Page 15 of Backed By You
“Probably show up in sweats and a tank top,” she teases.
I laugh, changing into the new dress that is much easier to get into by myself and has thin spaghetti straps. It needs to be taken in a smidge at the waist, but Shea will have it ready for me before the premiere in six weeks. “No nip slips this year, I’m afraid,” I say as I walk out of the closet and head for the mirror.
“Oh god. Remember your first premiere?” A nostalgic smile plays on her lips as she laughs. “You were so nervous. I thought you were going to flash the cameras on purpose just to get it over with.”
I snort. “I’m shocked that dress didn’t do it for me.” I turn several times and test sitting before announcing, “This is it. I love it, Shea. You hit it out of the park once again.”
My best friend squeals, waking Hulk with a start. “Sorry, big boy,” she coos, petting his head before returning her attention to me. “Unfortunately, I don’t have any shoes to go with that dress, so…”
I roll my eyes.Sounfortunate. “Yes, we can go shopping tomorrow,” I agree. Shea beams. “I have to meet with Nathan to go over some last-minute security for the after party, but I should be free by noon.”
“Lunch and shoe shopping it is,” she says, but her smile quickly falters. “Wait. Did you saysecurity? Did something happen?”
Worry etches into her face and I shake my head. “No. I mean, not…yet.”
Shea sighs. “Callie.”
“Don’t waste your breath.” I spin and sashay my way into the closet to change into my clothes, hoping she’ll let it go, but she never does. “I’d rather be safe than sorry,” I call out. The cliché makes me sound like my father, but it’s not a lie in the slightest.
I’ve been sorry more than once in the last nine years.
“I understand that, but it’s been over a year,” she says from the other room. “The police caught the bastard. He’s rotting in some jail cell—hopefully with some other asshole who stinks to high heaven making his measly life even worse.”
I come out in my high-waisted denim shorts and tank. “I know.”
“We went over the statistics.”
“I know.”
“You said that was enough.”
“And it…was,” I admit with a sigh, recalling Shea’s excessive amount of Googling that day when we learned one in twelve women are a victim of stalking at least once in their lifetime.
Unfortunately for me, I’ve had three…
The first one was in high school. A friend of a friend who thought it’d be fun to hack into my webcam and watch me from my computer. Thankfully, that got shut down rather quickly, but it was almost a year before he stopped following me around school.
The second was in college. A bitter ex-boyfriend who refused to let go for two years, regardless of the restraining orders or threats from my father.
And the most recent…a crazed fan. I’ve gotten hate mail to marriage proposals, but this was different than anything I’d dealt with in the past. He broke into my apartment. He left messages on the walls with ideas on how theDevil’strilogy should end. There were pictures of me hanging on the doors of coffee shops I frequented. My clothes went missing, vases of flowers would appear in random rooms, my phone—no matter how many times I changed the number—would ring with no one on the other end.
I moved around, living between Shea’s and my father’s, terrified to stay in one place for too long. That was when I met Hulk. Dad called in a few favors and got Hulk certified quickly at my therapist’s recommendation. She called it ‘extreme paranoia’ while my dad claimed PTSD.
And when Matthew Ryan sets his mind to something—like Hulk being my ‘cure’—there were no legal bounds to keep him from making damn sure his little girl had the constant protection she needed.
One I am more than grateful for.
“You haven’t been having any issues in Montana, have you?” Shea asks. “Because if you are, you can come back here and live with me. Or I can talk to my dad and see if we can stay at one of the resorts for a while. You know he cares about you, too.”
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss California—the beach,notthe people—but Montana is a whole different world. The people are kinder, the weather grants you all four seasons, and the beauty of the mountains is unmatched.
I smile faintly. “Whitetail has been good to me so far. And I haven’t had any issues, really. I mean, other than my grumpy landlord.”
“Duke?”
“No, his brother. Beau.” I scrunch my nose at the very thought of our last encounter and his gripe over my choice of footwear.
Shea smirks. “Ah, yes, the big, muscly soldier with the nice chest hair.”
