Stalker Problems - Chapter 66 - The L Word
Falling three stories into the river sobered me up fast. My initial belly flop probably would have been enough, but then the water was freaking freezing. Worst of all though was the panic of watching the yacht float away.
Was I going to die here? It seemed like a fitting end for me - embarrassing myself beyond belief and then drunkenly throwing myself overboard. Drowning in my awkwardness.
“Help!” I screamed. But no one heard me. Yup….this is how I’m going to die. “Help!!!” I screamed again. A guy looked over the side of the yacht and pointed at me. A second later Tanner dove over the railing. Oh, thank God.
He wrapped his strong arms around me and pulled me back to the yacht.
Nigel lowered a little ladder for us to climb.
Tanner let me go up first. A whole crowd had gathered to see the dumb girl who’d fallen overboard.
Great. My face flushed. Everyone was staring at me.
No…not just me. They were staring at my breasts.
Fuck. My. Life. My coverup and bikini top must have caught on the railing as I flipped overboard.
Because the only things left on my body were my bikini bottom and boots.
Which meant I was flashing everyone. I threw my hands over my breasts.
Incident #6 was worse than I’d ever imagined.
It just kept piling on. I was still drowning in awkwardness even though I was standing on two shaking legs.
I considered jumping overboard again to hide, but the water was too damned cold for that.
Tanner wrapped a towel around me and glared at the crowd. “Show’s over,” he said, waving everyone away.
“Thank you,” I said, my teeth chattering from the cold.
“What the hell were you thinking?” asked Tanner. “And why’d you get naked in the river? That water is freezing. Are you trying to catch a cold?"
I slapped his arm. “I didn’t mean to do either! This is all your fault. What did you put in that Kool-Aid? Did you roofie me?!”
A smile tugged on the corner of his mouth. “Ooohhh. It all makes sense now.” He laughed. “Sorry about that. I didn’t realize it was spiked.”
“I’m glad you think my humiliation is so funny.” My wet hair dripped onto my shoulders. I pulled the towel tighter around myself.
“I mean…have you ever seen someone run straight into a railing and flop off the side of a yacht?”
I tried to picture it. He was right - it was pretty hilarious. “I think I might need you to reenact it for me,” I said.
“Maybe some other time.” He wrapped another towel around my shoulders and I finally stopped shivering.
“Well at least be a gentleman and immediately sell all your shares of Wineflix and Chill.”
“Why? You worked so hard to make this all possible.”
“Um…maybe because everyone in the company just saw my boobs?” And heard me yell on the dancefloor about making you cream your shorts.
“They’re probably all too drunk to remember. And you shouldn’t be too embarrassed. You have lovely boobs.” His eyes went to the knot in my towel.
“Oh yeah?” I opened my towel and flashed him.
What am I doing? Oh, right. I’m still kinda drunk.
Not drunk enough to tell him I loved him again, though.
God, what had I been thinking? I needed to sober up and fast. I tapped the side of my face like I was trying to slap myself sobber. Yeah, I’m so drunk.
“So about what I said earlier…” Well, this conversation will definitely sober me up.
An awkward silence filled the air.
Kill me now. “I wasn’t trying to say that I loved you. I was just so happy that Joe and Sierra’s relationship is a total joke. Combine that with the spiked Kool-Aid, and I chose my words poorly.”
“I really didn’t think anything of it,” said Tanner.
“Oh.” Great! So why was he staring at me like he was thinking about it? His eyebrows lowered as he continued to stare at me. I swallowed hard.
“At least, I didn’t until you totally freaked out and jumped overboard. That was my first hint that maybe you had actually meant that you love me.”
“What?” I laughed awkwardly. “Ha, no. I wasn’t freaking out about saying I loved you. I just wanted to go for a swim.”
“You’re a terrible liar. And that’s just one of the many things that I love about you.”
“Don’t mock me.”
Tanner shook his head. Then he grabbed either side of my face and looked into my eyes. “Ash. From the moment you started stalking me, I knew that you were special. But I didn’t know how special you were until you hit me with a door and laughed in my face. Seriously…who does that?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.” He brushed a strand of wet hair off my face.
“And that’s another thing I love about you.
You never mean to do any of the crazy stuff that you do.
It just comes naturally. I’m so sorry I’ve been pushing you away all this time.
I’m just…I’m not used to something like this.
Something real. My whole life has just been lies.
Running from one city to the next. Waiting for DODO to catch up to me. ”
I couldn’t speak. Or maybe I just didn’t want to speak. Or move. I just wanted this very moment to last forever.
“I’ve had close calls with DODO before. But this time, when you bugged my phone…
it was different. Because instead of grabbing my go-bag and running, I grabbed a pen and wrote you a letter.
And in that moment, I realized that I cared more about spending one more night with you than I did about DODO bagging me.
And I can’t run away from something like that.
For once in my life I want to have something real, even if it’s the last thing I do. You’re it for me, Ash. I love you.”
I wiped a tear from my cheek. That was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me. “Is this real life?” I asked. “Please tell me I’m not having another crazy vampire sex dream?”
He smiled and kissed me. And kissed me. And kissed me some more. Just as I reached for the button on his tuxedo shorts, a horrible whooping sound filled the air. Then people started screaming as glass shattered.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
One of the Spaceboy drones dropped out of the sky and smashed on the deck a few feet in front of us.
It was followed by a lederhosen-clad monkey.
He did a little roll and then sprung to his feet.
I couldn’t see his eyes under his space helmet, but I was pretty sure the little pervert was staring right at my towel.
“The monkeys got free!” yelled a woman running towards us. One monkey jumped on her shoulders while another tore her bikini top off. “Ahhh!”
Another woman befell a similar fate a second later. And someone else jumped into the river to avoid the monkeys.
More crashing and screaming. Everyone started running around. More people jumped into the water. I watched as another monkey lifted up some girl’s skirt and slapped her butt. God, those handsy little monkeys were ruining the launch party!
“Do something!” I screamed to Tanner as more people hurled themselves into the freezing water. Fuck! This was being live-streamed to people all over the world!
Tanner lowered his eyebrows and just watched the scene unfold.
How was he so calm right now? I watched as one of the monkeys stole some man’s toupee and started sashaying around like they were channeling Homeless Rutherford. I wanted to laugh. Or cry. What the hell was happening?
“Tanner!” I screamed as one of the monkeys swung a sword around that he must have stolen from the armory. The little guy started running toward us.
“Enough,” said Tanner. Then he snapped his fingers and all the monkeys stopped. It was like they were frozen. They looked so docile and cute after almost destroying the whole boat and sexually assaulting all the guests. The one running toward us dropped his sword and sat down.
“How did you…?”
Tanner smiled at me. His voice must have been so commanding that all the monkeys just obeyed him. He was such a boss. A hot, sexy, total boss.
But then his smile disappeared behind a thick black bag. Someone dressed in all black commando gear pulled him backwards off the side of the boat and into a little dinghy. It was already speeding away by the time I could process what had just happened.
Oh fuck. “Tanner!” I screamed and ran to the railing. Oh God. No. “Tanner!” But the boat had disappeared into the darkness faster than I thought possible.
I couldn’t care less about the disaster of a party behind me. Tanner had just been taken. By…DODO. I think. Or maybe it was Club Onyx? Damn it! I had no idea. But those assholes had just stolen my boyfriend!
Not on my watch. Whoever they were. Whatever they were. They’d messed with the wrong girl. Because I was a great freaking stalker. And they were about to get stalked so good. Tanner had nothing to fear.
I picked up the sword that the pervert monkey had dropped. I got this.
***
Tanner has been taken! Will Ash be able to find him?
Keep reading to find out in This Is War !