by Opal Mellon
“My comfort wasn’t my first concern.”
Molly rolled her eyes. She closed the first email and opened the second. “There are chairs in the kitchen. You can both get one and be on either side.”
She clicked open her phone and looked at the text.
“Sorry I’ve been busy. I haven’t forgotten about you. How about you and me, soon?”
It could almost sound romantic if it wasn’t from an unknown number. She wished she’d just called Nicole, rather than letting Jason see her phone. Not that it hadn’t been a pretty boring night to start. Why did just a little bit of drama help things somewhat?
“Can I see that?” Justin said. He took her phone from her hand and sat next to her. He looked at the text. Before she could stop him, he pressed call, but nothing happened with the unknown number.
“Have you tried texting back?” he said. He opened the text again, and then moved in front of her to look at the emails. “I can’t believe I forgot to look at this before.”
Molly felt a little disappointed, thinking about it. Did he care so little?
“I thought it was Valerie,” he said. “I didn’t forget, I just thought it’d stop with her locked up.”
So he hadn’t forgotten. She was oddly relieved. “What do you think?”
“I can’t really do anything, so maybe I’ll just go,” Jason said from the other side. “Seems like you two were already dealing with this.”
Was he pouting? Molly had just about had it with him. Were normal guys always this pushy and annoying? At least Justin had kept her involved in her own problem, unlike that liar Jason. She calmed herself and knew she was being unfair. She was just anxious and taking it out on him. She had enough to deal with without some psycho.
“We’d started,” Justin said.
“Well, I’m sorry the night was a bust,” Jason said. He stood and leaned over Molly, planting a kiss on her cheek.
She jumped, recovered, and stood to hug him. “It wasn’t a bust. I’m sorry it ended like this.”
“Me too,” he said. “Now I have an excuse to take a rain check though?”
She considered it for a moment. She looked over at Justin, who quickly looked away as if he’d never been watching the conversation or interested in it. It angered her somehow.
“Sure,” she said. “I’d love to.”
She thought she heard a small puff from Justin’s direction, but couldn’t be sure. Jason hugged her once more, said something about calling her later, and disappeared out the door. When he’d left, she watched the door for a moment. How had the date somehow ended with Justin? She shook her head and went back to sit down. He’d moved her chair over so he could be in front of the screen.
“Is that okay?” he asked. “My back is killing me.”
“Been working out?” she said. “I thought you were trying to get fat.”
“No that was you,” he said. He rubbed his lower back with one hand. “I’ve been watching too much TV. That anime is addicting.”
“Glad you like it.” She put out a hand to touch his lower back, then stopped, because she didn’t know how to massage, and didn’t know if it was something friends did for each other. “You need a new couch.”
“I know,” he said. “Just too lazy.”
“I wouldn’t call school and work lazy,” she said. “Just priorities.” She set her head in her hands then reached for her phone. “So what do you think?”
“About the priorities?” He looked over, genuinely confused.
“No. About the stalker,” she said, waving her hand at the screen.
“Nothing I can do without your work computer. Then I could trace the IP address, maybe.”
“One other thing,” she said. “See how he knew what I was doing? I think he could see me. Unless he was guessing. But I looked around the office and outside and no one was there.”
He sighed and put his hand up to his face. “Molly you shouldn’t have done that. Not safe. You should have stayed inside.”
“I know,” she said. “But I didn’t want to tell my boss. Also, as you saw, I can take care of myself.”
“With a girl,” he said.
“One that you couldn’t handle,” she said.
“She took me by surprise,” he said. “And I don’t hit women. Not even evil ones, if I can avoid it.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Maybe I’m stronger than you and you just don’t want to admit it.”
He turned to her, and raised one eyebrow. He rolled his lips together once. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said. “So what do you think about this email?”
“So you’re super independent?” he asked. “Super strong, can take care of yourself?”
“Sure,” she said. “Now focus.”
“I am,” he said. “And I don’t like helping someone with a stalker when they are being stupid about it.”
“I told you, I can handle it.”
“Oh you could,” he said. “Prove it.”
He turned to her before she could react. Grabbed both of her hands and pulled them behind her back. He was gentle, but too strong. She tried to headbutt him, but he dodged, and put his head next to her on her shoulder. He kept both of her hands in one of his and used the other to turn her face to his. “So you’re stronger than me.”
“You caught me off guard. Sitting down,” she said. “It’s different.”
“Right,” he said. He stood and folded his arms. “K. Let’s do it from here. Attack me.”
“I don’t want to,” she said.
“Cause you can’t beat me.”
“No, because I don’t want to hurt you. This can’t end any good way,” she said.
“Go ahead,” he said. “If you prove that you can take care of yourself, I’ll agree you can do what you want, and get back to the hacking part of it. If not, you’ll follow my advice and not go out on your own.”
He moved towards her before she could agree and reached out. She reached forward to grab him but he caught her hands. He was fast, and had her slammed back to the wall before she could process what happened. Why did she turn so stupid when he touched her? She brought up a knee instinctively but he dodged. She tried to hook it around his leg, but knew it was too late. She’d missed her opening and he was too strong for her to get away with brute strength. She looked at him and frowned.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” she said. “I know you aren’t threatening.”
“So it’s different if it’s a person who’s a threat?” he said, moving closer, his deep green eyes focused on hers.
“No,” she said. “You don’t need to—”
But it was too late; he pulled her hands up, one at a time, till both were clutched in one of his. She tried to pull out, nearly got them out, but he simply used both hands to get a better grip. She was well and truly stuck. Jerk. He felt too close. He was so tall, tall enough to stand far enough that she couldn’t kick him while still holding her hands up. She felt like a helpless puppet. Not a good feeling when the puppeteer had serious muscles, a gorgeous face, and a nice … She brought her face up.
“Hoping to hit me there again, huh?” Justin said, misinterpreting her inappropriate eye placement. “Not likely.”
She blushed. “You’ve made your point Justin.”
“When are you going to fight back?” he said. He came closer, put the hand that wasn’t holding hers up to her face. “Aren’t I threatening yet?”
“No,” she said. “You’re my friend. You’re just Justin.”
He reached behind her back and pulled her into him till their hips met. He dipped to put his mouth to the crook of her neck. She reached away. “Stop it. Stop it now Justin.”
“Fight back,” he said. “Prove it.”
“Stop it!” she said, struggling. “I can’t think.” It felt good. She couldn’t fight properly because she felt things she shouldn’t feel when he did that. She didn’t feel he was proving anything except how attractive he still was to her, despite his
promise to only be a friend. He didn’t like her like that. She went limp and he came up to look in her face.
“Molly, are you okay?”
She headbutted him, right in the nose. He flew back, releasing her hands just enough that she flew forward. She quickly trapped one of his and chicken winged him to the ground in front of her. She pushed him all the way to the ground.
“You only were able to do that because I cared enough to check on you,” he gasped.
She let his arm go and backed away to the wall. She slid down it.
“Molly?” He pulled his arm in front of him in relief. “Molly, are you okay?”
She turned away from him to lean on the wall. “Just go away.”
“Molly … I was just trying …”
“To make me see that I’m helpless,” she said. “You did.”
And she was, and not because she wasn’t a good fighter. But because he made her knees give out. Made tingles shoot down the nerves in her back and legs just by pressing against her, just by breathing on her. Could she really be friends with this thoughtless man who could make her so uncomfortable just to prove his point?
She looked over to see him crouching in front of her. “Molly,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with someone getting the jump on you. It happened to me, as you saw. The key is not to be alone. To not give any opportunities.”
“You didn’t prove anything,” she said. “Except that you’re a jerk.”
“I know,” he said. “You’re strong. That wasn’t fair. But you worried me. You can’t just go out alone like that looking for someone dangerous.” He put a hand up on the wall and hung his head slightly before raising up to look her in the eyes. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
She looked up at him, down at his lips, up at his eyes. She nodded. He looked down at hers, up at her eyes, and leaned forward.
Molly couldn’t figure out if he wanted to kiss her, and worse, she didn’t know if she wanted to kiss him. This whole thing had happened far too fast. He’d kissed her, she’d saved him, he’d pushed her away, she was dating Jason … There was still a stalker.
As if she’d willed it, her phone vibrated. The moment broke and Justin flipped his head to the side then pushed away from the wall to go over to her phone and pick it up.
“It’s Jason,” he said, setting it down again. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have looked.”
Molly pushed up from the wall and grabbed the phone as she sat down in front of the computer again. She flipped it open, looked at it, deleted the message and turned to her email.
“So are you going?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said, irritated that he’d looked at her text, knew Jason was asking her out again. This time a bit more seriously. “I feel like there is just too much going on in my life right now, and I don’t know what to cut out. I don’t know what I can cut out.”
Justin remained silent. He tapped his fingers along the desk and waited for her judgment. His eyes looked dark under his lashes and dark hair. Had the stylist dyed them to match? She supposed some people could be born with naturally dark lashes, unfair as that might be. She didn’t really want to ask him about his grooming though. She wanted to tilt his face up to hers, look at the slim lines and curves, the hardness in his eyes and mouth, and claim it.
The thought made her squirm on her chair and want to be alone. She didn’t want Justin. That’d been an erroneous assumption on his part, hadn’t it? Besides, sexual attraction, while foreign to her, wasn’t something that determined anything.
She reached up her arms and stretched. “I’m tired.” She looked at the time on her phone, so that Justin could see her do it. “I think I’mma give up on this for now.”
“I’mma?” Justin hmphed. “Picking up on all the new slang huh?”
“With such hip acquaintances, what else could I do?”
“Stay the way you are.” He seemed irritated, tapped his fingers just a little louder and slower on the desk. “I’m not going home till we make some kind of headway on this stalker issue.”
“I can’t get into work right now.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “Come over to the couch. You look like you need to relax.”
She pulled her fingers through her hair, relishing the comforting thickness that trapped them there. “It’s been a tough couple of days.”
“That’s an understatement.” Justin put an arm around her shoulder and practically forced her over to the couch.
“Not that I wouldn’t do it all again. I’d kick her to Sunday if it happened again.”
He smiled slightly and gave her a slight shove down onto the couch. He sat on the other couch, perpendicular to her. “Thanks. I appreciate it. Let’s work on your problem though.”
“Okay.” She pulled her legs up on the couch, first straight, and then scrunched around till she found the most comfortable angle. “What can we do without the IP trace?”
“List off people that it could potentially be. It has to be someone you know right? Any enemies stalking you through the ages like me?”
No, she had the opposite problem. No roots, no one who seemed to care where she went or what she did. Siblings, parents, somehow she’d fallen from a family tree and rolled too far away on the ground to be noticed. As for friends? Goodbyes were easy. Other than Nicole, she doubted she could trace anyone back very far in her youth. At work? Totally isolated much of the time. She even ducked her head and tried to avoid contact on her daily, sometimes twice daily, snackage raids.
She felt blood in her face and hoped it could calm before it was visible. But it was embarrassing to realize how little potential for stalkers she had. How little human contact she’d grown okay with. Maybe that’s how she had even gotten involved with Nicole and her silly host club business. She’d just been too lonely. She thought of the only woman Justin had to call family, and shamed herself for wanting more connection. There were worse things than distance and loneliness.
“I’m embarrassed, but I can’t think of anyone.”
“No crazy family?”
“No family.”
“No crazy exes?”
She swallowed, trying to look less like someone who’d been fed a lemon. But the words still came out sour. “No exes. No one cares about me enough to stalk me.”
Justin looked down at his hands. “It’s not like it’s the right kind of caring for someone to stalk you.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s stupid.”
Then she looked up at him, and because he seemed to be considering whether she needed comfort, she smiled. “So anyway, I can’t think of anything.”
“Don’t do that,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Fake smile,” he said. “Save it for Jason, I won’t fall for it.”
She shrugged and pulled her knees in to wrap her hands around them. “I don’t know where this is going.”
“There’s gotta be someone,” he said. “You’re not the best at seeing when someone cares about you.” He tapped his finger on his chin. “Like Nicole. You don’t seem to see how much she adores you.”
“I do,” she said. “It makes me uncomfortable.”
“Okay, next subject,” he said. “But can you even think of just like, one guy who sent you a weird look? Someone you saw a couple times in weird places? Anyone who has made a weird comment?”
She thought back. She couldn’t remember. She thought that somewhere there might be someone she’d made angry, but all she could remember was a swirling fog, and in the middle of its impenetrable mass, some kind of memory of someone foiled by her. She scratched at her scalp as if it could dislodge the memory. Why did she float though life and not make note of stuff like this? She must have filled her head with too much manga.
“I seriously have no idea.”
“Do you think he knows where you live?” he asked. “Do you think he could see you and Jason on your date? Our other option is to draw him out, test where he’s at by appearing differ
ent places.”
“Don’t you have better things to do?” she asked. “You’ve been through a lot, and have a job, and don’t you have homework?”
“About that …” he said. “Hope made me take a mandatory vacation. Paid.” He inhaled and exhaled a small breath. “Something about needing to recover. Honestly the event wasn’t that traumatizing.”
“Well it would be for most people,” Molly said. “Just not crazy ones.”
He narrowed his eyes on her and pushed up his top lip with his bottom one, then relaxed as he seemed to realize she hadn’t meant any harm. “Takes one to know one.”
“Probably,” she said. “So what about homework?”
“Actually, I’m stuck on a lab … I was hoping you—”
“You need help?” She sat up, feeling more interested than she’d been in anything so far that night. “You want me to help with your homework?”
“If you could,” he said. “Maybe we could work out a trade, you know? I could help you catch your stalker, you could lend me your expert engineering advice.”
“I don’t know how much I remember about general stuff,” she said. But she pulled her feet into a cross-legged position and leaned over the pillow she hugged in her lap. “But I’d love to help. And it’d be good to get the stalker out of the way. So, you know, me and Jason could go out normally.”
Justin nodded, stared down at his hands again, and inhaled in a way that made him lift up and look taller. “Great. It’s a trade.”
He grabbed the hand and pulled her into a hug. “Molly, I’m so glad you ended up at my club.”
She hesitated for a moment, and then put her arms around him. “Me too.” She sort of fell onto his lap, and they locked eyes like they had by the wall. She put a hand up, dropped it before she could touch him, and pushed off the couch around him to stand back up.
“Maybe we should start tomorrow,” he said. He reached out a hand and she took it and helped him stand. “I have an anime to finish, thanks to you. And you’re right, there isn’t much we can do till I see your computer anyway.”
“I guess we could wait till Monday,” she said. “I don’t work till then.”