ENEMIES(92)

I had started to walk past her, letting her talk, but hearing the last few words, I paused.

The girl was still rambling, her back to me, still buttering her toast. “Between you and me, I worry about her. She’s not gotten a car and she doesn’t think we notice, but she’s walking back and forth from campus. That means she’s walking after her shifts, but she’s got some hang-up about asking for help. I don’t get it, but she’s prideful. So, yeah. My uncle has a car in the garage. There’s no insurance on it, but I was thinking I could ask him to get some and she could drive that. We could say it’s the house’s vehicle, but poof—like magic—it’s always available only for her.” She turned, the toast done on her plate. “What do you think?” She was smiling at me.

She took one look at me and that smile was wiped clean.

I was barely keeping my shit together as it was, and now to know this.

She’d been walking. No, fuck that. She was working. A lot, from what this one was saying, and she was walking?

I grated out, “How far is campus from here?”

She swallowed, getting with the program and cluing in how close to the edge I was. “Her job is four blocks away. I think she cuts through somewhere, maybe a side alley, so it might be less. I’m not sure.”

Fuck that. Fuck this girl. Fuck her fucking roommates. And fuck me, for letting her go when I knew I shouldn’t have.

Fuck. Just fuck.

“How long has this been going on?”

Another swallow before her head bobbed down. “Uh. A week? No. More than that, I think. Maybe two?”

“You don’t know?” I ground that out.

“No. I’m sorry.”

I was gone. Dusty was going to have a car in her spot by the end of the day and before then, Morpheus would be on her curb. If she walked, he would follow. I didn’t give a flying fuck how pissed she might be about that.

She had had a goddamn stalker.

My thoughts went rampant thinking about that piece of shit. I wanted to find him again, murder him with my bare hands and stuff his desecrated bones back into the ground, and I wanted to repeat that process all over again. Over and over and over until I got justice for Dusty.

I had no clue, no fucking idea.

A stalker. A goddamn motherfucking stalker.

If I’d known, shit. I would’ve wanted to go at him, wrap my hands around his throat, but fuck. I couldn’t go back in time. The piece of shit was dead, but I could go forward, and I interrupted the nice roommate. She was still talking.

“Where’s Witkerson?”

She’d been pouring orange juice into a glass, and at my growl, she jumped. Juice spilled all over the counter, but flinching, she swung those wide eyes to me. “Uh. What?”

“Noel. Witkerson. Your school’s QB 1. Where is he? I know he sleeps here.”

“Oh.” She was flustered, her cheeks getting red. “Savannah’s room is upstairs on the right, but…”

Yeah. Yeah. Don’t go up there. They’re sleeping. She didn’t know I didn’t give a shit.

I stalked up the stairs, lined up there were two bedrooms and I saw the bathroom door open. I went to the right and I didn’t give ’em an option. I was hoping they weren’t going at it—but I’d seen that shit before, so no big deal—because I flung the door open.

The girl screamed.

Witkerson jumped out of bed, wild and panicked, but saw it was me and he swore, grabbing for a pillow to cover his nuts. He remembered we both spent most of our lives in football locker rooms and dropped the pillow. Crawling back in bed, he lay back down. “Tell me this is fucking important, man. You’re interrupting my sleep time and my time with my girl.”

“She had a stalker.”

“What?!” the girl squawked, bolting upright.

She had a shirt on. Thank God. I didn’t want to see her girls. Any normal day before today, I might’ve looked if they were presented to me because fuck, I’m a guy…but not this day.

“It’s why she came down here. A stalker.”

The QB 1 sat up, suddenly all serious and yeah, he better be.

I clipped my head at him. “You’re here. You’re here when I can’t be. That piece of shit is dead, but there might be others. Her name, her face, it’s getting out there. And she’s mine. I ain’t keeping quiet about that anymore. She’s going to get more attention, more focus, and that brings haters. Bitch catty women and dirty perv assholes. Sick fucks, too. She and I haven’t talked, she doesn’t know the lengths I’m going to, but I’m going to them. If she stays here, and if she chooses, I’ll be here most nights, but I’m going to try to get her to my house. But if she stays, you’re on duty. Got it?”

“Wait.” The girl was looking between us.

The QB nodded. “Got it.”

“What is going on here?”

“Good. I’ll have a guy parked out front all day. He’s her ride. She ain’t walking anywhere alone today and tonight. There’ll be a car of her own here by end of the day.” I bit out and turned for the door. “I got a game, then I’ll be back to either sleep here or collect her for my place.”

The girlfriend jumped up in bed, but I had turned already. Caught the movement out of the corner of my eyes, glimpsed something white on her legs and figured she had pants on, too. Again. Not caring. This was today, not yesterday, not a month ago. Things were different today. Everything was different. I was staking my claim and I wasn’t going away. Hell to the fuck no.