Page 19

T

he phone felt like a loaded grenade in my hand. Before I could explain, the phone vibrated with another incoming call.

UNKNOWN CALLER.

He was calling again.

Had he ever done that before? My mind drew a blank, about as useful as a bowl of scrambled eggs.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Kolton began. “You want to share with the class why you’re staring at your phone like it suddenly sprouted horns and a tail?”

With shaking fingers, I slid the button to ignore. “Because I think it might be the person who cut my brake lines.”

Ben swore, actually swore, and swerved. “What?”

Kolton stole my cell and opened the call log. “This person has called you… half a dozen times, starting Sunday.”

Ben threw on his hazards and parked on the shoulder once more. At this rate, we were never going to get home.

Well, who knew? Maybe we were headed to their houses. Despite knowing Kolton and Ben were neighbors, I didn’t actually know where they lived.

Ben had never invited me over.

“Let me see that.” Ben reached across my lap, and Kolton handed my phone over without complaint. “Did you tell the police about this? Hunter made it seem like they had no leads.”

“No,” I began, my words cutting off at the sharp look I received. “Stop. Before you scold me for it—”

“Scold? Wordsmith, that shit right there is a spanking level offense,” Kolton quipped.

Ben didn’t seem like he disagreed, his frustration leaking from every pore.

I conceded, “Okay, fine—”

“Okay?” Kolton yelped, and even Ben appeared startled. “You want to be spanked?”

I blinked. “What?” Then, deciding it was irrelevant, I shook my head and waved my hand in the air as if shooing a stray fly. “No, I meant, okay, I understand how bad this looks, especially with all the secrecy and begging I did to convince you it was a better idea not to tell my parents.”

“Begged? Oh, come on! She has to be doing this on purpose!”

Ben scrubbed a hand down his face and shook his head. “She’s really not.” He shook himself and got serious. “Alright, Willa, the floor’s yours.”

When I thought about it, the matter boiled down to a simple, “I honestly thought some crazy guy had gotten the wrong number.”

“A guy?”

I fiddled with the seatbelt. “Probably? He uses a voice modulator, so I can’t be sure, but guys usually have a more aggressive way of talking.”

“That’s sexist,” Kolton declared.

“That’s why I said ‘usually.’”

Ben returned my phone, but I suspected he’d memorized the number. “So to recap, this guy calls you several times, with a scary mechanical voice, and says what?”

“Mostly he yelled random stuff.” Nerves had my fingers tapping a rhythm on my knee.

“Yelled?” Kolton clarified while Ben said, “Like what?”

“I don’t know, sometimes stuff like, ‘He’s lying to you.’ Other times, it was mostly just yelling at the person he was calling.”

“You,” Ben reminded me. “Did he say anything specific?”

Goosebumps erupted across my skin. “Look, yes, now I realize it might not have been random, but before today, I had zero reason to believe someone would target me like that. Why would they? I’m some nobody kid. I assumed some ex had blocked this guy for being crazy, and then he tried to go around it by getting a new phone, only he input the wrong number or something. So, no, I didn’t pay too much attention to the content of the messages.”

“Agree to disagree about you being a nobody—”

Kolton grimaced. “Oh, gag me.”

Ben ignored him. “But I can see your point.” He eased back onto the road. “Have you ever been on camera for one of your dad’s vlogs?”

“Not recently. Probably not for years.”

Ben grimaced, looking nauseous himself. “That’s sick to think about.”

I frowned. “What is?”

“It could be an internet stalker who became obsessed with you and got it in his head that you’re his. With that phrase about someone lying to you? He might not like that you’ve started dating.”

My breath caught. “Wait, so you think he meant you?”

“Hold on,” Kolton interjected. “What’s so different about Ben? Why would this dick escalate now?”

Ben cleared his throat and glanced out his window.

Kolton’s eyes sparked with realization. “No, are you telling me she’s never—”

“Nope,” Ben answered, cutting Kolton off.

“Not even—”

“Nope.”

“So that’s why…”

“Yep.”

Kolton gave me a once-over. “But… how?”

I glanced between them, trying to decipher their conversation.

Ben huffed a short chuckle. “Beats me too.”

Fed up with their glancing right over the top of my head as if I wasn’t even there while also discussing me , I reinserted myself into the fold. “Wait, so you think it’s an internet stalker then?”

Kolton nodded. “Timing fits.” He cast me a loaded side-eye.

Unless they wanted to share with the class, I would be ignoring it. “So we’re looking for a fan of my dad’s show?”

Ben shrugged. “Like you said, what other reason would someone have to target you like this?”

I dug into my pocket, trying to find the business card the officers had left me with.

“What are you doing?” Kolton groused after the third time my elbow connected with his arm.

“The police said I should call if I thought of anything that might be relevant.”

Kolton rolled his eyes. “Wordsmith, just have your boyfriend call his dad. Remember? Chief of police?”

I glanced at Ben. “But—”

“No, he’s right,” Ben agreed, digging his phone out. “What good is it having a dad as the chief when I can’t reap any rewards? I’ll call him.”

If I thought he’d wait until after he dropped us off, I’d have been sorely mistaken.

“Dad,” Ben greeted. Had his voice gotten deeper? “No, it’s about Willa.”

My heart warmed at the notion Ben had mentioned me to his dad. In many ways, it helped assuage my worries about school, because with everything he mentioned about Chief Pierce, it didn’t seem relevant enough for him to bring me up in their limited interactions.

Ben’s hand clenched the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip. “Willa Walker. I told you about her. Remember?” His chiseled jaw tightened, sharp enough to cut glass, but the harsh motion was tempered by the red tinting his cheeks.

Was he embarrassed about dating me?

“Yes, that Willa,” he muttered in aggravation, so maybe he was more embarrassed by his dad.

Kolton’s shoulder nudged mine, and when I glanced his way, he gave a helpless shrug, which I took to mean, “Hey, don’t hold it against him. His dad’s a fucking douche.”

To which I replied with a nod and roll of my eyes before fixing him with an unforgiving stare, which replied, “Yeah, I know. You think I wouldn’t know this about Ben after dating him all summer? But that still doesn’t forgive Chief Pierce for being so neglectful.”

Kolton’s brows bounced as his bottom lip jutted out with a slight nod in concession.

Touché indeed.

“Yes, she’s the one who had her brake lines cut.” Ben’s head tilted as I abandoned my silent conversation with Kolton, because honestly, it was disconcerting to discover how well we were speaking without actually talking, and tuned back into the one-sided phone call.

Ben paused before turning, mouthing, to my horror, my full legal name. “Willahelm?”

So that cat was out of the bag. Apparently, even being as terrified as I was, my angsty teenage self could muster up some embarrassment. I groaned and slapped my hands over my face to hide my burning cheeks. Kolton jostled on my other side, likely trying to eke out what’d garnered such a powerful reaction from me.

Typical pigtail pulling boy, thy name was Kolton Keiser.

The only saving grace came with Ben being wise enough not to divulge that sacred information to his friend.

Ben filled his dad in about the unknown caller, but whatever his dad said ticked Ben right off, because he ended the call with a terse, “Fine, Chief Pierce.”

“Whoa,” Kolton intoned with a whistle as he broke the tense silence. “That bad, huh?”

Ben glanced at me with a clear apology in his puppy dog eyes. “He said you’ll have to come down to the station to fill out an official report if you want it added to your case file.”

“Fuck, so yeah, it was that bad,” Kolton summed up.

“And I don’t have a car,” I added.

“You could always tell your parents,” Ben began, but I slumped back, propping my head along the low bench seat. “Or not.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “We have a full day of practice tomorrow, our last hoorah before school, so we probably won’t be able to give you a ride until later. Hunter could—”

“No,” I interrupted. “He’s already done me enough favors. We barely even know each other.”

Kolton snorted. “Well, the fact that he’s doing anything for you means he doesn’t find you annoying, so that’s a good sign.”

That, I believed, even if I was still reconciling the heart-to-heart he’d shared. It was insulting to hear how poorly he’d thought of me, but seriously, he didn’t know me from Eve, so I couldn’t hold that against him.

“ Still ,” I stressed, unable to explain.

Ben cut through to what I couldn’t articulate. “You don’t like owing people favors.”

I frowned. “I like to think of it as being independent.”

“Grossly independent,” Ben tacked on with a teasing grin. “Obstinate even.”

“Shit, bruh,” Kolton groused. “Is that how you woo a girl? It’s no fucking wonder Willa is still holding the title of never been kissed MVP.”

My eyes rounded. “How did you know…” I trailed off, turning to Ben in betrayal.

“Whoa!” he yelped, holding one hand up in innocence. “Don’t give me that hurt puppy look. I didn’t tell him!”

“But I’ve only ever told—”

“He was just fishing.” Ben shot a glare over my head. “He figured out that I am your first boyfriend when we realized this stalker might have escalated because you started dating.”

Realization sank in, capsizing like a weak vessel in a violent storm. “And I fell for it.”

“Hook, line, and sinker, wordsmith,” Kolton crowed in triumph before he adopted a flabbergasted expression. “Wait, I can’t believe you two haven’t kissed.”

Ben’s jaw tightened. “Back off, bro. I don’t want you making her feel more self-conscious than you already did.”

Kolton actually winced, rubbing his neck uncomfortably. “Ah, fuck. I thought it before, but I definitely owe it to you now.” He turned, looking serious as his hazel eyes, light teal in the shadowed cab, locked on me. “Willa, I’m fucking sorry. I had it in my head that you were a simpering, whiny bitch trying to change Ben and steal him from me, but you’re more like the innocent maiden being hogged by her beastly boyfriend who doesn’t want to share her time with anyone else.”

Innocent maiden? “God, just kill me now.”

Kolton glared, affronted. “Before you’ve been kissed? Willa, that would actually be a fucking travesty.” He glanced skyward. “Don’t listen to her, God. At least wait until she loses her V-card. I mean, have you seen her?”

“Dude!” Ben bellowed. “Again, that’s my girlfriend.”

Kolton was nonplussed. “Could have fooled me! Never even kissed her.”

The absurdity of the situation hit me, and a small giggle escaped.

When I caught Kolton flashing a triumphant smirk over my head, the giggle turned into laughter, and since it felt better to laugh than curl up into a ball and cry after the day I’d had, I didn’t restrain myself.

Tear tracks scored my cheeks by the time I finished laughing, and even I was unsure if I’d started crying at some point.

Neither of the boys spoke for a couple of miles until my driveway appeared, and Ben threw his turn signal on. “You sure you want to keep something this dangerous from your parents?”

“I…” I’d tell my dad in a heartbeat, but he never kept secrets from Mom, and there was no telling how she’d react. I nodded. “Yeah, positive.”

Kolton shifted toward me the slightest bit and stayed there, his arm pressed against mine, and I forgave him just a little bit. His heat helped fight off the ever-present chill. Though I couldn’t lie, it rankled a bit that two of the three friends I’d met held such low opinions of me.

Was that how people saw me? And was devious man-eater worse or better than being a social outcast? After the first time my peers isolated me, all I’d really worried about was being labeled a psycho girl who saw hallucinations.

Maybe master manipulator was a step up.

“So,” Kolton began, “do I get to see your house?”

I blinked. “You want to come in?”

Ben tilted his head. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea. We can keep you safe until you go to the station and give your statement about the phone calls tomorrow. There aren’t a lot of ways that psycho could have access to that information without also being able to pin down your home address. We’ll give Kolton a tour while checking that everything’s secure.”

Chills skittered along my spine. I hadn’t even thought of that. “We…We don’t even lock our doors.”

Ben winced. “I know. You’re going to have to figure out some excuse to tell your parents, because it’s that or we tell them everything. I’m sorry, Willa, but you have to be alive to hate me, and your safety is evidently the hill I’m willing to die on.”

I deflated. “Yeah, I’ll think of something.”

Ben nodded.

“Oh, hey!” Kolton snapped his fingers. “Maybe we could invite Ralph and Hunter over and make it a party. Her parents will be less suspicious if there’s a group of us hanging out than the fucking three of us.”

I frowned. “Why would they be worried about the three of us?”

Kolton shrugged. “Because a group is more bros hanging out vibes than ‘are those two randy teenage boys upstairs tag teaming my daughter?’”

I choked on my own spit, and Ben nearly drove off the driveway. Good grief, how embarrassing would that have been to explain to my dad why Ben was distracted enough to hit a tree while traveling less than ten miles an hour?

“Don’t worry, Willa.” Kolton’s phone lit his face. “I sent them a text and dropped a pin on our location. They should be here in about thirty minutes.”

My pulse tripled in speed, and if I hadn’t been so drained after the day I had, I’d have probably buzzed in place with nervous energy.

Four guys at my house?

Despite Kolton’s confidence that it would soothe my parents’ most rampant fears about their daughter being defiled, I didn’t think they would be too happy about four boys hanging around.

But, since Ralph and Hunter both texted back before I could protest, I guessed we were rolling with it.

C’est la vie.