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3
ACE
It’s been six weeks,and I’ve crossed the line from wrong to sick. I knew it the day I ran off Cody. I crept around Mackenzie’s house, checked the perimeter, and watched over it the whole night to make sure the little shit didn’t try to come back. Maybe on the surface, it sounds fine. Noble, even.
Problem is, I haven’t stopped. I’m there every night. When I’m not doing these wilderness tours for macho tourists who are convinced they can magically become rugged outdoorsmen in a weekend, I’m following her. Watching her.
At the hardware store when she’s working.
At the coffee shop when she’s meeting with friends.
At her home when she’s recording her videos.
I’m always there, just out of sight.
Sometimes, she pauses. Almost like she senses me.
Fuck, I hope she does. I hope it makes her wet between her legs to know that I’m nearby, waiting, and eager to pounce on her perfect little body.
Even now as I trail her and her friends around the autumn festival, I’m barely hanging onto my control. I’m worse than an animal. I’m a monster, toying with his prey, willing her to sense me. To sense the danger she’s in. Would it excite her to know the depraved ways I want her? Would it make the little pearl between her thighs swell to sense my clawing need?
She throws her head back, laughing at something her friends said. All that creamy exposed skin has me wanting to sink my teeth into her flesh. Would she claw at my back, nails digging deep into my skin? Would she sigh my name or would she scream it?
One of her friends glances over her shoulder and spots me. I pretend to busy myself looking at a display booth filled with clay creations. I’m getting sloppy if a civilian can spot me in a festival this crowded.
I wait until her friend has stopped paying attention then I resume following the group, but more carefully this time. Like I do every night, I promise myself this is the last time.
* * *
Mackenzie
I pullmy car to a stop in the driveway of my dad’s cabin. He built it the summer my mom died. He disappeared into the mountains. He’d surface into town occasionally to take lumber from his store. He was a ghost, barely talking to me back then.
Sometimes, I can’t believe she’s gone. Even though it’s been four years, I still find myself trying to dial her number on my phone. I still find myself wanting to text her when I need someone to talk to.
I wonder what she’d say about Ace. He’s been my constant shadow since that day with Cody. He’s trying to be discreet, or at least, I think he’s trying to be. But despite all of his training and all of his careful efforts, I can still sense when he’s nearby. He’s the other half of my soul. How could I not feel him?
Something in the bushes moves, and a small brown rabbit hops out. Rabbits were my mom’s favorite, and the sight makes me smile.
“Miss you, mama,” I say as I get out of my car. I jog up the wooden steps and walk in with the sodas tucked under my arm. The running joke in our family is that I’m a kitchen disaster. Put a power drill in my hands and I know what to do. Put a spatula in my hands and chaos is sure to follow.
As soon as I walk into the kitchen, I take a big appreciative inhale. It’s casserole night. It’s always casserole night.
Daisy, the yellow Labrador that Dad took in a year ago, sticks her cold nose to my hand. I pause to greet her before smiling at my dad.
He’s at the stove, wearing the apron my mom got him that has a pun on it. He pulls the casserole out and beams at me. “Just in time, honey.”
I kiss him on his weathered cheek and show him the sodas. “My contribution.”
“Good, good. Ace is here too.”
My heart starts pounding. I haven’t seen him since that afternoon. At least, not other than his quiet stalking which neither of us has acknowledged.
I know Ace told my dad what happened because he sat me down for a lecture the next day, insisting that I bring any problems with the hardware store to him. He was furious with Cody though he seemed mollified by the fact that Ace had shown up when he did.
My dad might own the hardware store, but he left me in charge of it the day I graduated high school. That was the day my mom got the phone call about her biopsy results. At first, I delayed college and ran the store to help them out. But now six years later, I love that little shop and the regulars that show up each week.
Throughout my mom’s battle and her eventual death, the shop gave me something I desperately needed: a purpose and a reason to get out of bed each morning.
