Page 48 of Shadowing Her Stalker

The answer was simple and mostly true. Chris had grown more than a little pompous, but he’d never been lacking in the self-esteem department. Tom was surlier and more reticent with her these days, but she’d chalked it up to a natural drift. Plus, the run-up to the stock offering was forcing him out of his happy place behind a keyboard and into the spotlight. A part of her hoped they’d both revert to the easygoing guys she’d met on dormitory move-in day, but she knew it wasn’t likely. She wasn’t the same starry-eyed young dreamer she’d been then, either.

“Have you ever...?” he started, then stopped. She looked up at him, all too aware of what his next question would be. She’d been asked dozens of times. Still, for some reason, it nettled to know it would be coming from Wyatt. But when he spoke, his surety surprised her. “You’ve never been romantically involved with either of them.”

She shook her head. “No. I mean, Chris hit on me once. He’d come home from a party drunk our freshman year. I didn’t take it personally, though. The minute I said no, he turned his attention to another girl on our floor.” She gave him a weak smile. “As far as I know, he hasn’t changed much. Chris’s focus has always been money. The business. Women come and they go,” she explained with a dismissive wave. “I’ve never known him to be serious about anyone.”

“And Tom?”

“Tom was as focused as Chris, but more on the nuts and bolts. We, uh, he liked what I was doing with the meditation stuff. Tom was the one who convinced Chris to put it out there. They were light on content, and as I told you before, I was working for takeout in the early days.”

“And your relationship with him never...crossed any lines?”

Her cheeks heated, but she held his gaze as she dismissed the notion. “No. I think... There was a time when I thought maybe he had feelings for me,” she admitted. Gritting her teeth to ward off the blush threatening, she pushed through. “But I didn’t, um, encourage him, and he never...pushed.” She looked down at her hands, then chanced a peek at him from under her lashes. “I think his feelings sort of...fizzled. You know how it is. Nothing more than a crush.”

“Who do you want to call first?” he prompted.

“Tom,” she answered without hesitation.

Wyatt made a sort of there-it-is motion to the phone, and Cara couldn’t help feeling she’d given her growing discomfiture away. Curling her lips in, she bit down gently as she took up the phone and dialed the number she’d jotted in her spiral-bound notebook. The call went directly to voicemail. When the tone sounded, she swallowed hard and did her best to keep her tone chipper. Upbeat.

“Hey, Tom. It’s me. I guess Zarah has been keeping you guys up to date with what’s happening with me. I, um, well, I was only checking in. Give me a call when you can,” she finished, then jabbed at the red button to end the call.

“Well. Okay. Strange,” she muttered under her breath.

Wyatt tapped a finger on the table to prompt her to look up at him. “Why strange?”

She exhaled long and low, her lips curving in a sad smile. “I can’t remember the last time he didn’t take my call.”

“It’s an unknown number.”

She allowed her smile to grow and the blush to come. “Right. Makes sense. Logically. Feels strange though.”

“Do you want to try Chris, or wait until after Tom calls you back?”

Cara caught the corner of her lip between her teeth. Staring down at the phone with its generic background and out-of-the-box ringtone, she tried to smother the unease she felt with Wyatt’s confidence the call would be returned.

“I’ll call him now,” she said, grabbing the phone before she lost her nerve.

Once again, her call went to voicemail. She could feel Wyatt’s all-consuming stare taking in every word and each morsel of nuance as she spoke. Drawing on all her years of training, Cara left the same chipper message for him, careful to say nothing more or less than she had to Tom.

When she hung up, a heavy blanket of silence fell over the room. Unable to sit still and wait, she pushed out of her chair. “More coffee?”

Wyatt declined with a shake of his head. “Your eyeballs are going to start spinning.”

“I’m going to grab some water.”

When she returned with two glasses filled with tinkling ice cubes, he was speaking into his own phone.

“No, I appreciate you calling me back, man,” he said to the mystery caller. Mouthing an apology, he got up from the table as she reclaimed her seat, motioning his intention to take the call outside.

Cara sat at the dining table, studying the porcelain figurines her grandmother had collected for as long as Cara could remember. Her mother had helped Cara pick a new one for every birthday and Christmas Grandma June had celebrated. She’d displayed them on nearly every open surface at the old house. Now they stayed locked in a glass case, waiting for someone to take notice of them.

At times she felt like one of those Precious Moments dolls. There were days she felt her contributions to LYYF captured something innately human and essential. Other days, she wondered if she was purely decorative. She picked up her silent phone and scowled at it. The dark screen of her phone bounced her reflection back at her and she quickly altered her expression. There had been a time when she’d spent hours looking into mirrors, trying to nail the emotions with a simple shift in facial features. She could, when necessary, inject deep feeling into her tone.

Tom and Chris used to love it when she drew on her theatrical training to place their delivery or drive-through orders. “Tacos!” she’d exclaim into the speaker, breathless with desperation. “I need six tacos and a bean burrito or they’ll kill me!” But LA servers were often actors or wannabe actors themselves. They rarely rose to the bait, even when she gave a performance her best friends declared Oscar-worthy.

“I called a guy I knew from the academy,” Wyatt said as he strode back into the room, jolting her from her memories.

“Yeah?” she managed.

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