by Eva Luxe
I walked to the bar to get a refill. When I leaned on the bar with my elbows, a woman walked up next to me, and the smell intoxicated me. It was a smell I had started associating with happiness. Hailey stood next to me, her blond hair like gold in the lights above the bar, and her dress was beautiful on her. I was drunk, and she looked more beautiful than ever.
Why did the perfect woman have to turn out to be a stalker? Why did this have to happen to me?
I wanted to talk to her. I knew I shouldn’t, but I wanted to talk to her.
I walked toward her.
“A glass of Merlot, please,” she told the bartender. She was drinking too. I couldn’t imagine what she would want to forget. Except how I treated her.
When I was close enough, she turned her head to me, and her bright green eyes pinned me, making contact for the first time since she arrived. We were caught in a bubble for a moment before she turned her head to the bartender.
“Never mind, cancel that,” she said and walked away before I could say anything to her.
For a moment, I considered running after her, grabbing her arm, forcing her to speak to me. But what was I going to say to her? I had been the one to walk away before, so I couldn’t act like she had been the one to run away from me. Besides, she had been the one who had fucked up. I wasn’t going to run after her.
In fact, it was good that she had walked away so I wouldn’t have to confront her.
I walked back to the bar.
“I was going to step in,” Ryan said, coming up behind me out of thin air.
“Nothing happened,” I said, and I didn’t sound as disappointed as I felt, thank God.
“I saw that,” Ryan ordered a drink. I looked over my shoulder to see where Hailey had disappeared to. I couldn’t see her.
Everything she had done tonight had been different than I had expected from her. She had tried to avoid me, to not even look at me. Did a stalker do that? It seemed out of character for a stalker.
I was starting to think I had been wrong. She should have told me who she was from the start, no doubt. I was still upset about that. But now I wondered if it wasn’t for another reason rather than because she was stalking me.
Nothing she did made sense for a stalker. If she was stalking me, she would have been all over me at the bar, wouldn’t she? Or she would have watched me all night or something. Instead, she had been avoiding me. She had walked away, and she had refused to look at me or speak to me. Maybe it didn’t make sense because I was wrong. I hated to admit it, but I was wrong.
And if I had been wrong, then I had treated her like shit. I had been a total jerk. And despite the alcohol I’d put in my system to avoid feeling terrible about what I had done, it hit me with full force, and I felt like the world’s biggest dick. I had treated her terribly, and even though I had been upset about what she’d done, that didn’t give me an excuse to behave the way I had.
Tonight, I wouldn’t be able to go up to her and speak to her. Not with everyone around and not after how I had acted. She was avoiding me and with good reason when I looked at in a different light.
God, I had been such an idiot. And I had no idea what to do about it. How did I fix what I had done wrong without making it look like she hadn’t been wrong too? Because I didn’t want her to think that any of this was all right. I didn’t want it to seem like her actions were justified in any way.
Truth be told, I had no idea what her reasons were for not telling me anymore. The right thing to do would be to look her up and talk to her about what had happened and try to get to the bottom of it.
I would have to sober up and think about it properly before I did anything drastic. Until then, I would have to cope with what had happened and make the best of my night.
Chapter 15
Hailey
I had attended the party instead of hiding in my room like Carly had suggested. I had proven that Nick hadn’t won and that I had nothing to hide. Somehow, I thought it would make me feel more victorious or that it would make me able to deal with it better.
It didn’t. I had hated every minute of it. I had run into Nick at the bar, walked away as I had told myself I would, and I had felt like crying since the moment I’d done it.
The whole night, I had avoided Nick so he wouldn’t think I was a stalker. I had shown him that my interest in him had been real, that our relationship had been a coincidence. I wasn’t sure he believed me.
On Monday morning, I accompanied Carly on her errands. She had to do a grocery run, return an item that didn’t fit well, and look for a pair of trainers for Brad who ran through them in no time at all during his football season.
“I don’t know what to think about Friday,” I said when we were in the car. “I had hoped it would all be better after, but it doesn’t feel better at all.”
Carly shook her head. “He was an idiot for assuming you were stalking him at all. He’s not all that, yet. If he were famous the way the others are, it would be different, but he’s so arrogant to think like that.”
“I did know him from high school, so I guess it’s not completely impossible. But I hate that he sees me like that.”
“I don’t think you should worry,” Carly said. “He couldn’t keep his eyes off you on Friday.”
“What?” I asked, looking at Carly who pulled up her one shoulder, glancing sidelong at me.
“I know you weren’t looking at him at all to make your point, but he was staring at you all night. I don’t think he thinks you’re a stalker anymore.”
I didn’t know if it was a good thing. It was a good thing if it was an isolated fact, but after everything that had happened, I felt that it wasn’t enough. If it was true at all.
The whole thing was ridiculous. Childish, even. I was irritated with how much of my time it had taken, how down I felt all the time when Nick hadn’t been a part of my life for very long at all. It was time I let it go and move on.
It sounded so much easier than it was.
I was ready to head back to Fort Collins on Thursday. I had to get out of this town. I wanted to go back to the life I knew, the people I could trust and put it all behind me.
One day, I would look back at it all and laugh. I wanted that day to come.
When I looked back at the holiday I’d had, it hadn’t been all bad. I’d had a great time with Carly, getting to know Brad and all her friends, and she had shown me a life I hadn’t known. It had been great, and it had been enough.
We took care of the trainers and the groceries when Carly decided to call it a day. She would exchange the item another time. On the way back, I brought up the topic that had hung over my head since the start of the holidays, the reason I had come.
“Since you left, it’s not the same anymore,” I said. “I’m dreading going back a little, actually. I don’t want to sit in my classes.”
Carly glanced at me before turning her eyes back to the road. “I miss you, too, friend,” she said.
I sighed. “Don’t you want to come back with me? We can do it the way we used to. We can bunk together and do nerdy midnight study sessions and go out the night before an exam because we listened in class. Do you remember that?”
Carly laughed. “Of course, I remember. But I can’t go back,” she said.
“Why not?” I asked.
Carly looked in the rearview mirror for a second before answering me.
“I know you miss me. This past couple of weeks together have been amazing. I didn’t realize exactly how much I missed you until I got to spend time with you. But I can’t leave Brad behind. He’s not just my past, Hailey. He’s my future. I love him more than anything.”
I nodded. “I understand. Worth a shot, right?”
Carly smiled. “Absolutely.”
“I’ll miss you so much more now that we had some time together again,” I said.
“I was thinking that. But it doesn’t have to be that way, you know. You can always transfer and come here too. Then we’ll be together.”
I thought about it. “And what about everything else I’ll be leaving behind?” I asked.
Carly nodded. “I understand that. But think about it. I have this for you.”
She kept her eyes on the road while leaning over and fishing in her handbag. She handed me a wad of folded pages.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Online classes. You can do your MBA the way I did.”
I unfolded the papers and stared at them. Now that I had it in my hand, it was so much more real.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said.
Carly shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her, either way. “You have a bit of time to think about it still. Sleep on it. Stick those under your pillow.” She winked at me, and I chuckled. “You know it’s what you should be doing,” she added with a smile.
“What bothers me the most about this isn’t leaving everyone behind,” I said. “That part will be hard, but what really gets me is that if I stayed, Nick would think I’m really a stalker.”
When I said it, the words cut me deeper than I’d thought they would. I hadn’t realized I’d been thinking it until I said it out loud, and now that I had, it hurt like a bitch. I knew what he thought of me, but saying it only made it that much worse. I realized how much it hurt that Nick thought that of me after we had spent so much time together after I had thought he’d gotten to know the person I was on the inside.
I had always known he would be a womanizer, if he hadn’t been one at school already, but not once had I felt he was only using me when we’d spent time together after we’d slept together. How was it that he could decide who I was when I thought he had gotten to know me?
“Hailey,” Carly said in a soft voice. “A lot of people move to Miami. It doesn’t mean anything. Nick is full of shit.”
She was right, but it still hurt. All of it. I didn’t know if I had what it took to be around here and run the risk of running into Nick, of him thinking I was still here for him.
Carly and I arrived home, and I helped her unpack groceries. We talked about mundane things, nothing that mattered, and the conversation was light and comfortable. But it wasn’t distracting enough, and even though I had told myself I wouldn’t waste another moment thinking about Nick, my mind wandered back to him again and again.
When we were done, Carly had to take care of calls, and I walked to my room to read a little or do something else to pass the time before supper. When I lay on the bed, I felt sick. I was never nauseous unless I had food poisoning. Strange.
I picked up my phone and typed, “why am I nauseous” into Google. I knew it was stupid to Google my symptoms and find answers online when they weren’t accurate in the first place, but I couldn’t help it. I always did.
One of the first answers that popped up was that I was pregnant.
I brushed off the thought. There was no way I could be pregnant. Nick and I had practiced safe sex. Safer than anything else I had ever done. I couldn’t even imagine the complications if I was pregnant with his child. He would probably see it as the ultimate stalker way, an attempt to force him to stay in my life.
Although, it would be hard to explain the condom away.
No, I wasn’t pregnant. I couldn’t be. I could feel sick from anything. Like yesterday morning, when I’d woken up crabby and made vanilla tea in the kitchen only to get sick of the smell.
Or nauseous from pregnancy. But that couldn’t be. I wasn’t pregnant. And if I was, I couldn’t possibly keep the baby. I had college to finish, and the baby daddy hated me.
But there were online classes, and a lot of women raised children alone these days. I was an idiot for entertaining the idea at all. I was being dramatic. It was probably something in the air or the weather or the food here or the stress or anything else of a myriad of reasons why I could be feeling sick.
I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes. What I needed was a nap, a recharge. I would feel better once I woke up again.
When I closed my eyes, I dreamed of Nick. His body was fantastic, and his eyes sparkled when he looked at me like he wanted to say something. But his eyes slid down my body and rested on my stomach. When I looked down, I realized I had a belly.
“That’s not mine,” Nick said firmly.
“I wasn’t going to say it is, in case you say I’m stalking when I’m asking for child support.”
Nick shook his head. “I’m out,” he said and left me alone with a baby that I had no idea what the hell to do with.
I jerked upright. I had fallen asleep. I put my hand on my lower stomach. It was flat. I breathed out I relief and collapsed back on the pillows. I didn’t want to go to sleep again in case the same thing happened, in case I dreamed of the worst thing happening again and again.
I walked to the mirror and looked at myself. “Get it together, Hailey,” I whispered. “This is nothing more than high school drama.”
In a few days, it would all be over, and then none of what had happened would matter. I would be a woman who had lost her virginity on holiday and had a great time doing it, and that would be that.
I wasn’t pregnant.
Chapter 16
Nick
On Tuesday, I couldn’t focus on training at all. When I played football, I always put maximum effort into the game, and everything else took a backseat to the most important thing in my life, but today, my mind was wandering. It kept wandering back to Hailey. I flashed on her face, the way she looked when she laughed at something funny I said or how she talked about something she loved. Her eyes, the color of spring leaves and her long, blond hair that hung over her shoulders when she casually flipped it back.
It hadn’t been very long that we had spent time together, but it felt like I could recall every little detail about her as if I had known her my whole life.
But that wasn’t accurate, was it? I had known her a long time, but never the way I knew her now. Everything that had happened lately had thrown me off balance a little, and I was conflicted. I wanted to be with her, but I didn’t know how I felt about her hiding things from me.
What I did know was that I missed her. I missed spending time with her, talking and laughing about small things. I missed taking her out and spoiling her or telling her about my life or sleeping with her. Both sex and just sleeping next to each other.
When I had met her, she had been the light in that room, the only person I hadn’t known and the one person I had wished I could get to know. I had walked up to her and started a conversation. I hadn’t been able to think about how it would have been if I’d left that dinner party and hadn’t spoken to her at all. I had pursued her, not the other way around.
When I had asked Brad for her number, Brad had been surprised because it wasn’t my usual MO. I had always expected the women to ask to stay in touch if that was what they wanted. Most of them, I didn’t want to see after fucking them anyway. But it had been different with Hailey. I had wanted to see her again, so I had made a plan.
I had done that, not Hailey. And we’d had so much fun together. Every time we had gone out, I had been the one to call and ask to see her. She hadn’t phoned me to make plans.
How then had I arrived at the fact that she was a stalker? She hadn’t done a single thing that was creepy except hiding her identity from me. But looking back, if the roles had been reversed, what would I have done in the same situation? I didn’t know if I would have done it any differently.
I needed to talk to her. I needed to figure out what was happening, why she hadn’t let me in on who she was. And I had to apologize to her for my behavior because I had been a pig. No matter what she did, it didn’t justify how I acted.
There was about an hour of training left before we went on our three-hour leisure break. I would phone her then and ask her to meet with me.
When we finally went on our lunch breaks, Ryan walked up to me.
“Are we going to the cafeteria, or are we going to a restaurant again?” he asked.
“T
he cafeteria,” I said. “I’ll meet you there. I have some calls I need to take care of first.”
Ryan nodded and walked out of the locker room. I finished up, getting dressed after showering and rubbing a towel over my hair. I stared at my phone. I was nervous to call her. I was worried she wouldn’t answer. I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t. But I had to call and find out, no matter how unsure I was of the outcome.
When the locker room was empty, and I was completely alone, I dialed Hailey’s number. It rang a few times, and I was almost sure I would get her voice mail when she answered. I was surprised to hear her voice when I had been sure she wouldn’t speak to me at all.
“I’m glad I have a chance to talk to you,” I said.
“I don’t have a lot of time to talk.”
I was sure she was only saying it so I would make my point.
“I won’t take a lot of your time. I was hoping we could get together and talk.”
Hailey hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she said. “You really hurt me.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m not asking to see you so I can say hurtful things or accuse you of anything. I just want to talk. Please.”
I held my breath, hoping she would agree. I didn’t know what I would do if she refused to see me. I could hardly force her to see me, and this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to do over the phone.
“Nothing serious,” I said when she was still hesitant. “And you can walk away the moment you don’t like where things are going.”
It was the least I could offer her. I needed to get what I needed to say out there if she would only hear me out.
“Where?” she asked. It was a good sign.
“How about we go to the beach? It’s not private, but we’ll be able to talk without being interrupted.”
“Where you took me after dinner that night?” Hailey asked.
