Page 178 of Letters From A Stalker

One of his eyebrows rises, and there is just enough amusement in his eyes that I immediately hear the question he doesn’t say.

Do I need to?

I snort. Of course. Apparently admitting his stalking days are over doesn’t mean he’s above reminding me that finding me has never exactly been his problem.

“I was hoping you might tell me this time,” he says, the corner of his mouth pulling upward.

“That would be very progressive of us.”

I reach into my purse, pull out my phone and hand it to him. Kai takes it without asking what I mean, types in his number and calls himself. A second later, his phone vibrates inside his jacket. He hands mine back before pulling his out, saving my number beneath my name while I watch.

“We’re doing this right this time,” he says.

Something in the certainty of his voice settles warmly inside me. No anonymous letters. No lamp glowing in my window. No man hidden in the shadows deciding how much of himself I’m allowed to know.

Just Kai.

“I’m going to text you.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Look at you, communicating like a normal person.”

His eyes narrow with familiar amusement. “Don’t get carried away, little ember.”

The nickname in his real voice sends heat curling low through my stomach. I look up at him, and his eyes darken immediately.

Oh, yes, that part of Ghost can absolutely stay.

I slip my phone back into my purse and start toward the house, only realizing after a few steps that he isn’t beside me.

When I turn, Kai is still standing near the path, watching me but refusing even now to assume that my invitation extends beyond what I have actually said. So I hold out my hand. Something fierce and tender moves across his face. This time he doesn’t hesitate for long. He crosses the distance, takes my hand and threads his fingers through mine, his thumb pressing once against my knuckles as we start back toward the house together.

There is no Dr. Blackwood beside me now and no Ghost hidden somewhere behind me.

There is only Kai.

— The end —

Epilogue

Kai

Nine months later

The hallway outside Courtroom 4B smells like old carpet, burnt coffee and whatever industrial cleaner they use in government buildings to convince people nobody has ever suffered inside them.

I have been leaning against the wall for almost fifteen minutes, ankles crossed and arms folded over my chest, watching attorneys and clerks move around me with folders tucked beneath their arms while I wait for Julia to finish being congratulated. I could have stayed inside. I stepped out because she deserves this part without me hovering over her shoulder. Today has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the woman I watched spend months convincing herself she was too busy, too old, too far removed from school and too comfortable in the job she already had to sit for the goddamn bar. Daniel deserves most of the credit for pushing her to take it. I deserve considerably less, although I did spend an impressive number of evenings at our kitchen table being informed that the Multistate Bar Examination was developed by sadists and constitutional law should be illegal.

She passed on the first try. Of course she did. The notification came on an ordinary Thursday morning while I was making coffee and she was sitting at the kitchen island in one of my T-shirts, refreshing the results page with the intensity of someone attempting to detonate a bomb remotely. When the screen finally changed, she stared at it long enough that I assumed something had gone wrong.

Then she whispered, “Holy shit.”

I barely had time to ask before she launched herself off the stool and into me hard enough to spill coffee down my wrist. She cried. Then laughed because she was crying. Then started kissing me which ultimately led to me fucking her senseless on the kitchen counter. Only after that did she call Daniel to tell him about passing the bar, who screamed loudly enough through the phone that I heard him from across the kitchen. Tessa was next and changed that approximately forty seconds later by somehow screaming louder. Julia’s mother cried. Nanna told her she knew she would pass and then asked whether that meant Julia could finally get her parking tickets dismissed. For the record, Julia does not have parking tickets. Nanna remains unconcerned with factual limitations when a joke presents itself.

That was five months ago. Today is the first time Julia has walked into a courtroom as lead counsel and walked back out having won. Not assisting or organizing exhibits for somebody else. Not quietly handing Daniel the argument he later presents as though he had discovered it himself — something he freely admits happened often enough before she finally took the bar.

Hers. I saw the exact moment she realized the judge was ruling for her client. She didn’t smile immediately. That would have been too easy. Instead, she went completely still at the counsel table while the judge finished explaining the order, her fingers resting over the legal pad in front of her as though she didn’t trust herself to move until every word was on the record. The woman beside her started crying first. Julia turned toward her, and whatever professional composure she had been holding fractured just enough for me to see the relief on her face. The protection order was granted. The husband’s contact restrictions remained in place, including third-party communication, and the temporary custody provisions Julia had argued for became part of the longer order while the family case moved forward.

It wasn’t the kind of victory that made anybody celebrate what had brought them into the courtroom. Julia understood that better than most. Still, when she looked over her shoulder and found me sitting in the last row, a multitude of emotions passed across her face that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Pride. Relief. Disbelief. And that look she gives me when she forgets anybody else exists. That one is my favorite.