Prologue
Olivia
Six months ago…
“Oh my God, look at him!” Callie coos, shoving her iPad in my face.
I take it from her as she lays down next to me, wanting to share her find. The girl has no boundaries, better yet, she doesn’t realize others do either. I love her, though, so I look down at the picture of the cover model and suck in a breath. Shit, he is hot.
“Look at his long blonde hair. God, he is gorgeous.”
I scroll through the pictures on his Facebook page and mentally drool.
She points to a picture of him in the shower, making it bigger, so we can see his body better. We both suck in a breath as we get a closer view of water dripping down his abs, all the way down to…damn it! It’s cut off. “Shit he is hot.” I hand over her iPad and get back to grading the math tests my second graders took on Friday.
“That’s it? He’s more than hot, did you see his back muscles? I want that man to give me the baby making juice. I can see it now. We’d make beautiful babies.”
I stare at my friend.
“What?” she asks, unlike the virgin she is.
I laugh.
She winks at me, then continues scrolling. Most likely, she’s looking at more pictures of her unattainable man.
We camped out on her big bed all morning, trying to finish our grades before we go back to school tomorrow. The girl has graded a handful of assignments.
I look at her huge stack of ungraded papers and my small stack and shake my head. “Callie if you don’t grade those now, you’re going to be hating life in a few days when grades are due.”
She smiles at me guiltily. “You’re right Liv, but hot cover models are such a good distraction.” She is the worst procrastinator I know.
Unlike her, I need order in my life. I’m early in all things and rarely, if ever, do I take any risks. Finishing my stack, I stand and stretch. “I’ll be right back. I need to get my computer so that I can put these grades in.”
“Mmm hmm,” she mumbles, still staring at her iPad. Probably Facebook stalking some other unsuspecting victim to her tawdry desires.
I walk to my bedroom and go to my desk to retrieve my laptop. It isn’t there. Weird, that’s the last place I had it. I search in and around my desk looking for it. “Hey Cal. Have you seen my laptop?”
She comes into my room a minute later. “What’d ya’ say hon?”
“I can’t find my computer anywhere. Did you use it?”
Eyebrows furrowed, she’s thinking about this deeper. With a tap to her chin a few times, she shrugs her shoulders. “I haven’t used it in a while. Have you checked the living room?”
I shake my head.
She pulls me to my feet, and I follow her into our living room where we search for it, coming up empty-handed.
I walk into the dining room and see it on the placemat, in front of the seat where I always sit. That’s strange. I’m never in here with my computer. “Found it,” I call out distractedly, and walk over to grab it.
As I get closer, I notice something sticking out of the closed lid. I pull out a photograph of me sleeping. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and dread starts to well in the deepest parts of me. I look at the picture, studying it for what? Clues? I don’t know. In the picture, I see blonde streaks in my hair. I haven’t had those for a couple of months now. The picture has got to be a few months old.
“Good, you found it. Now I can get back to drooling over the Viking God.” Callie snorts, making herself laugh.
I’m worried though and don’t spare her a glance.
“Olivia, what’s wrong darlin’?” she asks in her thick southern drawl.
I hold the picture out to her. “Did you take this? Please tell me this is one of your pranks Callie. A fucking creepy prank.”
When she takes it, I see the back has a message, ‘I miss the streaks baby.’
“Oh, no.” She looks up at me confused.
So now, I know she had nothing to do with the picture or how my computer ended up in here.
“Why the hell would I take a picture of you sleeping, you crazy ass? That’s some crazy stalker shit.”
I nod, agreeing with her. “Look at the back Cal,” I croak.
She turns it over, and her face pales. She turns and walks into our kitchen, grabs a plastic sandwich bag, and puts the picture inside, then zips it shut. “I’m calling my dad, Olivia.”
I nod and listen to her on the phone with her dad, Lieutenant Reid. When she hangs up, she sighs and looks at me, as if disappointed. “Dad’s on his way over.”
I hate that I’ve let her down. Callie is the only person who means anything to me.
“I know you have gotten more letters than the first couple you showed me. You think he’s harmless Liv, but this proves that it is more than letters. It’s too much,” she says shaking the picture in front of me.
I hang my head and tears fill my eyes. “Why won’t he leave me alone?”
She pulls me into a hug and rubs my back, “I don’t know Liv. He should have given up since you never responded to them.”
I wince and pull back to look at her.
“Tell me you didn’t Liv.”
“I know you said not to, but I wrote him back. I was hoping if I answered Simon just once, he’d stop sending letters. I only wanted him to leave me alone.”
Callie sighs, pulling me close again. “I know you did.”
is out now and FREE on Kindle Unlimited. Find out how the love from two men can heal a battered soul.