Page 81 of Only You and Me

“Uh, yes, it is,” I counter.

“No. It’s. Not.” She huffs and turns back to Fitz and Emily.

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

“What kind of situation?” Emily asks quietly. “Are you sick?” The last words come out as a whisper.

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

Emily’s eyes grow wide as saucers and Fitz puts a fisted hand over his mouth and sits back in his chair.

“Jesus, Trina. You don’t have a secret admirer. You have a goddamn stalker. Can you please take this more seriously?” I can’t hide my irritation. Even after today, she’s downplaying this.

Trina glares at me. “I am taking this seriously. I moved into your damn house. But there’s no need to upset my?—”

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

“Fine.” She shoots me one more dirty look and then focuses on Emily and Fitz. “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. No matter how many times I blocked them, they’d just start up again a day or so later.”

“God, Trina. Why didn’t you tell us?” Fitz asks. “Fuck, I should have asked for more details after you told Emily about it at the bachelorette party. I should have known you’d downplay it to her. Hell, I thought I was giving you space to come to me first. I’m a shit friend.” Fitz’s voice drips with guilt.

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 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 a video showing the attempt. And some other… stuff I’m not ready to talk about.”

“This psycho knows where you live?” Emily whispers.

Trina nods.

“This is why we have the extra security measures at the Fire station,” Fitz 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.”

Fitz nods at Emily’s words.

“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 of… well, just in case. And it’s 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. She’s trying to lighten the mood, but none of us laughs.

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

“There’ve 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.”

Emily glares at Fitz. “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.” Emily’s tone is dismissive.

“We will. Because you’re not staying here alone.”

She glares at Fitz. “You’re not the boss of me, Charlie.”

“Well, I’m the boss of this house so, there’s that,” he snarls back. “And I’m not leaving you out here like some sitting duck while I’m twenty minutes away at work.”

“Fine. I’ll resume my house hunting first thing tomorrow.”

“God, you’re so fucking stubborn,” Fitz growls.

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