The Society #StalkerProblems

by Ivy Smoak

  “Well, maybe you should. I certainly do.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t patronize me.”

  “I’m not. And if you don’t believe in magic…at least believe in my PI. He’s the best money can buy. And if he’s not, I’ll buy a better one.”

  “You’d ask your PI to track down Rosalie?”

  “Of course. My whole family has been dead for years. And I’ve lost more friends than I can count. If there was a chance any of them were still alive, I’d do whatever it took to find them. And I’ll do the same for you and your sister.”

  That was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever offered to do for me. “Thank you.” I was stunned by his generosity. But also by what he’d just said. His whole family was dead? And a bunch of his friends? That was terrible. How did they all die?

  “Do you want me to come with you on the 25th?” asked Tanner.

  I shook my head. “I prefer to do it alone.” Yes, it would be amazing to have him there with me. But what if Rosalie was going to finally come back? Seeing a strange man with me might scare her off.

  “Just let me know if you change your mind.”

  “Does this mean I get the day off?”

  “Hmmm…” Tanner made a show of thinking hard about his decision. “I guess so.”

  “It’s good to know that you’re not a heartless asshole.”

  “Well, I do have one other condition,” said Tanner. “If I give you the day off, you’re going to have to work late for the next few weeks. This launch party for Wineflix and Chill isn’t going to plan itself.”

  I slid away from him. “I take it back. Maybe you are a heartless asshole.”

  “Would it help if I told you that I’ll be working late with you?”

  Did he just kind of ask me out? For every night of the next few weeks?! I was pretty sure he had. I tried to hide my excitement, but it was probably written all over my tear and sweat covered face.

  “It seems like that’s a yes.”

  “Maybe,” I replied. But he was right. It was a definite yes. I couldn’t freaking wait to spend the next few weeks working late with him. Because if the porn collection Chastity had given me was at all accurate, working late was synonymous with him doing filthy things to me all over the conference room table.

  Chapter 41 - Archer, Mustang, and Vandal

  Wednesday, Two Weeks Later

  Tanner was right - I did need to work overtime if I was going to get everything in place for the Wineflix and Chill launch party. Although my overtime during the next two weeks wasn’t exactly productive. I spent most of my evening hours eating amazing takeout, secretly staring at Tanner while he worked, and asking him to tell me more stories.

  Seriously, his stories were insane. He’d spent six months at a Buddhist monastery. Robes, shaved head, meditation for hours on end. The whole thing. He also showed me a scar he had from the time he got kicked by a horse while hanging out with some Brazilian gauchos. I’d yelled #HorseFacts at him and he didn’t even think it was that weird. He’d just smiled at me with that perfect smile of his.

  Last Friday evening we played a game where I opened up Google Maps, spun the virtual globe, and then he would tell me a story about whatever place we landed on.

  Paris? He’d lived there.

  Tokyo? Lived there too, and he had a full set of samurai armor to prove it.

  We didn’t get any work done that night, so he instituted a new rule: I could ask him one personal question each night. But beyond that, we had to focus on our work.

  “Pssst,” said Chastity, spinning my chair so I was forced to look at some crazy spreadsheet she’d been working on.

  “What exactly am I looking at here? I thought that Wineflix and Chill wasn’t going international until next year at the earliest?”

  Chastity shook her head. “No, look. I’ve compiled a list of all the places that you’ve said Tanner lived or visited. And they’re color-coded by how old he must have been when they happened. I mean…I’m guessing tween Tanner didn’t get offered his choice of virgin while trekking through the Ugandan countryside.”

  “That seems like a safe assumption.”

  “Here’s the thing…all of this stuff would have been impossible for him to do unless he’d literally been traveling non-stop since his 16th birthday.”

  “Hmmm…” I scanned her list to check for errors, but her logic was sound. “Well we don’t know for sure that he’s 28. If he was like 36 then there would have been plenty of time for all this.”

  “Or maybe he’s a vampire like we originally thought. An immortal being would have lots of time for travel.”

  I sighed. I’d been giving this a lot of thought. Especially after Chastity had made a scene of not inviting Tanner into our cubicle like how you’re not supposed to invite vampires into your home. He’d stared at her like she was a crazy person. Which she was. So was I, but I was really beginning to think we were wrong about this. I’d been alone with Tanner a bunch and he hadn’t once tried to suck my blood. “I don’t know, Chastity. I’m starting to think vampires aren’t even real.”

  “Say what? Or course they’re real. Don’t you find it odd that they’ve been mentioned in so many ancient cultures in completely different parts of the world?”

  I shook my head. “He’s not a vampire. He goes out in the light all the time. And he has a reflection. Are you really going to make me waste my one question tonight to get him to confirm once and for all that he’s not a vampire?”

  “No. But only because I wouldn’t trust his answer.”

  “Trust what answer?” asked Tanner.

  Chastity slammed her laptop shut as we spun around.

  “Nothing,” we both said at the same time, sounding totally guilty.

  “Well,” said Tanner, “you might want to spend a little less time trying to figure out my deep dark secret and more time on the Wineflix and Chill web design.”

  “You wanted it by Friday, right?” I asked.

  “Yes. But tomorrow is your day off, and we’re not going to get much work done tonight.” He locked eyes with me.

  “Oh la la,” said Chastity. “Why won’t you be getting much work done tonight?”

  Tanner gave me a mischievous smile. “It’s a surprise.”

  I stared at him. How the hell was I supposed to focus on my work after he dropped that bomb on me?! “What kind of surprise?”

  “A good one. No. A great one. A total gamechanger.” He turned and walked back to his office.

  “Oh my God!” squealed Chastity. “Tonight’s the night.”

  “For…?”

  “He’s finally gonna bend you over his desk.”

  I laughed. “I don’t know about that. I’m pretty sure he just meant he found a good new restaurant to order from.”

  “That wouldn’t be a surprise. He gets you takeout every night.”

  Hmm. “Good point. And I wouldn’t necessarily classify good takeout as a total gamechanger. Unless it’s like…really good.”

  “What if he’s going to finally ask you out?”

  I wish. But I refused to get my hopes up. “He’s not going to do that. Because if he does, bad people will kill me. Or something like that.”

  “Maybe he got rid of them.”

  “I doubt it. And anyway, I’m not sure he likes me like that. Two weeks ago he took me to a sauna so I could bang some rando named Karl.” Kind of. It had been a terrible misunderstanding and I could still picture how upset Tanner looked when he thought I was going to go through with it. Either way, that sauna had haunted my dreams. Although not always in a bad way. Because in my dreams, Karl and his friends all looked like Tanner. And I didn’t run away from them. I crossed my legs and tried not to think about it.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” said Chastity. “He could have just been testing you. Or maybe he’s a swinger and he doesn’t want to ask you out until he knows you’re cool with his lifestyle.”

  “I guess I’ll find out tonight.” Maybe.<
br />
  ***

  “So what’s my surprise?” I asked as Tanner and I dug in to our takeout.

  “You mean this Michelin-star risotto isn’t a good enough surprise? In that case…” He grabbed my bowl and took it away.

  “Hey! That’s mine!”

  “Oh? Because just a second ago you were talking about how it wasn’t a worthy surprise.”

  “No. It was a good surprise.” Just not the surprise I had been hoping for. I tried to visualize him getting on one knee and asking me out. Wait, that was how people proposed. Well…that wouldn’t be so bad. I’d say yes to that. I cleared my throat when I realized he was staring at me. “But I think that calling it a game-changing surprise was overselling it a bit.”

  “You’re right,” said Tanner. “Your real surprise is like…a thousand times better than this.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Well can I have it?”

  “Let’s wait until I’m finished eating all this.” He picked up his spoon and acted like he was about to dig into my bowl.

  “Don’t you dare!” I snatched it back from him just in time. And then I made sure to put it well out of his reach.

  “Don’t I dare eat your food? Or make you wait for your surprise?”

  “Eat my food. Actually, both. You know I hate waiting.” Why do we have to wait until after dinner? That kind of did make it seem like it was gonna be a sex thing. I gulped and tried to focus on the delicious risotto rather than his delicious cock. God, why was my mind even going there? He wasn’t going to ask me out. Or is he?

  He smiled at me, like he could hear the internal struggle going on in my brain. “Don’t you have a question to ask me tonight? Chastity wanted to know if I’m a vampire, yes?”

  I laughed. “Nice try, buddy. But I’m not gonna waste my question on that nonsense. Tonight I’m going to get to the heart of your deepest, darkest secret.”

  “You’re welcome to try.” His eyes dropped to the side of my neck.

  Holy shit. He was just trying to throw me off. I hope. I took a long drink of water to give myself time to decide which question I wanted to ask him. I’d narrowed it down to two options. Where were you born? Or… “Who was your high school crush?”

  He choked on his risotto.

  “Yes! I knew this was gonna be a good one.”

  He took a big swig of water and cleared his throat. “You know you just celebrated me nearly choking to death, right?”

  “Well it sounds bad when you put it like that. But you’re fine. You’re talking. Now spill it. Who was your high school crush?”

  “I went to an all-boys school.”

  “Is that your way of telling me that you experimented in high school?”

  He nodded. “We did experiments, yes.”

  Oh my God. “With like…you and man parts?”

  “Cadavers? We only used those once, if I recall correctly. Or maybe twice. It was a really long time ago.”

  “Ew. What? Really?” Is he serious?! Cadavers?

  “Yes. Didn’t you?”

  “No. I’m pretty sure my biology teacher would have ended up in prison if he’d made us dissect a human cadaver. Now quit trying to distract me from the fact that you hooked up with dudes in high school.”

  Tanner nearly choked again. “Whoa, who said anything about me hooking up with dudes?”

  “You did. Literally two seconds ago. I asked if you experimented, and you said yes.”

  He looked confused. And then something clicked. “Oh…you thought…” he laughed. “Definitely not. Your modern lingo is weird. You really think I would have screwed around with guys in high school? That would have gotten me a date with the executioner.”

  “That seems extreme.”

  “It was a different time back then.” He coughed. “In the…90s.”

  “You went to high school in the 90s?” What the hell? That would make him like 45 years old! Or had he been some weird genius baby?

  “No?” It looked like he was doing fast math in his head. “No. Stop trying to sneak in extra questions. You wanted to know about my high school crush, so I’ll tell you about her. Her name was Sapphire. She didn’t go to my school, of course, but whenever I got a chance I’d slip away from school to go meet her down by the river. I’d bring her scraps from lunch and teach her how to read.”

  I laughed. But when I realized that Tanner was totally serious I turned it into a cough. What kind of backwards place did he grow up?

  “We were going to run away together once I got enough money, but my parents didn’t approve.”

  “So your parents forced you two apart?”

  He looked off into the distance, his eyes starting to water a bit. “You could say that.”

  “I’m sorry.” I wanted to reach across his desk and give him a big hug. I’d never seen him look so sad. But he had a bad habit of running away every time I touched him. And the last thing I wanted was for him to leave. If he wanted a hug, he’d come to me. I shifted in my chair to put my hands beneath my thighs, so I wouldn’t be tempted.

  He forced a smile. “What about you? Who was your boyfriend in high school?”

  “Boyfriend? Ha. Good one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s just say that for my high school superlative, I won quietest.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “It’s literally the worst superlative. They might as well have voted me biggest nobody. And anyway, I should have won best hair. Some girl with a pixie cut won it instead of me. A pixie cut!”

  “Well that’s ridiculous. Your hair is amazing. But I don’t think being quietest means that you were a nobody. If you were a nobody, no one would have even known your name to vote for you.”

  Huh. He did kind of have a point. I’d never really thought of it that way. But I still hated it. “I guess.”

  “So no boyfriends?”

  “Nope.”

  “The boys in your high school must have had exceptionally bad taste.”

  I could feel my cheeks flushing. “I dunno…you haven’t seen any pictures of me in high school.”

  “Sure I have. My PI was very thorough with his report.”

  “Oh God. No wonder you made up a mysterious organization who will boil me in a vat of acid if we start dating.”

  Tanner laughed. “I thought you looked adorable.”

  “Right.” Adorable. Cute. He always said that about me. “Unfortunately for me, adorable was not what Mustang and Vandal were into. They seemed to be more into double-teaming the head cheerleader in the locker room. God, what I would have given to be in her position...” Please tell me I didn’t say that out loud.

  “You wanted to be double-teamed by two dudes with weird names?”

  “What? No.”

  “You just said you did.” Tanner looked so amused.

  “In my defense, I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

  He looked more amused than ever. “So those were your crushes? Mustang and Vandal?”

  “I don’t know if I’d call them crushes. They were just really hot guys that I watched from afar.”

  “Ah, so your stalkery ways started in high school.”

  I tossed my napkin at him. “We’ve already determined that you’re the stalker. Not me.”

  “Mhm. Sure. So tell me more about these guys you stalked.” He leaned back in his chair, looking absolutely tickled.

  “Mustang and Vandal were the class clowns. One time they put…” I started laughing just thinking about it. “They put a horse on the roof of the school. I still have no idea how they did it.”

  “That must have been a disaster since horses can’t climb down stairs very well. #HorseFacts,” said Tanner.

  Oh my God, I love you. He was just as bad at hashtags as me. I giggled. “Exactly.”

  “Did you ever talk to them?”

  “Nope. But I’m proud to say that I did talk to my ultimate crush, Archer Murphy.”

  “Oh yeah?”
>
  “Yup,” I said with a nod. “He asked to borrow a pen. And I said yes.”

  “And that was the beginning of a long, unlikely friendship?”

  “Not at all. It was the only time I ever talked to him. Other than when he returned the pen. Which was exactly why I liked him so much. Sure, he was the captain of the football team, had ridiculous 8-pack abs, and could make me melt just with his smile. But what really got me was that he was the only person to have the decency to actually return my pen after borrowing it. As far as I was concerned, that was the epitome of sexiness.”

  “Well, he missed out. And let’s be honest…you probably dodged a bullet by not dating him. I’d bet money that he peaked in high school.”

  “He got a football scholarship to Notre Dame. But sophomore year he busted up his knee and that was the end of that.”

  “Okay, stalker.”

  I tossed another napkin at him. “Facebook stalking isn’t stalking. And let’s not forget - you’re the one who hired a PI to stalk me.”

  “Speaking of my PI…he just texted me and asked if he could swing by to talk to you about Rosalie.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Does that mean he found something?! Is this my surprise?!” If it was, I was 100% going to jump over Tanner’s desk and make out with him.

  He shook his head. “Sorry, I should have been more clear. Marty - my PI - has been looking into her disappearance. As part of that, he wants to come interview you. He thought tonight would be best, because he’s found that people can usually recall stuff better near the anniversary of when it happened.”

  “Oh.”

  “You up for that?”

  I nodded. I didn’t love the idea of talking all about it with some stranger. But if there was even half a chance that he might find her, I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity.

  “He’s the best in the business,” said Tanner as he walked around his desk.

  I held my breath for a second as he leaned down. Instead of a kiss, he gave me a big hug. It was just as good as a kiss. I felt myself melt into him.

  “If anyone can find something, he can,” Tanner said.

  I breathed in his blueberry scent. It didn’t make me forget about Rosalie, but it was a damned good distraction. And so were the muscles in his back. And the realization that I still hadn’t gotten my surprise.