Page 86 of Stay With Me

Trina whips around to look at him and shakes her head. “Must you, Benjamin?”

He shrugs at her. “It’s true.”

“No, it’s not,” she argues. Her eyes narrow like lasers at him, her lips pursed in annoyance.

“Uh, yes, it is,” he counters.

Charlie and I sneak a quick glance at each other and the confusion I’m feeling is reflected back to me on his face.

“No. It’s. Not.” She huffs and turns back to Charlie and me, but I don’t miss the slight smirk on Ben’s face. I can’t help but think maybe he was trying to rescue her, without her realizing he was doing it.

“What is true is that I have been staying with Ben for a few weeks because of asituation.”

“What kind of a situation?” I ask quietly. “Are you sick?” The last words come out as a whisper and fear creeps into my heart.

“No. Nothing like that. I promise. Remember how I told you about my secret admirer?” I nod. “He’s gotten more persistent.”

I feel my eyes grow wide.

“Jesus, Trina. You don’t have a secret admirer. You have a goddamn stalker. Can you please take this seriously?” Ben face is tight with irritation.

I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard Ben angry until right this moment.

Trina glares at him. “Iamtaking this seriously. I moved into your damn house. Though it’s probably infested with God knows what from the type of women you likely brought home on the regular before I came to stay. But there’s no need to upset my?—”

“Enough.” Charlie’s voice is loud and commanding. “Trina, Emily is an adult and we both love you. And we’ve noticed something is off. So, stop arguing with him for two minutes and tell us what the hell is going on.”

I swallow the lump in my throat while I wait for her to continue.

“Fine.” She shoots Ben one more dirty look and then focuses on me and Charlie. “It started a few months ago. When I got those flowers at work. They kept coming. Every week. I talked with Chief, and we started declining the deliveries but that seemed to escalate the situation. I’ll spare you all the details but, eventually, I started getting hang up calls, then text messages from random phone numbers and no matter how many times I blocked them, they’d just start in again a day or so later.”

“God, Trina. Why didn’t you tell us?” Charlie asks.

Trina tries to sound unbothered and casual, but there’s a faint quivering in her voice. “I thought it wasn’t a big deal until”—she pauses and takes a few breaths—“until he started sending photos of me around town. Of me walking into work, leaving the gym, at the bachelorette party. And a few weeks ago, when I was at work, it appears someone tried to get in my house around three a.m. The alarm system went off, but there was video showing the attempt.”

“This psycho knows where you live?” I whisper.

Trina nods.

“This is why we have the new security measures at the Fire Station.” Charlie states, as if it’s suddenly making sense.

“And you’re staying with Ben because he’s a detective? And it’s safer? You could stay here with me and Charlie.” I look over at Charlie and he nods.

“First of all, the worst place for me to be is probably on the outskirts of town where there are no neighbors close in case… well, just in case. And it is safer with Ben because he’s got his damn house locked down like Fort Knox. I’m surprised he doesn’t have motion sensing lasers he turns on at night.” Trina forces a smile, but it doesn’t meet her eyes.

“It’s not our intention to frighten you, Emily, but we thought you both should know. And Trina and I finally agree on something—we don’t think you should be out here alone on nights Fitz is at the station,” Ben says.

“And there’s been no threats to you or anything. I promise,” Trina hurries to add. “But, if this person found all this out about me, I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you because of it.”

“Don’t worry about me. God. I’m fine here by myself. But you have to catch this guy, Ben.”

“No, sunshine.”

I glare at Charlie. “No, what?”

“No, they’re right and we’re not gonna take a chance that this lunatic comes here when you’re alone. If he’s been watching Trina, he’s probably seen you and knows you’re important to her.”

“We’ll talk about this later.” I try to convey to Charlie with my tone that I don’t want to have this discussion right now.

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