Closer (Stage Dive 4.60)

“Morning, Ziggy.”

“Morning, Miss Cooper.”

Giant-ass size mug of coffee in hand, I shuffled back into the spare bedroom, where an abundance of packing boxes awaited. “Are the hordes still downstairs?”

“Yes, they are.”

“Great. Must be a slow news week.”

And details of my gruesome bloody delivery had indeed spread everywhere. Having been bombarded with messages and calls, I’d made the smart decision to mute my cell. After first posting a behind-the-scenes picture from the recent shoot in New Orleans on Instagram and calling my mom, of course. She’d been horrified and pressed to come stay with me. I barely managed to convince her it wasn’t necessary. I needed some space to deal with things right now and having Ziggy and all his hotness in my face was already more than I could handle. I knew my mom would take over the place with a lot of good intentions but not much awareness of my slowly growing freak-out, barely being kept under control.

No, thank you.

Also, she had enough going on planning her wedding to Dr. Jane next month. A wonderful woman, and they made a great couple. Mom deserved much happiness after all those years of raising me on her own. Teenage girls could be hellacious and I’d been no exception. So many hormones bouncing around inside. Besides which, girls could be mean. It had been a tough time for everyone.

And speaking of hotness getting all up in my face, my bodyguard looked as slick as ever in his obviously custom-tailored black suit. Guess carrying a gun around in a holster necessitated the tailoring. I, on the other hand, wore my favorite boyfriend jeans, an old Ramones tee, messy bun, and concealer to hide the sleep deprivation bruising beneath my eyes. I had at least showered. Bonus points to me.

“Will you still be going to lunch with Mrs. Ferris?” he asked.

I cocked my head. “What’s your professional opinion? I’d been looking forward to it. There’s this cool new place we were going to try. But…”

“I won’t lie to you. Crowds massively increase the amount of moving parts in your environment. You never know who or what might be hiding in them. And right now, you’re bound to have people following wherever you go.”

“Hmm.”

“It’s my job to assess threats and keep you safe.” His cell started to vibrate somewhere about his person. He pulled it out of his back pants pocket, checked the screen, and dismissed the call with a slide of his thumb. “But only you can decide what risk is important enough, for whatever reason, to be worth taking.”

“If they’re all still out there then I guess I might cancel my plans.” I planted my ass on the carpet and picked up my cell, sending Lena a quick text to let her know. Given the situation, I cancelled my appointment with my hairdresser in the afternoon as well. “Looks like I’m spending the day at home. You probably don’t need to hang around.”

“You won’t be leaving your apartment at all?”

“Only maybe to go down to the apartment building’s gym later.”

“Then I’ll stay. There’re some other tasks I have to do while you’re busy here.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but then changed my mind. After a

long night of jumping at every little noise, keeping the bodyguard around might be for the best. Calm the savage nerves and all that. If it was a choice between annoying hotness and crippling fear, then I’ll go for the heat every time. “Okay.”

“Any update from Detective Ortega?”

“No. Not a word.” I sighed. “I tried going through some of my emails and messages last night, to see if they mentioned hearts or knives or anything like that. There’s some seriously deranged people out there. I mean, can you imagine sending a message to a complete stranger saying that baby Jesus was going to strike them down dead and send them to hell? Or that you wanted to strangle them and have sex with their corpse? Who the hell says that sort of thing? Just because they can hide behind a bullshit email address or fake avatar they think they can let all of their ugly out to play and inflict it on other people.”

His gaze narrowed, lines furrowing his brow. “Why don’t you let the police deal with that in the future, Miss Cooper? You don’t need that sort of shit getting into your head. Excuse my language.”

I attempted a smile. “It’s fine. Swear all you like. This situation makes me want to swear too.”

“There’s a lot of sick and cruel people out there. It doesn’t mean you need to give them a moment of your time.”

“True,” I said. “I guess you’ve seen a lot of this sort of stuff before.”

“Enough to know you’re better off staying away from it and leaving the detective work to the professionals.”

“I know, I know.” My shoulders slumped, my back bowed. My bones felt hollow and weak. Tonight I’d take some Melatonin and try to knock myself out. Actually get some decent sleep. “I just hate being so out of control. Having to put my life on pause because of this asshole.”

“Understandable.”

Around me were towers of books waiting to be shelved. Romance mostly. Since I had the time, I might as well place them in alphabetical order. His gaze wandered over them with something close to interest. Made me curious about his hobbies. Apart from being a fulltime card-carrying member of the badass club, of course. He probably kick boxed and scaled tall buildings and saved kittens from burning trees. I really shouldn’t have sat down. From this height, he seemed even more imposing. Like a mountain towering over me, taking up all of the view. I’d been around plenty of big shot actors, sports stars, and business tycoons over the years, courtesy of various events and V.I.P. lounges. Ziggy Thayer had more presence than all of them put together. It’s like he sucked the air out of a room just by generally being cool and existing.