My hunger won over, in place of looking for the man, and I walked into paradise. The restaurant was slow and I placed a big order of sushi. It was way too much food, but everything sounded amazing. Now I just needed a hot shower and Beau to talk to me, then maybe we could move on from this stupid day. I almost wished we had waited for Nash, but whatever had brought us here must be very important.
28
beau
“Wereyou ever going to tell me!?” Valencia yelled at me. “I had to find out when your landlord called me!”
“Val.”
“I mean what the hell, Beau? I thought we were closer than this.” Valencia looked hurt. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
“I thought?—”
“Did you think it was going to go away?” She interrupted me as I glanced at her boyfriends who were sitting on the couch trying to ignore us.
“Valencia,” I said, as she continued to talk over me in Spanish.
I sighed, feeling like an even bigger asshole, but I sat on the chair deciding to let her get it out of her system.
“And what if you were there?!” she cried.
I looked up to see a tear fall down her cheek.
“Val.” I stood up to hug her. “I thought I could handle it.”
“By running away?” she mumbled against my chest.
“I thought I’d disappear for a bit and they’d lose interest,” I said, rubbing her back. “It’s happened before. I don’t respond or I go away for a bit and they go away.”
“Beau, what did he do to make you leave? You didn’t just go on vacation,” she said, pulling away to study me.
My stomach soured, wishing I could lie to her. “He sent a package to my home.”
“Beau! Go to the police,” she snapped.
“It’s not that simple,” I said, pulling away.
“What do you mean? You walk in?—”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” I snapped. “You know how discriminatory they are towards people inour line of work.”
“But at least they will document it.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s something, Beau.”
“Then what? They know something happened and when I end up assaulted, I can say hey, I reported it,” I sighed, running my hand through my hair. “Or worse, when I end up?—”
“Don’t you dare say it,” she snapped.
“They won’t help me and you know it,” I said, getting frustrated.
I looked at my phone, realizing I’d been here for twenty minutes already.
“I think Val’s right, Beau, report it so there’s at least a paper trail.” Valencia’s boyfriend, Hunter, walked over to us.
“Well, he did that for me,” I said. “From the picture you sent, the police have to know this is someone stalking me.”
“They still need to talk to you,” Valencia said, hugging Hunter.
“I’ll speak with them and tell them everything. I have everything saved in a folder of when it started and how it escalated.”
