Chapter 12
“Thank you again for this.” Jackie smiled, flipping her pink hair over her shoulder.
“No worries. You feel ready now for your test?” She nodded, her attention moving behind me. “What is it?” I asked, looking back but not seeing anything but darkness that shadowed with the trees that lined the pathway I would have to take.
“Nothing. I just thought I saw… hmm.” She shook her head. “But yes, I feel so ready. Hopefully, I can get a semi-decent grade, pass, and never have to take another math class ever again.”
“Math is good for you.” I playfully hip-checked her. She groaned.
“Good for nothing,” she mumbled. “But I need it for my business degree.”
“And you’re going to do better than just pass.” I was confident she understood the main concepts of the section she was going to be tested on.
“Thanks. You’re good for my ego.” She grinned, then her brows wagged. “Tea time. I heard a little something I meant to ask you earlier.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah… what’s this about two baseball players getting in a fight over you on Friday night at the Omega party?!”
“They didn’t fight over me.” I laughed.
“Jason Lucas went to defend your honor and walked you home?” I shrugged. “I didn’t know you were seeing him. Makes sense now.”
“Why’s that?”
“How he’s always hanging around after our tutoring.”
“What?” I stilled, smiling at her, trying not to give away the fact she had tossed me a curveball, so to speak.
“Yeah, after our usual tutoring sessions, he’s always waiting out by the trees.” I blinked and kept the smile on my face. “I just can’t believe you weren’t in a rush to make me leave so you could go hang with him.”
“Right.” I swallowed.
“Lucky girl.” She looked over, and when I turned, I saw him.
Barely. Hidden in the line of trees, wearing nothing but a black hoodie and dark joggers while leaning against a tree.
“Ugh, talk about swoon worthy. He’s so patient now that I think about it. I guess it’s from playing baseball, huh? Waiting for the ball to come to them and stuff.”
“Patient?”
“Yeah… I mean, you guys have been seeing each other for what? Two months now if I think about it? And you didn’t say anything, you sneaky girl.” She poked my side, and I turned to look at her. “Good for you, babe.”
“Right, well, I should…”
“See you Thursday?” I nodded, half-listening as my heart thundered loudly in my chest.
I walked down the steps but didn’t look in his direction.
Not as things started to slide into place. The way I’d felt the last few weeks, two months to be exact, like someone was watching me. Following me.
Jason had been watching me.
Learning my schedule god only knew how.
It all clicked and made sense now. Things he’d known this weekend.
Small things he’d known that hadn’t made sense if we’d just met on Friday.
Little things I’d brushed off as lucky guesses or pure coincidence or to the fact that maybe I hadn’t remembered mentioning things in passing since we’d stayed up late talking in the darkness of the nights we’d spent together.
This past weekend had been the first time I hadn’t felt those eyes on me. That attention at the back of my head, like two eyes looking right at me I couldn’t spot no matter how hard I tried to find them in the shadows.
It had been Jason. Jason Lucas was stalking me?
I’m crazy about you.
You’re mine.
You’re my everything.
Words I’d taken as sweet were now laced with something more. Something possessive. Obsessive. Jason’s words volleyed inside my head, repeating over and over as they bounced around. And instead of being terrified of the truth, it felt like a shot of adrenaline had been injected into my veins.
I wasn’t stupid.
I might not have known exactly who he was when I’d seen him in the elevator just a couple of days ago, but I’d known how beautiful he was. I had been more than aware of the way the girls and even some guys looked at him. He was beautiful. And he wanted me?
I tried to talk myself out of it, to tell myself this was some kind of game or scheme, but I refused to lie to myself.
I shivered but somehow managed to keep my steps steady.
I kept my head up as I walked, thinking about the fact he was hiding in the shadows, leaning against a tree while watching me from afar.
And it wasn’t for the first time.
This wasn’t some random moment he chose to come see me out of the blue out of concern for my safety.
I didn’t have proof, nothing like the kind Jackie had unknowingly handed me, but I knew.
And instead of it terrifying me, making me rush towards him and yell at him for some kind of explanation or at the very least rush off to the closest on-campus cop and ask for help, a rush of excitement washed through me.
I was sick. Sick, sick, sick in the head if the idea of Jason Lucas stalking me for months was getting me this excited. Turned on?
Jason was stalking me.
Following me.
Watching me.
Not just during late-night tutoring sessions or the night classes I’d taken during the summer.
I might not have the proof, but I’d felt him.
I’d thought I was imagining things, that I was being absurd, but I hadn’t been.
Jason had been lurking, watching me what I was almost sure had been on a daily basis for the last two months at all different times of the day.
Something came over me.
I didn’t turn to check if he was behind me. My heartrate spiked. I knew he was there. I could feel him.
My mind raced as I kept walking across campus in a fog. My headphone blared as I tried my damnedest not to think. I tried to distract my thoughts from forcing my ears to figure out if I could hear just how close his footsteps were behind me.
He’d approached me on Friday after tutoring. Opening the door for me. Why? Had he thought I wouldn’t remember him from the elevator? Had it been an accident or had it been time? Had we been on that elevator together by accident? Had the fight between him and the Omega been real or fake?
My head spun with unanswered questions.
But I knew for certain he wasn’t playing games.
This wasn’t some stupid game or bet. This was real.
I wasn’t going to try to convince myself otherwise.
You’re my girl. One day my wife and mother of my future kids.
His words repeated in my head softly as I passed the dorm building and kept walking.
I wasn’t sure why, but I knew exactly where I was going to make him chase me.
Where this would end with him telling me the truth and me telling him mine.
Because if I was honest, the fact alone I was walking and not running away, not screaming for help, was answer enough. Jason hadn’t been wrong. I was his.
But that also made him mine.