappen to you,” Melody joked, but then she pulled me into a big hug and whispered into my ear, “Love you, Stella.”
As Olivia’s arms circled around us to complete the group hug, I had never felt more loved in my entire life.
“Stella, Liv, I think someone is in the hotel room,” Melody whispered from beside me, waking me up as I too heard quiet footsteps coming from the other room.
The hotel put me in one of their nicer suits with an attached kitchenette and living room. Which, I now realized, was probably thanks to Nick’s bribery. I was so stupid. We should have stayed in one of the rooms I had booked for the girls, or at a different hotel entirely, but instead when they showed up to my door and all three of us crawled under the covers of the queen-size bed I had the illusion of safety.
“It’s Nick,” I breathed out.
“What do we do?” Olivia sounded terrified, and it was all my fault.
Melody nodded toward the door, motioning for us to stand behind it so we wouldn’t be in Nick’s line of sight when he walked in. She followed behind us, but only after grabbing the lamp off the bedside table.
The scene of her holding it over her head as we awaited the intruder to enter our hotel bedroom was a sight Garrett wouldhave been proud of, but I was too terrified in that moment to appreciate the comedy of it.
As the footsteps came closer to the bedroom, we held our breaths as the doorknob turned and the door opened a crack, and then a little wider as Nick’s head poked through the opening.
Melody wasted no time before she whacked him on top of the head. But the scream that came from the man was not Nick’s voice.
She didn’t stop, though. Melody hit him again and again and again in rapid succession, and the man was too stunned to do anything.
“Okay! Fuck! I’m sorry—I—shit!Tell your fiancé—fuck!Tell him to work his own jobs from now on!” the man sputtered out as he stumbled back, bumping into the light switch and illuminating the space. He had blood dripping from a cut Mel managed to land on his forehead and his nose was gushing. It took me a moment to place him.
“Steven?” The random guy from the bar in Saskatoon from months ago? He was in the Polaroid photo I had gotten sent with all the packages. “Are you fucking working for Nick?” I demanded.
“Not anymore, fuck.” He was trying to stop the blood from pouring everywhere—which was a lost cause—while Melody stood close by, lamp still in hand as a threat.
“Hotel security and police have been called,” Olivia said from the bed where she had just hung up the phone.
“Fuck!” Steven yelled again. “You were supposed to bealone. He promised me this would be fucking easy, just like it was at the bar.”
I wished he would stop talking until the police got here, all of this was no use right now and just made me feel sick. Nick had been keeping tabs on me for months. Maybe not when I was in Love, but any time I ventured anywhere else, he knew about it—and I hated the feeling.
It didn’t take long for hotel security to arrive at our room, and the police came shortly after, but Steven conveniently quit talking as soon as they did. Along with my room key, they also found duct tape and a ripped rag they assume he was going to use to gag me with in his pockets, but without him talking they weren’t able to pin anything on Nick, and Steven would likely be processed with a simple misdemeanor charge.
I couldn’t stop shaking, all I wanted to do was go home. It was three in the morning, but I couldn’t stay in this hotel for a minute more. I looked at my friends, unable to hold back the tears any longer.
“Can we go, please?”
Olivia took care of everything after that. Melody was exhausted after the adrenaline rush, and I couldn’t stop my body from trembling. Olivia ordered an Uber and asked our driver to help load our bags, which he graciously did before driving us to the airport. We had a few hours to wait before our flight but none of us were in a condition to drive home, so we waited.
By the time Melody told us it was time to board our plane, I felt delirious. Lack of sleep, coupled with the copious amounts of stress and adrenaline, had me seeing things as I swear the flight attendant walking down the terminal looked like Calvin.
I rubbed my tired eyes and looked again.
No, it was definitely Calvin. That was a furrowed brow, red plaid shirt, and a concerned expression I would recognize anywhere. My handsome lumberjack had come tome.
I dropped my bags and ran to him, my breath hitching as I did. By the time I collapsed into him I was gasping for air.
He caught me with one arm around my waist, as his other hand cupped my cheek and he pressed our foreheads together.
“Deep breaths, Wildflower. Come on, just like this,” he coached me as he leveled out my breathing before he picked me up and hugged me close like he had been worried he might notbe able to again. “Mel called, she told me everything, I’ve got you now, Stella, love. It’s okay.”
I had no idea when Melody would have called Calvin, but I was grateful because right now I didn’t have the ability to recount the events of the weekend.
