“Tommy! Get away from him, you jerk!”
Tommy’s legs stopped working, and he collapsed to the cement. He was vaguely aware of a scuffle, people shouting, someone yelling, “Call 9-1-1,” followed by someone else saying, “No, I don’t want the cops coming to my bar. It’s bad for business!”
And then someone was hoisting him up, and his brother Philip’s voice was in his ear. “Tommy, can you hear me?”
Tommy willed his head to acknowledge the question.
“Come on, let’s get you inside. Take him in through the employee entrance. We’ll wait back there until the cops get here.”
“But—”
“Shut the hell up, Marcus.”
Elliot—he assumed it was Elliot he was leaning on as he dragged his feet across the pavement—lowered him onto a chair. Tommy rested his elbows on his thighs and then dropped his head into his hands.
What the hell just happened?
Chapter Fourteen
I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye. That bullshit in the parking lot screwed up my plans. I need to take care of a few things and then I’ll be in touch.
That was the last text Camila had received from Tommy.
She’d taken the trash out that night because the barback was busy busing tables and not a single additional napkin could fit into the receptacle by that point in the evening. Marcus had said he wanted a smoke, so he accompanied her instead of taking the garbage himself. But that was Marcus for you.
She’d tossed the bag into the dumpster and was about to head back inside when she heard noises that sounded like a scuffle. So she’d grabbed her manager by the arm and dragged him around the wall that housed the dumpster. She’d expected to see a couple of friends arguing or maybe a guy trying to put the moves on a girl who hadn’t wanted his attention.
She sure as hell hadn’t expected to see some guy trying to cover Tommy’s mouth and nose with a rag. Panic kicked in and she leaped onto the guy’s back, just as Tommy’s brothers came running around the corner, Philip catching Tommy as he collapsed.
Holy hell, that had been a scary moment. Not the fact that she’d thrown herself into danger but seeing Tommy go down, not knowing if he was even alive.
Her heart had stopped beating for long seconds, until she saw him drunkenly nod, watched Philip hand him off to Elliot, who slung Tommy’s arm around his shoulders and all but dragged him toward the employee entrance.
The guy whose back she was still clinging to dropped to his knees, his baseball cap and glasses falling off in the process. Philip had grabbed his arms and twisted them behind the man’s back with one hand while calling the police with the other.
That was when Camila realized who the guy was.
Her stalker.
He’d shaved his beard and added the glasses, and probably deliberately wore the hat to add to his disguise. But why the hell had he attacked Tommy?
Two days after the incident, Philip informed her that Vince had figured out that Tommy and Camila were dating, and, according to his confession to the police, he had planned to kidnap Tommy in order to lure Camila to his place, where he would then convince her that she should be with him instead of the motocross racer.
The idea that Vince thought she and Tommy were dating was hysterically funny since they weren’t, plus, what they had been doing, they’d been doing in secret, so how in the world had a complete stranger made the connection?
A connection that wasn’t true.
“It’s obvious to everyone but you, apparently,” Philip had told her. “I could tell thirty seconds after I met you.”
“Tell what?” Camila asked.
“That you two are crazy about each other.”
Social media was having a field day with “the incident.” By hiding Tommy in the back room until the cops arrived, Philip had helped ensure there were no spectator videos or pictures linking him directly to Vince and the alleged attempted kidnapping. But thanks to the various fan photos posted on Instagram and Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat, and probably a dozen other social media sites, the world was well aware that the famous motocross racer had been in the vicinity that evening.
And somehow, a few pics surfaced of him smiling at Camila, of Camila leaning over the bar to whisper something in his ear, of a gaggle of women vying for his attention while he was wholly focused on the cute—according to the one Instagram post she’d read—tender behind the bar.
Placing her phone face down on the coffee table, Camila climbed off the couch and wandered over to the glass doors leading out to the tiny balcony attached to her apartment. She stared out at a lovely view of the parking lot, watching an Escalade glide into a spot, the driver hop out, and head toward her building.
Two days ago, she quit her job. She’d had enough of Marcus putting her on display, using the situation with her stalker—who was now in jail, awaiting arraignment—to drum up business.
She’d felt such an instantaneous sense of relief when she did it that she chastised herself for not making this decision sooner. Why had it had taken a stalker and losing the man she was pretty sure she loved to force her into taking that step?
She had no idea what she planned to do to support herself. Hell, she still wasn’t even sure if she planned to stay in the Detroit area. Honestly, she’d been waiting to hear from Tommy before making any additional decisions.
Apparently she’d begun to buy into everything being said on social media, because she was hoping he’d call, tell her he wanted to see her again. Then she could tell him that she just happened to be free if he was interested in her tagging along for the rest
