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“Get out of my house.”
“Fuck you for ruining any chance I thought I had with Daniel. You fucking piece of shit, he—”
The pieces finally started to come together in my head.
Daniel was my ex-boyfriend. The last one I’d had before I got really famous and sworn off long-term relationships. Ever since we’d broken up, Daniel had a bad habit of picking up strays. His heart was too big, and when he felt sorry for someone, he thought he could fix them. He thought he could fixme, too—but when I’d finally come out, Daniel had stayed in the closet.
This crazed guy in my house must have been one of Daniel’s latest secret flings.
“I haven’t seen or spoken with Daniel in a very long time,” I said. “You’re out of your mind.”
“He says your fucking name in his sleep,” the guy roared at me. “He fuckingcriesabout you. One time, when he was drunk enough, he even said he’d never have another cock as good as yours again. I am so sick of hearing your name, Kace Tomlin”
He broke down into sobs, letting the spray paint can drop to the floor. My heart was still racing, and it took every scrap of restraint in me not to run over to the guy, grab him by his shirt, and fuckingthrowhim out of my house.
I could do it. Easily.
But the last thing I needed was some news headline about how I’d hurt a man who was potentially strung out on drugs or mentally ill, and I was pretty sure I’d clocked that he wasn’t capable of hurting me, anyway.
“Get out of my house,” I repeated, saying each word clearly and firmly.
For a minute, it seemed like he was complying. He backed off, walking out of my room, back down the hallway, and out through the front doors. Then as he walked down toward the front gate, the wail of police sirens came through the night air, and he tried to make a run for it.
I pulled up my phone. I’d all but forgotten Vivienne was still there.
“Did you call the police?” I asked her.
“The moment you walked into the house,” she said.
I watched as the guy tried to sprint down the street, launching himself into some shrubs and trees. But the cops got him relatively quickly, putting handcuffs around his wrists.
Only one thing kept flying through my mind. I didn’t want this asshole to publicly out my ex-boyfriend. Things had gone wrong between us, but that didn’t mean he deserved to be pushed out of the closet.
Yet another reason my public life was a problem: nobody from my old life wanted anything to do with it.
I spent a good hour talking with the police, going through my house with them, and determining just how many crimes this guy had broken by coming into my house and vandalizing it. My adrenaline had shot up and then plummeted down like a roller coaster, and by the time the police left, I felt like I had a grade-A hangover.
“Fucking hell,” I said, looking around at the destruction in the bedroom. He’d managed to get at least a dozen eggs onto my bed, headboard, and the rug below, and I was pretty sure he’d poured sour milk onto the entire mattress.
I was numb. And I knew I was at least going to get a monster upgrade to my security system, if not hire private security like Vivienne suggested.
The next thing I realized was that I had nowhere to go. The couch was fucked. The bedroom was rancid. The furniture in the guest house had all been removed yesterday morning and put into storage in anticipation of the remodel. Most of my football teammates were in Delaware for a wealth management conference that I’d decided to skip.
Even Callie was out of town for the weekend. I wanted to call my mom, to complain and rant and ask her what the hell she would do. But I couldn’t.
My chest tightened as I pulled out my phone, calling the only stable person who I actuallywantedto see right now.
“Hey,” Nathan answered the phone, a chipper tone to his voice. “Kace? Is this a butt dial?”
“Nathan?” I said, my voice heavy. “Not a butt dial.”
“Shit, did you leave something at our office?”
“My house isfucked, dude,” I blurted out, my numbness suddenly exploding into emotion. “The police just left, everything got vandalized by this crazy dude who I don’t even know, and everything is dripping in eggs and sour fucking milk—”
“Do you need to stay in a hotel tonight?”
I puffed out a bitter laugh, scrubbing a palm over my face. “Is it sad that I didn’t even consider that option?” I told him. “Shit. You can take the guy out of poverty but not the poverty out of the guy, I guess.”
