Page 107 of Faking the Goal

Still nothing.

Well, shit. Maybe I overdid it and scared him off.

I pull the phone away from my ear to check and immediately feel the last traces of amusement drain out of me.

It's from a restricted number.

My grip tightens around the phone as I sit up. "Hello? Who is this?"

Nobody answers, but after a few seconds, I hear a quiet inhale followed by a heavy, raspy exhale directly into the phone. It happens again, slow enough that a chill crawls over my skin despite how warm my apartment is.

Oh, fuck me.

This has to be him.

The creep who's been bothering me for weeks.

I should probably hang up, but I'm still so pissed off and running on approximately two functioning brain cells that fear takes a back seat to anger.

"Are you the asshole who's been sending me all that shit?" I demand. "The flowers? The stupid gifts?"

He doesn't answer, and something about that only pisses me off more.

"Well, congratulations. You finally got me on the phone, so listen carefully because apparently you can't take a fucking hint. I moved because I wanted you to leave me alone. I'm not interested in you. I don't want to meet you, I don't want anything you send me, and I definitely don't want to be your fucking kitten. Whatever weird relationship you've invented between us exists entirely in your head. So stop blowing up my phone, stop trying to find me, and go obsess over someone else who actually gives a fuck."

Silence follows except for that awful breathing, and now that I've run out of things to yell at him, the fear I've been bulldozing with anger starts creeping back in.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," I mutter, mostly because I need to feel like I'm the one ending this conversation.

I'm already pulling the phone away to hang up when a muffled voice finally comes through the speaker.

"You really think moving means I'd give up on you, little kitten?"

My thumb freezes over the screen.

The voice is so distorted and raspy that I can't tell what he actually sounds like, but there's something almost amused underneath it that makes my stomach twist.

"How sure are you that I haven't found you yet, Kitten?"

The call ends.

I stare at my phone, and the anger that had me running my mouth a few seconds ago evaporates.

What the fuck does that mean?

A cold prickle spreads across the back of my neck as I look around my bedroom. My gaze drifts toward the front door, then the windows, and I feel that awful, familiar paranoia start crawling its way back in, undoing the little bit of peace I've managed to scrape together since I moved.

This place was supposed to give me some breathing room. I knew moving a few miles away wasn't going to magically make me disappear off the face of the earth, but at least he didn't have my new address handed to him anymore. He couldn't leave flowers outside my door or show me, over and over again, that he knew exactly where I came home to every night.

At least that was one thing I thought I'd taken back from him.

Now I don't fucking know.

Maybe he found the building. Maybe he followed me here. Maybe he's already been close enough to see which door I walk through.

Or maybe he hasn't found shit and that was exactly what he wanted—to plant the possibility in my head and let me scare myself with it.

Either way, it worked.