Page 16 of Stalked By the Recruiter

My lungs seized as I waited for the longest second of my life for it to load what I had asked him to get. And just like that,the screen filled with the live security footage in the library. The smile on my face grew when I spotted her. Standing at the main information desk, talking to her student employees. That cute colorful dress made my mouth water.

Fuck, how is it she seems to be prettier every time I see her?And now I could watch her while she worked. Flitting and fluttering from one end of the building to the other. I could watch her the entire day. The thought filled me with relief and peace I’d never experienced. Not as a single man who knew the sister he had raised was finished with school and about to embark on a life with her partner. Not even before when my parents had been alive.

Never.

My eyes moved from screen to screen as I watched her work. I didn’t have a camera in her office, but I did have one outside of it. I sat back and relaxed. The only thing that could have been better would have been standing at her side.

And despite knowing it was wrong, so fucking wrong, I could breathe. If only there were a way to watch her when she was at home. Maybe that was what I would work on next?

CHAPTER 6

CARMEN

Breaking and entering.

Trespassing.

Those were just a few of the laws I was about to break.

I didn’t know why, but I was going to do it. I’d left work early with one sole goal in mind, and I’d done it during my lunchtime. I couldn’t have done it at any other time. The man walked me home. And now we had somehow started walking together in the mornings, too.

There was no way he would know what I was up to if I left early. I’d return to the library before my shift was supposed to be over and act like I had been there the whole day. He wouldn’t know. He hadn’t figured out a thing the day before, and I had dared to go to the athletics building, where his office was.

It had been a week since he’d showed up with breakfast. A week of walking together, feeling like we started and ended our days together with the late-night chats that continued in our backyards. Neither of us suggesting one go over to the others place.Has he friend-zoned me? Am I his new buddy?If I was, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I didn’t want to be a buddy. I wanted to be more than that. I just didn’t know how to say it.

Liar,a vice perked up.You know the words; you just don’t have the guts,my blunt inner voice chided, and she wasn’t wrong.

Andres seemed like he was an open book.

Sharing all sorts of things.Good and bad.

Even his rocky relationship with his parents before they passed. He’d been an arrogant twenty-something living the high life of a division one football player, hopeful about going pro. Cocky arrogance and youth had made him a pain in the ass to deal with. His words. Then later, when his parents had died and he hadn’t been drafted to the NFL, he had to scramble and come up with a way to help raise his kid sister. Arrogance had turned into bitterness that had slowly eaten away at him.

He’d tried to be there for Betty, who sounded like an awesome young woman, but no matter what he did, he found a way to fuck things up. Again, his words. He didn’t shy away from telling me about all his screw-ups. Then, the year before, he’d really screwed up by trying to teach her a lesson about life when really, it was her who had taught him one.

One he hadn’t realized she had learned along with him.Life isn’t easy. Andres shared where bitterness and anger had filled him with rage and negativity, it’d done something different for her. She always tried to help others, looking for a way to make a difference because she knew just how short life was. He admired Betty and took complete responsibility for the way things turned out. Regretted and hoped he was working to change their relationship.

He knew there was no way to fix the stuff with his parents. It was too late. But he was working hard to connect with his sister, to be the family she deserved even if sometimes he felt like it was too late. Especially when she had a man of her own and with him came a big family.

Where many would have judged him and written him off as a walking, breathing red flag, I thought it was commendable. It was hard to admit when you messed up. But then to try and right that wrong? As a man? I’d met men who had done less and would never admit their errors. Or who had done worse.

The curiosity and pull toward Andres had grown. A lot.

I kept thinking about him. Wondering and wanting to know more. My thoughts had grown darker, too. When I slipped into bed after our late-night chats, my body felt hot. My skin pulled tight as the sound of his voice filled my head. And when my hands slipped under the sheets and between my legs, Andres was all I could think about and see when my eyes shut, and I found my way over the edge of bliss over and over.

Not only did I want to feel those big, rough calloused hands up and down my body, I wanted to be the keeper of all his secrets. Know every dark corner of him and let him do the same with me.

Then yesterday, right before lunch, I’d come up with an idea. One I couldn’t ignore. I left during lunch and walked around the building where his office was just to get a glimpse of him in his natural habitat. It was only fair since he had seen where I worked. Or at least that’s what I talked myself into believing.

Was I stalking him? Yes. No. Yes! I didn’t recognize myself. I’d sworn off men and dating. I’d been great at pushing possible interested ones away. But I was overcome with obsession. Throwing caution along with common sense out the window.

At lunch, I’d headed home and went straight to the corner of the garage where I kept the ladder my dad had given me as a housewarming present. One my mom had chastised him about giving me because when would I ever need a ladder?Seems like this time, Dad knew best.

I leaned it carefully between two cacti, climbed over to the other side, and jumped, landing perfectly.It’s stupid. Really damn stupid.

“You could lose your job over this,” I muttered under my breath. Stitch barked from my backyard, probably telling me it was a terrible idea. I didn’t know what I had expected I would find in Andres’ backyard. “Well, at least it’s not dead bodies or shallow graves,” I said to myself.

Artificial grass. An oversized folding chair, the kind you took camping or to your cousin’s kid’s soccer game, folded up neatly against the fence. It was where he sat and talked to me.

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