Colby put out a hand and tugged Keats to his feet. He grabbed the waistband of Keats’s jeans, pulling him close, and gave him a quick, openmouthed kiss. “Thanks for the song, kid.”
Keats’s gaze dropped to the floor, a strange lightness filling him. He smiled to himself. “Anytime, Teach.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Georgia had slept like the dead for what seemed like the first time in a year. Usually she woke up multiple times a night, plagued with nightmares or hearing phantom sounds in the house. But last night, she’d fallen asleep with comforting thoughts of the new turn in her life. Finally, she felt like she was finding her way through the dark cave and seeing thin shafts of light. She’d had two fantastic nights with Colby and had managed not to panic, even when she’d been tied up and fully under his control. And now her long days in her empty house would be filled with Keats’s teasing and laughter. Signs of life were leaking back into her existence.
She’d made that happen. She’d let these two men in her life and doors were opening inside her again, doors she’d long left locked and forgotten. Things were going to get better. She wasn’t broken forever. Leesha had been telling her that from the beginning, but now Georgia was finally allowing herself to believe it.
She shuffled into the kitchen in pursuit of industrial-strength caffeine, feeling a bit drunk and bleary-eyed from a night of such deep sleep. She’d set the coffeepot on a timer, and the smell alone was enough to perk her up. She needed all the help she could get because Keats had told her he’d be on a mission today to get her out and about with him. The guy wasn’t going to let her be a chicken for much longer. Especially after Keats had taken on his own fear last night and told her he was headed out to see Colby play at the bar so he could talk to him. She couldn’t wait to hear how that had turned out.
She smiled to herself and reached for an upper cabinet to pull out her favorite mug, while simultaneously opening the fridge to get the milk. But multitasking had been a bad idea. The heavy fridge door shut on her hand and when she yanked backward, she lost her grip on her mug with her other. The ceramic crashed to the floor. And in that shred of a second, all the bubbly happiness that had been coursing through her drained away, and everything inside her seemed to plummet at that chillingly familiar sound. No, no, no . . .
She gripped the edge of the counter, trying to hold on, but her eyes squeezed shut and she sank to her knees, the rush of memories and panic overwhelming her. The familiar movie reel from hell rolled behind her eyelids.
Georgia moved through her best friend’s kitchen, straightening this and that, unable to stay still as she waited for the electric kettle to come to a boil. Once she heard the steam starting to eke out, she grabbed a canister of the new chai tea blend she’d picked up a few weeks ago at a cute shop in downtown Chicago and spooned the loose leaves into her infuser. This blend was decaf, so she hoped it wouldn’t key up her nerves like coffee had lately.
But as she poured the hot water over the leaves, she knew it was hopeful thinking to blame it on the coffee. She hadn’t had a drop of caffeine yet this morning and already that unsettled, on-edge feeling was humming through her. These days it was like she was always plugged into a faulty outlet—electricity getting pumped into her system in large, uneven doses, her adrenaline always primed for the next time Phillip popped up unexpectedly.
Up until a few days ago, she’d convinced herself it was mostly harmless. Phillip had fixated on her after their breakup, and this was his way of getting over it—even if it was a little nuts. When she’d notified the cops of his stalker-like behavior, they’d assured her that as long as she didn’t engage him or encourage the behavior, Phillip would eventually move on. And with him doing nothing particularly threatening beyond calling her too much to profess his love, sending her bouquets of flowers, and showing up in places she happened to be, the cops couldn’t really help her anyway except tell her to change her phone number and take out a restraining order if she felt threatened.
But then Antonio, the new guy she’d started casually seeing, had called her two days ago to tell her his house had been broken into while he was out of town. His bed had been slashed up along with all his clothes. And when he’d gone into his garage, he’d noticed a faint smell and fluid stains beneath his car. If he hadn’t left the car sitting closed up in the garage for a week, he probably would’ve never noticed. But thank God he had because his brake lines had been punctured.
When he’d told her the story, Georgia had gone cold all over. Failed brakes had been what the police suspected had gone wrong on her good friend Tyson’s car when he’d crashed one late night driving home from work. He’d been killed on impact, and with not much left to examine after the car fire beyond the lack of skid marks, the cops had ruled it an accident most likely due to mechanical failure or driver intoxication. But it’d never felt right to Georgia. Tyson’s BMW had been only a year old, and Georgia had never known Tyson to drink on work nights.
But Phillip, Tyson’s friend and co-worker at the time, had stepped in to comfort her after the loss, and he’d confided that Tyson had started to drink when he worked late, that his caseload had been crushing him. Georgia had felt even more bereft after that. Not only had she lost a man she cared about, she’d failed him as a friend by not seeing that he was under too much stress and needed help.
But after the incident at Antonio’s, the pieces had started shifting into a new pattern, and she’d had the bone-chilling realization that Phillip might’ve been lying the whole time. That maybe he wasn’t lovesick, but truly sick. She’d rewound back to when she was happy and casually dating Tyson. Phillip had been around a lot—a good friend to Tyson. But looking back, Georgia could now see that maybe Phillip had made himself too available, too present. He’d subtly crept his way into her life by always volunteering to run errands or do favors. He’d become a go-to guy for both of them. From the outside, he’d seemed to just be an all-around nice guy. But now she had a feeling it had all been carefully calculated.
Phillip was a brilliant man and once they’d started dating, she’d never known him to go out of his way to do favors for others. Only for her. Had he developed an unhealthy obsession with her from the very beginning? All of her instincts were now pointing in that direction. And if that was the case, had he taken it upon himself to remove the only obstacle from having her? Tyson.
Her gut clenched at the thought. If Tyson had been killed because of her . . . God, she couldn’t even think about it. Sweet, sexy Tyson. They’d only dated casually, more friends with benefits than anything else, but he’d been a good man and a stand-up guy.
Yesterday, she’d taken her suspicions to the police. The detective she’d talked to had been skeptical, but that was his job. He’d asked a lot of questions and had assured her he’d look into it. She’d also gone ahead and filed that restraining order. So now all she could do was wait and worry. She was probably overreacting and coming up with far-fetched theories, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. She’d called her friend Leesha last night and had made arrangements to stay with her for a while so she wouldn’t be alone at her house if Phillip decided to show up.
But now that Leesha had left for work, Georgia couldn’t help but be unnerved by the creeping silence in the unfamiliar house. She wrapped her hands around her mug of tea and blew across the top, trying to bring her mind to a settled state. But before she could turn to head toward the living room, a hand grabbed the back of her hair, jerking her backward. The mug slipped from her grip and shattered on the floor, the spray of hot tea burning the tops of her bare feet.
A scream tried to escape, but a hand clamped over her mouth before she could make much of a sound.
“Don’t you dare,” the menacing voice uttered in her ear. “Don’t you think you’ve already caused enough trouble?”
Georgia couldn’t see who was behind her, but she’d know that voice anywhere. She screamed behind his hand again and tried to writhe out of his grip. But he was far bigger and stronger than she was.
“I’ve tried and tried to make you understand, sweetheart,” Phillip said, switching to
a soothing tone. “I’ve sent you flowers and letters. I’ve given you everything you could want. I love you and am not going to give up on us. Can’t you see that? We’re meant to be together. Do you know how hurt I was when I heard about the restraining order? Why would you do that to me?”
She whimpered behind his hand.
“You know, I think you’re just working too hard. The stress is messing with your head. You’re not thinking straight. Maybe you should see someone or take a break. We could go away together.”
She stretched forward, trying to reach the kettle, but it was just out of her reach.
“Now, now, none of that,” he said, his voice soft but his grip tight. “I want to work this out. I don’t want to fight. But you’re going to have to calm down and get your head together. Then you’re going to go to the cops and tell them you were mistaken. You were just hurt that I broke up with you.”
She made a sound of strangled disbelief.
“I won’t let you embarrass me, Georgia. What if my clients found out about the order?” He pulled her tighter against his body, the smell of his designer cologne burning her nostrils. “You don’t want to make me angry, sweetheart. I’ve tolerated your behavior these last few weeks because I know all couples go through rough patches. But I’m losing my patience. Don’t make me prove how far I’m willing to go for you.”