“Move closer to them, right now. Cross the road. I’m coming. Stay on the phone.”
I glance left and right, then quickly cross the street.
The man follows me.
I move to the group of people, which looks like a family group just finishing up at the park. I go right up to the woman who has just finished putting her son in. “Excuse me?”
She looks up at me, a little weary. “Can I help you?”
“I’ve just finished my shift at work and was walking to the store when I noticed that man following me.” I turn and nod at the man who is standing by a light post now, just watching me, not coming any closer. “I’m feeling really uneasy. Can I stand with you until my friend comes to collect me?”
The woman looks over to the man, who despite the fact that it’s getting dark, is hiding behind a pair of shades. But, he’s not taking his eyes off me.
“Of course. Let me alert my husband.”
The woman calls out to her husband, who is talking to another man beside the car in front of this one. He walks over and she informs him of the situation. I can hear Jagger muttering something on the phone, and the sounds of him driving can be heard.
“You don’t know this man?”
Her husband’s eyes are watching the man who is now seemingly a bit more weary of the situation and turns his back to us.
“No,” I say.
“I’ll go and ask what his problem is,” he mutters.
“No, please don’t,” I say, reaching out and taking his arm. “I don’t know if he’s dangerous and you have children. He’s not coming closer, my friend is nearly here.”
The man nods, but his eyes don’t move off the stranger who is now quickly moving away from us, obviously realizing that we’ve figured him out.
Less than five minutes after that, Jagger arrives. He leaps out of his truck the second it has pulled over, eyes scanning the streets as he strides toward me. He stops when he reaches the group and doesn’t even acknowledge them before taking my shoulders in his hands and murmuring, “You good?”
I nod. “He’s gone.”
“Where?”
“He went that way pretty quickly when she stopped us,” the husband murmurs, pointing to where the man went.
Jagger thanks him, and I do the same, and then we climb into his truck and he takes off, doing a few laps of the streets to see if he can see anyone, but the man has gone. He takes me to the store and doesn’t leave my side as I get a few things for dinner, then he takes me home. Once I arrive at the apartment, he turns to me. “This man, what did he look like?”
“It was hard to tell, he was wearing shades and dark clothes. He was tall, bald, white, that’s as much as I could tell you.”
Jagger nods sharply.
“Should I be worried?” I ask, a little concerned by his lack of explanation.
“No,” he mutters, but I don’t believe him.
Something doesn’t feel right.
“Jagger?”
He looks to me. “Are you good, Willow?”
He’s dismissing me.
“Please don’t dismiss me, I’m worried.”
His eyes run over me. “You haven’t spoken to me for days, I’m not dismissing you, but I have shit to deal with. I can’t ... I can’t be here with you.”
He looks tired—he looks utterly exhausted, actually.
I frown. “Is something going on?”
He stares straight ahead, not answering me.
“Jagger,” I push.
“What?” he barks, turning on me, eyes wild. “What do you want from me, Willow? I can’t fuckin’ do this anymore. So what do you fucking want from me?”
A lump forms in my throat. “I want you to tell me if I’m in danger,” I say, carefully.
“I don’t know the fuckin’ answer to that. I don’t know who that man was.”
“Could I be in danger?”
He runs a hand down his face and exhales. “Sharleen left last night. We got into a fuckin’ big fight and she told me to choose, you or her. I couldn’t give her a fuckin’ answer and so she packed her shit and she left. She walked out threatening that she would make me pay. So, if you’re askin’ if that man was dangerous, yeah, he could have been.”
I blink, staring at him. “Sharleen left.”
“That’s what I just fuckin’ said.”
“I’m sorry.”
He laughs, bitterly, and faces me. “Are you? Are you really fuckin’ sorry? You women ... Fuck me, I can’t handle it. Go inside, Willow, and stay in there until I can figure this shit out.”
I nod, bleakly.
Then I get out of the truck without another word.
What is there to say?
He’s made himself clear.
6
I sit on it, I sit on it for most of the night.
I poke at my food.
I clean the house.
I hang with Luca.
I can’t get Jagger off my mind.
It’s selfish, god, it’s the most selfish feeling in the world, because I want to go to him, I want to talk to him, I want to know what happened. I know I shouldn’t, though, and because of that, I stay away. I stay away because I made a choice, and I have to live with that choice. Just because him and Sharleen are over doesn’t mean I can just waltz in there and try to fix something that, quite honestly, is so fucking broken I wouldn’t know where to start.