Page 37 of Rival for Rent

“Why don’t you want the cops to see it?”

He hunched his shoulders. “I just…don’t.”

He was obviously lying, but I didn’t want to argue with him about it. He was in shock, and I could tell he wasn’t thinking clearly.

So I nodded and said, “Okay. Fold it back up. When we get home, you can put it in a Ziploc bag to keep it safe.”

And to keep him from touching it anymore, but I didn’t add that part.

Kai looked at me and asked, “Home?”

“Your home, I mean. It’ll be a while, since who knows how long it’ll take for the cops to get here, but I promise, I will get you home safely.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to call the police.”

That was a line I wasn’t willing to budge on. “Kai, we have to. This is a crime. Even if it weren’t connected to everything else, it’s destruction of your personal property. It needs to be reported. Your insurance is going to want to see the paperwork before they’ll pay for a new windshield.”

Honestly, he was rich enough he could just buy a new car. Buy ten new cars. But still, we needed to report this.

His arms were still tight around himself, and I saw him shiver. “I can’t, Mason. Not tonight. I can’t handle going over everything again. It’s too much.”

“That’s the exact reaction your stalker is trying to provoke. They want you to feel hopeless. Helpless. You can’t give into that.”

“Can’t I?” he shot back. “You don’t know what it’s like, living every day waiting for the other shoe to drop. Wondering if today is the day someone crazy decides your time on earth is over.”

“I know more about that than you think,” I said quietly.

“Well, maybe I’m not as strong as you are,” he said. “This is fucking with my head. I know I’m supposed to do everything by the book, but right now, I’m this close to losing it, and if I have to go sit in Detective Myers’s office again tonight, I will scream.”

Honestly, that was fair. Myers had the emotional range of drywall—and coming from me, that was saying something.

I watched Kai closely. He did look close to the edge. Pale, tight-lipped, his hands twitching like he couldn’t settle. He wasn’t going to be able to think clearly until he got some rest.

“Okay,” I said finally. “Alright. We don’t have to call them tonight. Let’s get you home.”

He gave me a skeptical look. “Really? No snide comments about how you can’t trust me to call them unless I’m standing right in front of you?”

“I’m not being snide when I say that,” I told him. “I’m being practical. And I don’t need to say it, because I’m not letting you out of my sight tonight. I’m staying over, and we can call them together in the morning.”

It wasn’t quite as simple as that, of course. Kai objected to me staying at his house, though not as hard as I expected. He must have been more shaken than he let on. Still, it took us a while to get there. He didn’t want to drive his car, and he didn’t want me driving it either, so we had to call a town car to pick us up.

Once we got home—his home, not mine, I reminded myself—he still wouldn’t settle. He paced the whole first floor while I unpacked his groceries. I was horrified by the state of his kitchen. Not messy—just barren. His shopping choices were pure chaos. Milk but no coffee. Bread, but nothing to go on it. Eggs, but no oil, butter, or pan spray. A whole frozen chicken, but no sides. Very ‘grocery list assembled during a low blood sugar episode.’

I made him sit and eat the sandwich he’d bought. He only got through half before claiming he was full. Fine. I was starving, so I finished the rest myself.

Eventually, I convinced him to go upstairs and lie down. He said he wouldn’t be able to sleep, and maybe he wouldn’t, but I told him to rest anyway. “Give your body whatever rest you can. Ilearned a long time ago that something is better than nothing when it comes to sleep.”

He eyed me warily. “Where are you going to sleep?”

That glare—like he thought I might try to crawl into his bed with him. I sighed. “On the couch.”

“There aren’t any sheets. Only one blanket. I have a guest room upstairs.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“There aren’t even real pillows down here. You can’t sleep on throw pillows all night.”

“I’ve slept in way worse situations than this. Compared to some of the places I’ve stayed, your couch is the Hilton.”

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