Chapter 15
Fifteen
“Motherfucker!”
“You kiss your momma with that mouth?” Natalie asked drolly from the other end of the phone.
“I haven’t seen my momma since I was sixteen and you know it,” Roxy muttered sourly, her phone set to speaker. “I just feel like I’m losing my goddamn mind lately. My shampoo is gone, and I can’t find my teal sports bra or leggings either.”
Wracking her brain, she sank down onto the foot of her bed.
She couldn’t remember putting them in the wash after she’d gotten home from the not-a-date with Travis, but knew for a fact that she’d tossed them into the basket in the corner of the bedroom because she’d had to wrestle the damn sports bra off.
And the way he’d stared at her all evening in them… they were her new favorites.
Which was why she wanted to wear them to the gym tonight, just on the off chance that Travis would be there, too… since he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her the last time. She groaned.
“Actually, the entire outfit is gone. Leggings, sports bra, the jacket. I know I put them—” she stood, going through the motions to recreate it, tossing the invisible clothes onto the hamper.
She stepped over to it, digging behind it, but there was nothing there.
Turning back to the bed, she dumped the clean laundry out of the basket and into the middle of the mattress.
Rifling through, she shook her head in frustration.
There was no other laundry in the wash; this was all she had.
And they most definitely were not in the pile of clean clothes.
Ice filled her veins then. Had he come back? Had he gotten inside again, and taken her clothes?
Striding around the small house, she checked every window and both doors, but everything was secure.
Bobby had replaced the locks and double checked all the window locks, and she had the only copy of the key.
There was no way he was getting into her house, not now.
So those clothes had to be here somewhere.
“—do you want to go to Waylon’s tonight?”
“Huh?” Roxy asked, shaking herself back to the present at the sound of Natalie’s annoyed voice through the phone.
“Welcome back to Earth,” Natalie intoned sourly, and Roxy wondered how many times Natalie had asked that question already.
“I was asking if you wanted to go to Waylon’s tonight?
That new country band is playing tonight, go with meeee.
We haven’t been out for a girl’s night in months. You always bail on me.”
Natalie was right. Roxy hadn’t joined her for a girls’ night out since the roses had shown up in her kitchen. Paranoia had made her overly cautious, and with the note from two weeks ago…
But… she thought wistfully, chewing on the inside of her cheek, things had been uneventful the last two weeks.
Maybe the roses hadn’t been from Neal after all.
It could have been her imagination, the paranoia making her see him watching her from across the street at the gym.
She hadn’t actually seen him, just a flash of that dark hair across the street.
.. The note was admittedly slightly alarming, but altogether not threatening, exactly.
She could go out, just for a few hours. She would be in a highly public place, with Natalie, surrounded by people.
Bouncers, even. It would be fine. He wasn’t trying to hurt her. Even if it was creepy.
“You know what, why not? I think a night out at Waylon’s sounds perfect,” Roxy said into the phone still tucked under her ear. “I’m going to get a quick workout in, but I’ll see you there at nine?”
“Yesss!” Natalie whooped and Roxy rolled her eyes, then chewed on her bottom lip, her heart doing a little nervous flutter in her chest.
Because just one night out couldn’t hurt, right?