Chapter 38
Cam
We ride our bikes out to the spot. Sure, we could have done this in Damon’s house or his room, but Evan is a distraction. And right now, she needs us not to be her distraction. Damon made sure she had food in front of her before we left, but she was already buried in her books.
When we park, we take off our helmets.
“We need to stop letting this fucker control the narrative,” I start off with.
“Do we really believe it’s Mia?” Hawk asks, running his hand over his hair.
Damon shakes his head. “She might be part of it, but she’s not the person pulling the strings.”
“The texts. Clearly personal to Evan.” I lean forward on my bike, trying to think through everything that’s happened since the beginning. “But they haven’t continued. Why? All it did was put Evan on notice that someone was watching her.”
“It freaked her out.” Damon gazes off into the distance. “Scared her, put her on edge.”
“But it wouldn’t have worked if Jackson hadn’t reentered her life.” I breathe out. “It can’t be a coincidence. So either it was him or someone who knew about him.”
“Her flat tire was the first thing. Audition night.” Hawk meets my gaze.
“That could have been coincidence, but with everything else, it becomes suspicious. She didn’t have a spare.
She would have been stranded and had to call her mom or ask Mr. Watson to take her home.
If I hadn’t waited for her, she would have been alone in that parking lot.
Brandt left before her. Maybe he didn’t look at her car, but there would have only been their two cars left in the student lot. ”
“That was before the scrimmage where Jackson saw her?” I ask, trying to imagine the timeline.
Damon gives a sharp nod. “It could have been a bad tire and not part of the stalking. The thing that bothers me is, if Jackson was so obsessed with Evan when she was sixteen, he could have easily found her again. I wouldn’t have given up on her that easily.
She’s all over the Anteros website. Even a YouTube search would give you where she goes to school. She’s not difficult to find.”
“She doesn’t have a rich daddy who keeps her protected,” I add. “Elizabeth Stanwell is practically a ghost on the internet. You’d have to do a deep dive to find out anything about her.”
“So, if Jackson really was stalking her, why wait until now to come after her? Opportunity? Because we were interested in her? Is there little stuff Evan wrote off that shows he’s been after her this whole time?
When she was alone and vulnerable?” Damon looks like he could break something right now.
“Maybe he was being honest when he said he took the hint,” I offer.
Damon glares at me, and I raise my hands in surrender. But he’s right, a stalker doesn’t always make their presence known. It could be that he watched her for years.
“It’s not impossible. Maybe seeing her again resparked his interest,” I say. “Or maybe someone else noticed that Jackson seemed keen on Evan.”
“You mean like Mia?” Hawk asks.
I nod. “Which puts her back on the playing field. The thing that stops me is, I don’t believe Mia wants to hurt Evan, but she’s friendly with Abby, so maybe she let something slip.”
“Mia seems too savvy to let something slip inadvertently,” Hawk says.
“You want to add Abby to the list?” Damon scoffs.
“Why not?” I ask. “Honestly there are a lot of girls jealous as fuck of our girl right now. It’s not like we keep our attention quiet. Girls notice and talk. Add to that, the attention Evan is getting for being director. It’s a perfect fucking storm.”
“None of these girls scream mastermind of the operation though.” Hawk smirks. “Annie would be able to do this, maybe Keira. They think similarly, but I wouldn’t think Keira had it in her.”
“Why not? She has just as much ambition as Evan.” I have to point out. “While I’d love to eliminate people, I think we’ve narrowed our focus too much. Olivia isn’t the only crazy bitch at our school. And she isn’t the only one who wanted us.”
Damon presses his lips together but doesn’t say anything. Olivia was a misjudgment on his part. He thought he could control her, but there’s no controlling crazy.
“I looked into Elizabeth’s school. It isn’t Kentwood Prep, but that doesn’t mean much.” I think back to my search into her school and Kentwood. “They cross with sports and some of their parties. It wouldn’t be unheard of that she and Jackson know each other. It’s just not something I can pin down.”
“I’d love to have something concrete.” Damon smooths his hand over his handlebar. “It would make this easier.”
“Okay, timeline, then.” I rub my hands together. “The tire, the texts, the car.” I pause.
“More texts. Olivia outs us to the school. The rose. Social media account,” Hawk adds. “Though the social media account turned out to be revenge by Chase and Abby.”
“You forgot the text to Heather. Someone wanted us to get caught.” Damon shakes his head. “Only the rose physically hurt her.”
“The car could have.” Hawk breathes out harshly. “If I’d been any slower, they could have clipped us before speeding off.”
“We do need to make Chase and Abby pay for that account.” I run my hand through my hair. “Both of them gloated to Evan about it. Mia said that Abby was planning something. Hopefully, that was it. I don’t see them doing the texts, but possibly the rose.”
“I did enjoy leaving Chase in the woods the first time...” Hawk rubs his chin thoughtfully. Then he grins evilly. “Maybe after the play we can revisit it. We can’t fuck with any of Annie’s actors right now. She’s stressed enough as it is.”
Both Damon and I nod. It’s like Evan has shut down to everything except the play. She’s got a lot on her plate since she lost her lead.
“She’s going to be brilliant,” I say. When I meet Hawk’s gaze, he nods.
“She’s amazing as a director, but acting with her on stage is something else entirely.” Hawk lies back on his bike and stares up at the stars. “Wherever we go for college, Annie needs to act as well as direct.”
“She was saying the program at Crowne Mawr allows that.” Damon smiles, and then he gets serious. “Brandt has his fingers in this somewhere. You won’t convince me otherwise. Especially since he was the last to leave before Evan found her tire flat.”
“From what I’ve heard and seen, I agree about Brandt.” I straighten. “He was trying to convince Chase to quit and come to his production to show Evan. But even Chase isn’t that gullible to leave a leading role to be an extra.”
“Chase actually has his priorities straight.” Hawk chuckles. “Brandt should have offered him pussy, and then maybe he would have changed his mind.”
“Is the internship really what Brandt’s after?” Damon asks.
“He’s got industry connections through his father, but maybe, like Chase’s dad, daddy isn’t willing to help his son be a little nepo-baby.” There might be a way for me to find out. I just have to ask the right ants.
“Do we know how they decided on the showcase directors? Evan obviously deserves to be in the showcase, but how did Brandt get in?” Damon asks.
There’s always the obvious way. Buy in.
“There were a couple of donations in the spring. One for additional lab equipment in the science wing. Another for some of the classrooms that need to be renovated. I can’t remember the other one, but I’ll look into it this week.
It wouldn’t be the first time a parent bought someone their future,” I say.
“It’s worth exploring, but we need to be careful so we don’t kick the hornets’ nest and cause trouble for Annie,” Hawk straightens. “It’s less than a month until the performance. We can keep looking into this, but we can’t really confront anyone, especially if they are in the play.”
We all sit with that a moment. As much as I want to confront the asshole or assholes fucking with our girl, if it is someone in her cast, then we can’t push and end up hurting her play.
“I don’t mind the overkill of tracking Evan, but do we really think someone is going to take it that far?” I have to ask because I’m ready to do whatever it takes to keep her safe. With what’s happened, I just don’t see someone escalating to that level.
“If she wasn’t mine, I would take her.” Damon’s words are cold and dark. If Evan had continued to reject him, I don’t know how this would have gone. Damon locked into her pretty quickly, but Evan didn’t really resist.
But it’s also a wakeup call, because what someone is willing to do is determined by their obsession.
It depends on the motivation again. If it’s Brandt, he’s trying to win.
It’s not about Evan. He wants to ruin her chances to make sure he wins.
Losing Mia a month before the performance should have hurt her production. So maybe things will calm down now.
But if it’s someone obsessed with Evan, what happens when they decide they want her no matter what?
The thought sends chills through my body.
“If it’s someone truly stalking her, then it’s not unreasonable that they might see us as threats and come after us.
” Hawk sits up and looks over at Damon. “It depends on the motivation, right? Do they want to own her, or do they just want to fuck up her life? We wanted to fuck up Chase’s life.
We never would have kidnapped him. But if this person feels like Annie owes them something more. ..”
He lets that hang over us. I’d prefer them to come after us. We can take it. Evan is strong and smart and could probably take mental torture, but she’s also soft. I can’t even think about someone violating her without my stomach turning and rage pumping through my veins.
“We keep our eyes open and keep digging.” Damon shakes his head. “She belongs to us.”
EvanAnn
Every moment of every day seems full. The days slide into each other. I’m fully immersed in the play, in my character. Mark’s and my chemistry rivals his chemistry with Mia, for which I’m grateful. If things fell flat between us, I would have been tempted to bring in someone else.
Mia hasn’t reached out in a few days, but from the little she’s said, something is horribly wrong. Her brother made it through surgery, but there’s still some risks involved. Apparently she can’t talk about what happened with anyone.
I wish she could. Talking with a friend would have made it easier to deal with my father’s impending death. But I also respect that if she needs to talk to me, she’ll let me know. I just need to make sure she knows I’m here for her.
“Goody?”
I turn and look at Cam. He gives me a small smile.
“You ready to go?”
When I glance at my phone, it’s almost ten o’clock. Everyone else left about an hour ago, but I wanted to go through the recordings to see if I missed anything. Time passed, and I didn’t even realize it.
“I’m so sorry, Cam.” I stand and start gathering my stuff.
He gets up and drops his bag next to my chair before helping me. “It’s okay. I’m at your service.”
“No, I should have just done this at home.” I shake my head.
Cam chuckles. “Like Damon would have given you an uninterrupted hour.”
“He’s not that bad,” I argue and look at Cam. “I just can’t focus as well in our bedroom.”
Cam touches my face, and I lean into his warmth as sparks drift through me. “You need to take more breaks.”
“Thank you.” I step into him and wrap my arms around his waist, resting my head against his beating heart. “You guys keep me tethered. And make sure all my needs are met.”
Cam laughs as he kisses the top of my head. “Come on. We should get out of here.”
I release him and turn back to the table. I pick up my laptop and find one of his red paper flowers crushed. “Oh, no.”
I put my laptop in the bag and turn back to the squished flower. “Oh, Cam, I didn’t even see when I did this.”
“It’s not a big deal, goody.”
The paper is coming undone and there’s ink toward the center. I spread it open a little more, and it unfurls completely. Inside is this little cartoon drawing. It’s the group of us on the bikes. It’s small but so detailed I can tell who is who.
“Cam?” I hold it up to him with questioning eyes.
He shrugs and smirks. “I like to doodle.”
“Doodle?” I inspect the drawing, which could compete with any of the drawings I’ve seen from the visual arts department. “This is better than a doodle. Are there pictures in all of the flowers?”
I keep every one of the flowers he’s given me on my desk. When I’m working, I love to glance over at them. They fill me with warmth every time.
“Of course.” Cam rubs my back.
My mouth opens and closes. “But to see them, I’d have to undo the flowers.”
“You could, or I can send you the pictures I took of the drawings before I made them into flowers.” Cam smiles down at me.
I grab his collar and drag him down to kiss him. He groans into my mouth and lifts me. I automatically wrap my legs around his waist, not thinking about where we are.
“Unless you want to give the janitor an eyeful, you really should lock the door.”
I jerk away from Cam at Damon’s voice. He stands near the door with his keys in his hands.
“You’re running late,” he says. “But don’t let me stop you.”
I lower my legs and back away from Cam. He releases me reluctantly with a cocky grin. “Sorry. Cam just made me realize the time.”
“We would have been there shortly.” Cam brushes his hand over my hip, and heat swells inside me. “Evan just wanted to go over her notes again.”
Damon presses his lips together. Probably wants to chastise me for not stopping, but I know the amount of time he spends working out and training. We’re probably on par for how much we put into our future careers. And he hasn’t even started hockey season yet.
They help me lock up, and Cam rides with us on the way to our house before heading to his. I can’t wait until we don’t have to say goodbye at the end of the day.