by Alison Mello
“That’s true, and it’s not like we have a ton of people coming.” I sigh. “Where the hell is Lila? I’m starving.” Katie grabs a plate, placing some pizza and wings on it, and puts it in front of me.
“Feed you and that baby, will ya?” There’s a knock at the door and finally Lila is here.
I open it and gasp when I realize it’s a delivery guy, not her. It was second nature to just open the door. I hadn’t even looked. “Can I help you?”
“I have a delivery for Miranda Stevens.” The girls are all behind me now. He hands me the box and leaves. I’m about the shut the door when we hear Lila.
“Hold on.” She comes running to the door.
“Sorry I’m late.” She hurries in and we shut the door, locking it behind us.
I take a seat on the couch, holding the box in my hand. “I don’t think I should open this. There’s no address on it. This doesn’t look like a typical delivery.”
Katie pulls her cell phone out from her back pocket. “Daddy, can you come to Miranda’s house? She got a package and there’s no address on it. She’s afraid to open it.” She pauses for a minute. “Thanks, Daddy.” She cuts the call. “He said to leave it aside. He’ll be here in thirty minutes.” I put the package down on the coffee table and stare at it, wondering what’s inside.
“Come on, let’s eat.” Sky rubs my arm, bringing me back to the now. The other girls are already making plates. I take a deep breath and take my seat at the snack bar to finish eating the plate Katie made me.
The room is quiet and the silence is killing me. “I started packing my summer clothes today. I’ve been putting them into a suitcase.”
“That’s very smart. I’m going to show you another trick. Where are your pillowcases, sheets, and towels?” Sky gets up to put her plate in the sink.
“In that hall closet right there…why?” Sky walks over to the closet, pulling out all my extra stuff. Then she comes into the kitchen and starts wrapping all of our extra cups, dishes, and bowls into the towels, sheets, and pillowcases.
“This way you’re protecting your dishes and packing your sheets all at once.” Sky smiles proudly as she fills a box with stuff.
“I’m going to do the same thing with some of the knick-knacks from the living room.” Katie grabs a box and moves into there. We don’t have a ton of things to wrap up in there, but we do have some picture frames and a clock.
There’s a loud bang at the door and I jump up. Katie runs over with me and screams, “Who is it?”
“Cooper, open the door.” Katie looks through the hole and then opens the door. Slade and Cole are standing there, pissed off.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Slade growls.
“I didn’t know you were back, and I’m not going to call Stone at work unless we need to.” I storm off to the couch, pissed off.
Cooper comes to sit next to me. “Let’s everyone just calm down. We’re not calling anyone until it’s necessary.” He picks up the box and lifts it to his ear, listening to see if it’s making any noise. “Can I have a knife?” He looks at Katie, who runs into the kitchen to get a sharp knife.
He sets the box down and gently cuts through the tape. He pulls back the box to reveal a huge dildo. My jaw drops. “It’s a rubber cock.” I’m totally shocked. There’s a note in it. Cooper hands me some gloves so we can read the note.
My Love,
I’ve missed you so much and I wanted you to know what you do to me. This is a rubber cast of my cock, fully erect and waiting for you. This is how hard you make me. I’m sorry, but I have to let you know how I feel about you because I dream about you constantly and I’m tired of jerking off to the pictures I have of you. You may not have realized it until now, but yes, I have many pictures of you, and I treasure them, as I hope you will treasure my rubber cock. Use it to pleasure yourself until I can be there to do it for you.
xoxo
“Fucking sick bastard made an impression of his cock and sent it to me.” I continue staring at the disgusting piece of rubber.
“When we question him, he keeps saying we have nothing to link him to any of this, and he’s right. He is very careful about what he sends you and how he words things.” Cooper takes the note and packs it up along with the rubber cock. “We’ll see if we can find his prints on any of this, but I have a feeling it’ll be clean. I should have an update on the two cars sometime tomorrow. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve heard.”
“What will happen if you can’t find anything on the box to prove this was him?” My voice is low.
Sky sits beside me. “Cooper won’t stop looking until they catch them, sweetie.”
Cooper nods. “That’s right.” He stands, collecting the box. “Do you want me to call Stone?”
“No, it’s fine. I’m here with the girls. I’ll be okay.” I give him a tight smile.
Cooper walks out the door and Cole follows. “I’ll be outside if you need anything.” Slade walks out behind them.
“Do you want to do some more packing?” Lila breaks the silence in the room and I’m grateful.
“Yes, I need to get this done.” I collect the remainder of the small decorations we have around the apartment and place them in the living room for Katie to wrap while Sadie, Lila, and Sky are packing up my kitchen. They’re leaving us only what we need to make it through the next week. I’m really happy to be getting this done. The majority of our belongings are electronics and clothes. Stone said he and the guys will take care of the electronics right before we move.
I sit back on the couch, tired from the long day, but happy that we now have six boxes of stuff packed up in a corner of the room. “Do you have suitcases left that we can pack clothes in?”
“Yes.” I lead the girls to my bedroom.
“You sit on the bed with the suitcase. Tell us where the summer clothes are and we’ll deliver them for you to pack in the case.” Katie stands outside my closet door waiting for direction.
“You ladies are awesome. I can’t believe how easy you guys are making this.”
“That’s what friends are for,” Sadie sings.
Sky joins in and starts to sing the song “That’s What Friends Are For” by Dionne Warwick. Her voice is beautiful, but we all begin to laugh as she sways from side to side singing. When she makes it to the chorus, we all join in and sing really loud, swaying from side to side with her. We finish and burst into laughter one more time.
An hour later all of our summer clothes are packed into suitcases. I’m exhausted and can’t stop yawning. The girls are all getting ready to call it a night when Stone comes bursting through the door. “Baby, are you okay?” He’s in a total panic.
Slade is behind him. I narrow my eyes at him before looking to Stone. “I’m fine. Why did you come rushing home from work?”
“I called Slade to check in and he told me what happened.” Stone places his hands on my arms and pulls me into a hug. I see Cole appear at the door.
I push Stone away and turn to Slade. “I said I didn’t want to call Stone home from work over this. He’s just getting back from me having my accident. Why did you tell him?” I’m so pissed I’m pacing the living room when I bang my casted arm on the corner of the entertainment center. “Ow, shit.”
“Baby, you need to calm down.” Stone grabs me again. “I asked him if everything was going okay, and he told me what happened. He also told me that you wanted to let me finish my night at work. I tried to stay there, but I couldn’t get my mind off of you. I was worried about you, so I called Cole to come get me. I just wanted to be here for you.”
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to have some normalcy in our lives. You haven’t been working because you’ve been too busy taking care of me, and then you set up this girls’ night and all was perfect until he tried to ruin it yet again.”
“He didn’t ruin it. We had a great time and we got a ton packed.” Katie wraps her arm around me and hugs me.
“Yeah, we’ll all come over next week and help you
finish up.” Sky hugs me.
“And when you move, we’ll be there to help you unpack it.”
“Because that’s what friend are for,” Sky sings again. We all begin to giggle and I start to cry.
“Thanks, guys.” Tears are running down my face for the second time today.
Stone’s eyes go wide as he tries to figure out what the heck just happened. The girls all hug me goodbye and Stone asks the guys to walk them out and tells them they can head home for the night. As soon as they’re gone, Stone locks up and takes me to bed, where I tell him about our night until I can no longer keep my eyes open.
Chapter 23
Stone
Today is moving day. We’ve had an incredibly busy week between Miranda going back to work and us trying to pack. Miranda has also spent the entire week trying to apologize to Slade for being mad at him last weekend. The poor guy felt so bad for telling me about the package. He was really stuck in a tough place, and when Miranda calmed down and we explained that he practically begged me to stay at work, she started apologizing. She gave Slade the biggest hug. It was hysterical because Slade just froze. The poor guy had no idea what to do next.
All of our friends are meeting us at our new apartment to help us unpack everything as things are moved into the house. Slade and Cole will be knocking on the door any minute to pick up Miranda and bring her to the new place while Logan, Shane, and I wait here for the moving company. We need to box up my surround sound system.
“I’m ready to go.” Miranda comes into the living room wearing black yoga pants and an old t-shirt that says Selfie on it.
“Hey, sexy.” I pull her in and press my lips to hers. She opens to me, her tongue searching for mine. I slide my hands up her back…one goes into her hair, and the other goes back down to her ass. I pull her hair slightly as I squeeze her plump ass. There’s a knock at the door, causing us break our kiss. I press my forehead to hers, trying to calm my breathing. “I love you.”
She rewards me with the most beautiful smile. “I love you too.”
She pulls away, sauntering over to the door. She looks through the hole and then opens it. Slade and Cole are standing there. “Good morning, guys. Are you ready for our crazy day?”
“Yeah, we’re ready. Are you two?” Slade smiles at her and it makes me happy to see these two are back to normal again. Slade and Cole have become more than just security. We all consider them friends now.
Miranda’s smile couldn’t be any bigger. “Are you kidding me? I’m thrilled. It’s our first apartment. The place we picked together and now our baby has a room. We’ll be able to start planning for her soon.”
“Oh, you guys found out what you’re having?” Cole gets excited.
“No, she just keeps insisting it’s a girl.” I put my arm around her shoulder.
“That’s what my gut tells me.” She smiles up at me.
“My gut says we should get going or your friends will beat you to the new apartment.” Slade laughs.
“Okay, okay. Bye, babe. Be careful with the guys, and I’ll see you in a little bit.”
“You be careful and don’t overdo it.
“Oh, I won’t. I’ve had enough of this thing. Do you have any idea how hard it is to work with one arm?” She looks at me with one brow raised.
“I’m referring to the baby.” I shake my head. She says her arm doesn’t really hurt much anymore, but they need to make sure she’s healed before taking off the cast and according to our last visit the baby is coming along nicely but I want to keep it that way. “I love you.”
“Love you too,” She calls out over her shoulder as she follows Slade down to their waiting car.
We moved her car to the new place last night. She’s not driving much yet, because of her arm, but at least it’s a start.
As soon as they’re out the door, I finish wrapping up cords and placing them in boxes. I have three black boxes, the stereo, DVD player, and the cable box all need to go. Plus I have six speakers that are still set up and need to be pulled down, five of them are mounted on the walls. I grab a screwdriver and the step stool and get to work. The moving truck is due here shortly, and I want to have everything ready to go so they can just start humping this shit. They are supposed to be bringing a flatbed dolly to load up so they can move our boxes to the box truck easier. We moved most of our clothes there yesterday so it shouldn’t take them too long.
I hear a knock, followed by, “It’s Logan.” The door opens and he lets himself in. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so dressed down. He’s wearing Nike joggers and a t-shirt.
I jump down off the step stool. “Hey, man. Thanks for your help today.”
“No problem. I just dropped Sky off at the new place and shot straight here. It looks like you guys are pretty squared away.”
“Yeah, to be honest I only asked you guys to come here because Miranda was freaking out that I was going to be here all by myself. She said there’s been too much going on with Higgins and his goons for either of us to be alone.”
“I can’t say I blame her. Have you heard from Cooper?” He takes the speaker from my hands and places it in an empty box.
Shane and Jonah come walking in next. We all shake hands and I get back up on the stool and answer Logan’s question. “Yeah, the car was not wiped completely clean. The idiots managed to leave some prints. One set belongs to Benny, and the other is another of his goons, Tobey. There’s a third set, but there was no record on file for them, so we’re assuming it was from someone who works at the company they stole the cars from.” I step down from the stool, handing off another speaker. “We got really lucky though, because there were some things found in the trunk of one of the vehicles. It doesn’t appear this was an attempt to hurt her as much as it was to kidnap her.” A shiver runs down my spine just thinking about those fuckers getting their hands on my girl.
“That’s fucked.” Jonah grabs the last speaker from me and places it in the box with the others.
“Sure is. We can’t keep up with who needs protection more…her or me.” I exhale a deep breath. “Right now we’re taking it one day at a time because all this stress isn’t good for the baby.”
“How is the baby?” Shane asks, leaning against the door jamb.
“That baby is doing fine. She’s due mid-May, and the doctor wants to continue to monitor her closely because of all the stress. We go back again in a month for another ultrasound.”
“Well, at least the doctor is on top of it,” Logan adds.
“Yeah, she seems pretty cool, and Miranda likes her. She even gave her a list of things to watch out for. She told her no heavy lifting, and to relax as much as she can when she’s at home.”
Our conversation is interrupted by the movers arriving and asking to be shown all the stuff they need to move. These guys look a bit shady, but considering there are four big men standing around to watch them, I think we’ll be good.
***
Miranda
We roll up to our new place and park in one of the visitor spots. I smile as I walk past my pretty new silver SUV that I’ve only driven about three times. I’m getting there. It’s a hard to get back behind the wheel when you’ve been through what I have. You’re not talking some small accident. I wasn’t rear ended, I was run off the road. “How do you like your new car?” Cole asks, pointing to it.
“I love it, now if I can just get over my fear of driving, I’ll be all set.” I give him a tight smile.
“You’ll get there.” Slade looks down at me with a warm smile.
As soon as we get to the door, the doorman greets us. “Good afternoon, Ms. Stevens, and welcome to your new home.”
I smile at him. “Thank you so much, Stan. It’ll be nice to have all of our stuff here. Stone informed you we have guests arriving, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. I have a list of all guests that are allowed up without phoning you first, and I promise you we work hard to stick to that.”
“Thank you. Have a good day.
” I give him a smile.
“Miranda, wait.” Skyler jumps out of Logan’s car.
“Hi Sky.” I give my friend a hug and we walk off to the elevators together. I press the button for our top floor apartment. “I can’t wait for you to see it, the place is gorgeous.”
The doors open and I pull out my key. When we get inside, the place is empty, with the exception of a few things we had moved ourselves, like our clothes and my laptop. Sky steps in, and Cole and Slade shut the door behind us to watch for the remainder of my friends. Her eyes light up as she wanders around. “Miranda, this place is beautiful.” I plop myself on the floor to relax while we wait for everyone else to show. My furniture won’t be here for another couple of hours or so. The plan is to relax until everything gets here, and then the girls will help us unpack everything.
Sky takes a seat next to me, leaning her back against the wall. “You look tired. How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay, and the baby is doing fine.”
The door opens and in walks Sadie, Lila, Katie, and Kara. I’m about to get up to hug them when Kara takes a seat next to me. “Don’t get up. Relax, you’ll be all over the place shortly.” Everyone else takes a seat, joining us.
They ask me if we have an update on Higgins, so I fill them in on who was behind the accident and that the police are searching for them. “They tried to get something from the package to tie it to Higgins, but were unsuccessful, which means they still have nothing to arrest him for unless they can get Benny and his buddy Tobey to spill, but I doubt they will.”
“Let’s talk about something happier.” Sadie pulls a piece of paper from her purse. “Sky and I took the liberty of making you a list of important things you will need for the baby. These are items that we used a lot or found very helpful on top of everyday things like bottles.” She hands me the list.
My jaw drops as I read it over. “You girls are the best.”