ENEMIES(89)

East River Falls was a small community. A stalking case didn’t get much attention. The two-day court case got even less attention, but every moment of that event changed everything for me.

I almost fell down on my bed, my hands shaking. My legs were trembling. I was sweating profusely. “Oh my God.” I breathed out, making my nostrils flare. I drew in oxygen, focusing on that, remembering my breathing exercises. “He’s really gone?”

Another sad chuckle. “He’s gone, Dusty. You can come back if you wanted. He had no family here. No friends. By the end, you were his only obsession. It’s done.”

It wasn’t done.

I pressed my palm to my forehead, as if trying to ward off the impending headache before it even started. “A classmate found me tonight and said she was sorry. She read the article. Stone’s name was attached. It’s not going to be ignored. It’s going to get traction.”

A swift curse from him.

But it was done. Everything was done.

We were quiet a beat.

“I heard about your parents. I’m real sorry. I know you’ve already lost so much.”

“Yeah.” There was nothing else to say, just…yeah.

“Listen, we can try to put a cork on any leaks coming out from here, but you know how it is. Now that a celebrity’s name is attached, press will be calling. There’s always someone needing money, but I’ll have a talk with the lead on your case. Maybe we can shift things around to make sure nothing of yours gets out there any more than it already has been.”

Another shuddering breath released from me. “Okay. Thank you. That’d be helpful.”

“Not right what you’ve gone through. Not for someone so young, someone just starting out, but that’s how it goes sometimes.”

“Yeah.”

“If you need anything, give me a call, but as for him, that’s all done. He’s dead. You can draw comfort from knowing that.”

We hung up.

I couldn’t remember if there’d been conversation after that. He’s dead. Those words were echoing in my head. This time, this loss was welcomed. I slid down to the floor, my back to my bed and I rested my elbows on my knees. I bent forward. The phone fell to the ground. The party was still going on upstairs. I could hear the muted bass, the sounds of footsteps over my ceiling. Doors opening, closing. People outside. People inside. But in my room, in that basement, I had been given a sanctuary that I hadn’t expected to be granted.

Tears rolled down my face, but I let them. I didn’t fight them. They were tears of relief, just complete and utter relief, because the fear I hadn’t given energy to, had ignored since coming to Texas, was gone and it’d been so compressing that I hadn’t even known it was there. An invisible elephant on my chest and poof, it was gone.

This time, I actually smiled.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I jerked. My heart lurched in my chest, too.

Someone was pounding on my exit door.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Let me in, Dust! Now.”

I had nothing in me to keep him away. Shoving to my feet, I was through the door, then to the door that separated us, and I unlocked it. He was pushing his way inside. I shut the door behind him, and he locked it.

He stood there. A black hood pulled over his head, and I knew he would’ve walked past the party, hunched forward. He would’ve kept to the sidelines, trying to merge with everything else so he didn’t draw attention.

We took each other in.

He saw the tears on my face, cursing softly.

“Is it true?”

I frowned. “You know?”

“You have a stalker?”

I shook my head. “No. Not anymore.” I whispered, “He’s dead.”

He frowned. “What?”

But my God. Stone was here. I felt as if I’d just been given life back. I was trying to remember the reason I wasn’t touching him, why I wasn’t kissing him, and then I stopped thinking.

I went to him.

I couldn’t fight anymore.

He straightened, another curse falling from his mouth before he reached for me. His hands came to my face and he surged for me at the same time I went to him. We met in the middle, lips on each other, and nothing but a blur. A long and blessed and sensual and pleasurable blur happened after that.

Clothes were shredded.

I was being lifted up.

My legs were around his hips.

He turned a fan on in the background. Noise to drown out our noise, drown out the party above.

We were on my bed.

Hands were clawing for the other, raking, digging in.

I tasted him, his tongue inside my mouth and mine was rubbing against his, exploring him.

He was over me, pressing me down.

Then, I opened my legs and he was inside of me.

And for the life of me, I couldn’t remember why he hadn’t been there this whole time?





“I was lonely when I went to school.”

I didn’t wait for him to ask. It wasn’t long after we finished, after we both rose to wash up, pulling on some clothes, and without talking about it, we got back in bed. He started to pull me against him to rest on his chest, but I held back. This was going to be difficult, and I needed to be able to think clearly or I wouldn’t say it all.

“I’d already been lonely, and when I went away to East River Falls, I didn’t have good standards to measure people by. A cute boy flirted with me in orientation. My heart started fluttering. When he sat by me in our first class together, I was already crushing on him. When I found out he was a football player, I was gone.”