Page 27 of Chasing My Bliss (Behind The Lens #6)

Roxy

Forty-five minutes earlier

M y heart leaps when I pull into the driveway and see Felicity’s car still there. Earlier than I thought I’d see her back. Things must not have gone well. My heart aches knowing that she’s going to be upset. She loves Ezra. I don’t need to be a psychic to know that.

I stayed out longer than I planned to. Not wanting to be sitting alone in the quiet of the house while obsessing over whether or not my girl is returning back home, happy, or broken.

I pull up behind her car, the engine ticking softly as I kill the ignition. The house looms ahead, still and silent. It’s dark, except for a faint amber glow seeping through the living room window—dim, like a lamp.

Was she thinking of me? Not wanting me to step into darkness. My heart swells even more with love for her.

My eyes can’t leave the house, though. Something feels different. Off. Like I’m about to walk through the front door and have my heart ripped from me.

I get out of the car slowly, gravel crunching under my feet as I make my way up the steps. The night air is heavy. And then I see it. I would’ve missed it if they were anywhere other than right in front of the door.

Her purse.

Her phone.

Her keys.

All scattered across the porch like they were dropped mid-step. No order, no reason. Just pure chaos.

My breath catches. A strange pressure coiling in my chest.

She wouldn’t leave these here.

Fear prickles my skin, my pulse racing. I step over her things, fumbling with the lock—my hands won’t stop shaking. The key jams once, then slides in and I turn it, pushing in. The door creaks open.

"Hey?!" I shout, voice cracking. "Hey, Felicity, are you here?"

Nothing.

No response. Just quiet.

I move through the house fast, reckless. The living room’s empty. Kitchen—silent. One by one I throw open doors, calling her name louder each time. Bedroom. Bathroom. No sign of her. No answer.

Just that faint, humming silence.

My chest feels tight. I try to breathe, but I can't. My lungs won’t fill right. Fear grips me tighter, harder, cold and merciless. I stumble over my feet, racing back outside.

I have to find her. She has to be okay.

I bend over, grabbing her things, my fingers shaking as I check if her phone is open. The screen lights up. And I sigh a breath of relief. She doesn’t have a lock on her phone.

I click open her message app, thankful I don’t even have to scroll. The person I want is right on top.

Opening the thread, my fingers fly over the screen.

Me: Is she there?

Me: Please say she is.

The longer I stand there and the message goes unread, the more anxious I become.

I turn around, pulling my keys from where they still hang in the doorknob, lock it and race to my car. Right now, all I can think about is Felicity. She has to be okay.

Something is wrong.

So, so wrong.

And I need to know where she is. But I need help. I can't do this alone.

I don’t need GPS. I’ve been there before, well, driven past. Call it curiosity, but I needed to know more about him. He’s important to Felicity, so that placed him firmly on the need to know basis for me.

Call me crazy. Call me a stalker. I’ll take the title proudly. Especially when it involves her.

But she’s missing and I need to find her. He’s my best bet to help. I should call the cops, but something in me tells me she was taken by someone she knows. Someone we know.

Shifting the car in gear, I back out of the driveway, my eyes drifting over to her phone, checking if there’s been a message.

But nothing.

It starts in my chest.

A pressure, sharp and unnatural, like something pressing down on my lungs, squeezing the breath from me one inch at a time. My heart’s pounding so hard it rattles my ribs.

“Breathe Roxy,” I mutter.

I try to take a breath—deep, steady—but my body refuses to listen.

My stomach turns, hollow and sick. Nausea coils inside me, threatening to spill. I’ve got to find her. Before anything bad can happen to her. The fear of not knowing her whereabouts is suffocating.

My hands won’t stop shaking, gripping the steering wheel tighter, my teeth grinding in frustration.

The road, much like time, stretches before me, luck working against me as I catch every red light, even getting stuck behind the slowest fucking drivers ever.

The pounding of my horn doing nothing to speed them up.

My brain’s racing—flashes of the worst-case scenarios flood in, vivid and cruel. I try to stop them, but the images stick, refusing to disappear until I find her.

I hate this feeling taking over me, helplessness. Felicity is my girlfriend and I couldn’t protect her. Someone stole her right off our fucking porch.

I turn on his street. Taking my time as I inch toward the house.

“I’m going to find you, Felicity,” I whisper. She’s not here so she can’t hear me, but I just hope my words find some way to float to where she is, comforting her. Letting her know I’m coming for her. I’ll find her.

Slowing my speed I creep into the driveway, turning my lights off and coming to halt behind his car. I’ve barely shifted into park before I’m jumping out the door and running onto the porch, my fists banging on the front door.

“Ezra," I scream, my voice jagged, hoarse, broken. Nothing. I open my mouth again, his name ripping from my mouth, “Ezra!"

My lungs are burning, my throat raw, and my hands throbbing with pain, but I keep screaming and pounding on the door.

"Ezra!" I choke on his name.

Each scream feels more desperate than the last. I’m about to give up hope when I hear it.

Footsteps.

The thudding of bare feet slapping against the floor carries through the silence. They draw closer, each step heavier, more certain. For a breathless moment the world stills, and I don’t dare blink.

Then, the door swings open.

Light spills out, and there he is. The tension in my body dissolves. My breath catches and releases all at once, almost like my lungs have been waiting for permission to exhale.

“Can I help you?” he asks.

“Ezra, is Felicity here?”

He raises an eyebrow and his demeanor turns cool.

“First, who are you and why are you beating down my door?” He doesn’t open the door wider, or stand back ushering me in. Instead, he glares at me.

“Is. Felicity. Here!?” I snarl at him, taking my time enunciating each and every word.

“Excuse me, but I don’t feel the need to tell you anything. Why would I talk to some crazy woman who I don’t know about my girlfriend? For all I know, you could be some crazed stalker.” He steps back enough to shut the door and I see red.

In one swift movement I step forward, placing my foot in the doorway, blocking it from shutting. At the same moment, I place my palms on the cold wood of the door and push my way in the house with all the force I can muster.

“I’m calling the fucking cops.” He bellows as he storms across the room, picking up a phone off the coffee table.

“Felicity! Felicity!?” I shout frantically. “Are you here?”

“Would you chill the fuck out and get out of my house?” he shouts, phone in hand.

Breathe Roxy. Something’s off.

I calm down and take a minute, taking in everything. I messaged him from Felicity's phone and he never answered. Never questioned the odd message that was coming from her number. He has the phone in his hand, and he’s yet to question it. To try and call her. Find out if she's okay.

Odd.

He hasn’t called the cops yet either. He’s larger than me, stronger, he could’ve kept me from barging into his house. He hasn’t once questioned how I know where he lives.

He’s glaring at me, his eyes burning a hole right through me. The corner of his lip turns up in a sneer and suddenly things start to click into place.

Oh God.

“Hello, Roxy.” His voice cold, body rigid.

I take a half-step back before catching myself. I can't show fear. Not now.

“You know who I am?” My voice stays steady, but inside, everything is buzzing—heart pounding, skin prickling with awareness.

“Yeah, you’re the woman who tried to steal my girlfriend.”

I swallow hard, adrenaline spiking. My legs are screaming at me to run, but I hold my ground. I can’t leave her here.

“Why haven’t you asked why I’m here? Why there was an odd message from her phone to you? Hell, why I’m screaming for her? Aren’t you the least bit concerned?” I fire the questions off like bullets, trying to keep him talking—to keep him from noticing how close I am to falling apart.

He just stares at me, his eyes so cold they look like death.

He’s not the guy she thought he was. He’s not the guy I thought he was.

Silence. Tension. The room is flooded with it. Stifling, consuming.

That smile. That smug, knowing smile. I want to fucking end him.

“Why would I be worried when I know she’s okay?” He says smugly, moving over to the chair and sitting down, leaning back like he’s a king on his throne.

I clench my fists to keep them from trembling. Every instinct I have is screaming that I shouldn’t be here—but I need answers. I need her .

“Where is she?” I demand, inching forward, careful, like approaching a wild animal. I lower myself onto the couch across from him, but my spine is straight, ready to spring.

“Why are you so concerned?”

“Because she’s my girlfriend.” The words come out firm, louder than I expected. I’m proud of the authority in them, even if I’m shaking inside.

I see it. A slight falter.

“Hmph,” crosses his arms.

“I know you were meeting with her tonight. To apologize for being a fucking dick. An utter moron. You abandoned her because she confessed her feelings.” I can see the crack in his demeanor and the words working their way up his throat, ready to spill, but I have more to say.

“You pushed her into this. Thinking that being with a woman was better than a man. Hell, you could’ve done it with her. But you were too fucking concerned people would notice. That someone you know may be on the site and notice your tattoo. Your very specific tattoo, the portrait on your forearm.”

“You think you know everything.” The smugness wafts over him.

“I know enough. Enough to know that I love Felicity. And that she loves me too. And yeah, maybe she still loves you, even after everything. She deserves to have what she wants.”

He sneers. “And what— you think that’s both of us?”

“She told me.” I steady my voice, even though my chest is pounding so hard I feel sick. “She wants both of us. And I love her enough to try, even if it means being around you.”

He laughs. “I don’t want you.”

“Yeah, trust me, the feeling’s mutual.” I cross my arms to stop them from shaking. “I don’t need you to want me. But if we both want her, we figure this shit out.”

“I’ll never sleep with you. The only person I want is Felicity. But I would have to get along with you.”

“Ditto dumbass. Ditto. Sausage isn’t in my diet. I’m a purely taco kind of girl. The only phallus shaped object I’ll tolerate is the silicone type, and that’s just for my viewers. No other time.”

I lean forward now, my voice lowering, tightening. “But I swear to God, Ezra, if you don’t show me she’s okay right now, I’m calling the fucking cops. I don’t care if she hates me for it. I will burn this house to the fucking ground to get her back.”

He just sits there, not moving, but neither am I. We’re in a true standoff as if we were in the Old West. The only things missing are the guns in our hands, firmly aimed at the other’s head, fingers itching to pull the trigger.

His hands move, pressing down on his thighs as he pushes up to stand.

“You’re right. I don’t want to lose Felicity.

I fucked up and I can own up to that. The last few weeks without her have been the worst of my life, and I’ve made some questionable choices.

Tonight being one of them.” He pauses, running his hand through his hair, and I catch the ink on his arm sticking out from beneath his sleeve.

It’s beautiful. If I didn’t know he truly cared for Felicity, I’d question him about having another woman on his arm.

“She might not forgive me,” he adds, softer now.

“Where is she?” I demand again. Honestly, I could give a rat’s ass if she forgives him or not. I’m more concerned if I’ll get her forgiveness once I confess my truth.

“Fine, follow me.”

He moves toward a hallway and I fall in step right behind him. He opens a door, and I peer around his body, seeing a flight of stairs when he turns on the lights. A trail of small, flickering lights are mounted on the wall, giving just the barest ability to see where I’m going.

Step by step, I follow him up until I step onto a landing.

Another fucking door awaits us.

He takes hold of the handle, pausing, causing my unease to spiral yet again.

“Why are we stopping?” I say through clenched teeth.

“She’s okay, no matter what you think. You can look at her, but if you go near her, this is over.”

“You’re not making me feel good about her being okay.” I snap. My hands are fists, knuckles white. I want to scream. Hit. Fight.

He lets out a heavy sigh, turning the knob and pushing the door open.

He steps inside, shifting his body just enough for me to see around him. My breath catches.

Felicity.

She’s laid out, still, on the bed. The only thing telling me she’s alive is the soft rise and fall of her chest.

“What did you do to her?” The words leave me in a cracked sob. My legs nearly buckle from the weight of seeing her like that. My chest aches with the need to run to her, pull her into my arms, and never let go. “She was coming here already. She was coming to you. Why the hell would you do this?”

He sighs, but my gaze stays glued on Felicity. I need to make sure she’s okay. My eyes roam her body, checking every inch of exposed flesh to make sure she doesn’t have any injuries. Ezra’s lucky I don’t find any or I’d kill his fucking ass. I still may.

“I saw the live,” he says quietly. “The two of you. I just—” He pauses, jaw clenching. “We need to talk before she wakes up. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“So you drugged her?” I snap, still not looking away from Felicity.

“I panicked. It was stupid. I just... I didn’t want to lose her.”

His hand reaches out, fingers curling gently around my arm. I tense—but he doesn’t force me, doesn’t yank me or try to control me. Just a soft, hesitant grip. It’s almost pleading .

“Let’s go,” he murmurs. “We need to talk before she wakes up. Figure this shit out.”

I hesitate for a second longer, eyes still on her—my girl, my heart—and then I let him guide me out, the door clicking shut behind us.