“McCoy … he told me to meet him here. He said he wanted to talk to me.”
The Warriors restaurant seemed like a weird place to request a meeting to get into her pants, but he certainly had enough authority to make the wait staff disappear if he needed them to.
Taylor tried to steady her breathing, then said, “He’s been bothering me for a while. At first I didn’t mind him flirting. It was flattering, you know? He said some stuff about … about wanting to sleep with me.” Her cheeks flushed bright red. “I mean, not so blatantly. He dropped hints. I told him to stop and he did for a while, but-”
“But what?”
“I agreed to meet him today to make sure he got the message. I thought I’d be safe here.”
She dissolved into sobs again, and I held her close to me, stroking her hair until she was ready to speak again.
“He told me he isn’t going to give up,” she said. “Then he … he …”
An array of disturbing images hurtled into my mind. How long had they been alone?
“What did he do, Taylor?”
“He put his hands on me … on my shoulders, then my waist, and he pushed me against the wall and tried to kiss me. He only let go when I slapped him.”
It all sounded familiar, but this wasn’t the same as what he did to me. He hadn’t scared me. Taylor was terrified. She clung to me, her tears dampening my shoulder, but I didn’t let her go. She swanned around in designer clothes, oozing confidence, but seeing her so fragile reminded me that she was little more than a child.
The look of fury on McCoy’s face as he’d stomped past me had embedded itself in my brain. I’d never seen him look that way before, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised. He always went for what he wanted, even if it was off limits.
Especially if it was off limits.
“This is all my fault,” Taylor said, her voice trembling. “I guess I made him think I -”
“Taylor,” I interrupted, “even if you’d walked past him naked, it wouldn’t have given him the right to touch you. You told him to leave you alone, and he didn’t.”
“But I - “
“No. This is not your fault, and this needs to be stopped right now.”
“How?”
The only suggestion I had was to give him a swift kick in the balls, but that would only cause him pain in the short term. I had visions of cutting them off.
“I don't want to make trouble,” Taylor said. “I just want him to leave me alone.”
“Oh, he’ll leave you alone. I’ll make sure of it.”
“You're not gonna say anything to him, are you?”
In my mind, there were two options. Talk to him, or talk to Richard. After all, McCoy had sexually harassed her at his place of work. If I went to Richard, there was no way it would remain a secret. Not that he deserved to have it kept under wraps. But for Taylor’s sake?
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“I don't know,” she said, putting her head in her hands. “Do you think talking to him will make a difference?”
“Maybe. Maybe if he knows you've told someone he's bothering you, he'll back off.”
She took a minute to mull over my offer, then said, “It's worth a shot.”
“I’ll try,” I promised. “But if he does anything like this again, it’ll need to be taken to Richard. Perhaps the threat of destroying his career will make him stop.”
The way her shoulders slumped forwards told me she was too broken to disagree. I sat with her for the next thirty minutes, until the staff began to filter back into the restaurant. She had to meet Jesse and she was adamant that she didn’t want him to find out about McCoy so I went with her to the restroom so she could freshen up and reapply her make-up. Although she’d washed the tear stains from her cheeks, the worry hadn’t left her eyes but she plastered a smile on her face, and I gave her a hug before sending her out to Jesse.