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“It’s nothing, really. It’s just… I got a weird feeling when I was walking home, like, I don’t know, someone was following me.” Even when I said it, I cringed at my own paranoia. “I looked, multiple times, and I didn’t see anyone.”
Creed’s grip on my wrist loosened, but he didn’t let me go. “Sometimes, when we get that feeling, it’s our gut telling us something is off. Sometimes our gut is wrong, but sometimes it’s right.”
I met his dark, almost pupil-less stare. “You don’t think Hailee would—”
“No,” he cut in. “I don’t think she’d try anything.” His thumb rubbed the back of my hand when his hand fell to hold mine. “Still, if you felt something was off, perhaps you should not walk to and from campus. I’ll drive you from now on. I should’ve this whole time.”
It was my turn to say, “No. I don’t mind walking. I like it. It lets me clear my head.” And, let’s be real, walking was about the only exercise I got lately, other than sex with Creed—and I definitely considered sex with Creed a sport.
Creed sighed, releasing my hand only so he could touch my face, gently cupping my cheek with his strong, firm hand. “I would never forgive myself if something happened to you. You know that, right? Let me drive you.”
I didn’t want to bother him. I didn’t want to force him to go out of his way just to drive me to campus and pick me up every single day. What if I started to rely on that and he had to go away for a week or two for another job? He’d told me his work was random, so it wasn’t something I could prepare for.
“It’s fine,” I told him. “I’m fine. It was all in my head.”
“We should get you a car,” he said. “Then you can drive yourself. It’ll make me feel better.”
My mouth fell open at that. A car? He wanted to go out and buy me a freakingcar? I mean, I knew he’d spent a lot of money on me when I’d first asked him for help, but buying me clothes and a laptop was way different than buying me a car.
When I didn’t say anything more, Creed said, “It’s settled. We’re getting you a vehicle.”
“Creed—”
“No, it’s happening, whether you want it to or not. It’s something I should’ve looked into before, but…” It was his turn to pause and mull over his thoughts. “When you first called me, when you asked me for help, I… I was worried you’d change your mind and want to leave, especially after some of the things I did. Not getting you a car was my way of trying to keep you here—”
I wasn’t used to this darkly vulnerable side of Creed, and I leaned into his face, giving him a soft kiss on the lips. With him sitting, it was a lot easier to do than when he was standing. “I’m not going to leave, but I also don’t want you to buy me a car. Let me walk.”
His chest rumbled. “Fine, you can walk for now, but I’m going to start looking for a car.”
That was as good as I’d get with Creed, so I didn’t argue.
Creed released me, and it was as I turned around and started to walk away, my intent to go to my room and work on some homework, that he called out, “But if you feel the same thing again, you call me immediately. I’ll come pick you up, wherever you are.”
I relented, “Okay,” mostly because there was no arguing with him about this. I resumed my walk to my bedroom, pondering it all the while. I didn’t know if I believed the school of thought that said your intuition was always right, but Creed certainly believed it.
Hmm. I didn’t know. Maybe it was just my imagination, playing games with me. Maybe nothing had been wrong at all, and I’d unconsciously made it up.
But, if someone really was following me, who was it and why?
Two options came to mind: Hailee and my dad. My dad for obvious reasons, and Hailee for different but still obvious reasons. I imagined both wanted to get back at me for the things I’d done—for leaving him and refusing to go home with him, and for simply existing and being with Creed.
That said, would either one of them really follow me? Would they have the guts? I didn’t know. Hailee seemed like a more in-your-face kind of woman, someone who didn’t take any shit and was quite loud about it, while my dad… well, he wasn’t someone who stalked in the shadows, either. He was blunt to the extreme, wholly unable to be quiet and wait for the right time to strike.
At least, I thought those things were true. It wasn’t like I was in either of their heads, so I couldn’t say for sure if what I’d thought about them was totally true.
There was nothing to be done about it right now. All I could do was some homework and hope that it was just a one-off, that I wouldn’t feel that same spidey sense tomorrow or any day in the future.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky.
The next day I felt the exact same thing, only this time, I felt it walkingtocampus instead of from it. I didn’t tell Creed, mostly because I didn’t want him to freak out. It was an uncanny feeling, that was for sure, one I couldn’t say I’d ever felt before in my life, but the last thing I wanted was to make a big deal about it.
For one thing, I didn’t want to seem paranoid. I didn’t want Creed to think I was some scared little girl who couldn’t handle herself. I’d already been forced to come to him at my hour of need, and I wanted to prove that I could take care of myself… and that included walking to and from campus by myself.
Downtown wasn’t the safest place, it was true, but if you walked along the sidewalks, avoided the alleyways, and only did so during the day, you were fine.
Secondly, I really didn’t want Creed to buy me a car. It felt… weird, almost, to accept such a huge gift. And it would be a gift—there was no possible way I’d be able to pay him back for the clothes and laptop, let alone a freaking car. That wasn’t to say I was prideful, but it was hard to explain.
I didn’t know what was going on, because when I felt it walking to campus, I stopped walking and looked all around. No one on the sidewalks was paying attention to me, and there was no car on the four-lane street holding up traffic by going slow and following me. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
