As soon as my phone rang that morning, I knew it was him. Unless something was seriously wrong, Harleigh and Desiree would have no reason to call me this early in the morning. The day hadn’t even started yet. So much so that Carter was still there, sitting on the edge of my desk, sipping his coffee.
I rolled my eyes and let out a sigh as I let the phone ring. Just like clockwork, it started ringing again almost immediately, and I clicked the button on the side to silence the rings.
“Not going to answer it?” Carter asked.
“No,” I said.
“Wrong number? I had a telemarketer who called me three or four times a day, every single day, for a month and a half even though I told him over and over that I wasn’t the person he was looking for. I think he really believed I was that person and was just lying to him but would eventually break,” Carter said.
My phone alerted me to the new voicemail I knew would show up as I giggled at Carter.
“Not exactly,” I said. “I wish it was that simple.”
I accessed the voicemail and cringed at Ashton’s rambling. The messages were getting progressively longer and more desperate. They started out with at least a little bit of control, and if I could get over just how disturbing they were, I might even acknowledge some of the poetic moments. Those all went to hell after the third or fourth day of the messages.
By this point, the voicemails had devolved to Ashton alternating between begging me to come back to him, insisting that we were still in love with each other as if he could force me to believe it if he said it enough times, and delivering veiled threats. This particular message was heavy on the threats but also had enough desperation and whining in it to make my skin crawl.
I deleted the message and sighed heavily as I tossed it onto the desk in front of me.
“What is it?” Carter asked. Deacon and Everett came in from their office in that moment. “What’s wrong, Lauren?”
“Everything okay?” Deacon asked.
“It’s nothing,” I said, not wanting to get into it, especially not with all the guys.
“It didn’t look like nothing,” Carter said.
I could have continued to pretend like everything was fine and brush it off, but there really wasn’t much point. The calls were going to keep coming, and at some point, Carter was going to find out about it. I decided I might as well tell him about them now and get it over with.
“My ex has been calling me and leaving me really creepy messages,” I said.
“Has been calling you?” Carter asked. “Like today isn’t the first time it’s happened?”
“No. He’s been calling every day.”
“And leaving you creepy messages?” Deacon asked.
I nodded. “He’s just been saying we’re supposed to be together, that we were so good together and still should be. That kind of thing.”
I didn’t mention what he’d been saying about Carter, but I looked over at him, hoping he could somehow see in my eyes that there was more to the messages than just that.
Carter looked over at Everett and Deacon, then back at me. “Where does he live?”
I shook my head. This was already getting out of hand. I didn’t want this to escalate any further.
“I’m not going to tell you that,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I have a pretty good idea of where he lives, and I’m sure I can figure it out.”
“Don’t do anything, Carter. Leave it alone.” I picked up my phone and blocked Ashton’s number. “Look. I just blocked his number. He won’t be able to call me again. It’s fine.”
“Why didn’t you do that before?”
I wished there was a good excuse for it. The truth was I didn’t really think that blocking Ashton’s number was going to do much good. I knew him well enough to know that was going to frustrate him, and he was just going to find another way to get to me. Which meant rather than calling me and leaving me messages, he was going to start showing up at my apartment again or even appearing in other places.
“I just didn’t,” I said. “But it’s done now. So you don’t have to worry about it.”
Right then, I wasn’t thinking about how I was going to handle Ashton escalating. All that mattered at that moment was calming Carter down and stopping him from going off the deep end and doing something stupid. I’d figure out how to handle anything else next.
Carter looked stiff for a couple of seconds, then finally let out a breath, his shoulders relaxing slightly as he relented to not storming after Ashton right then.
“If anything else happens, or if he gets around the block and won’t stop calling you, let me know,” he said seriously. “I’ll put an end to it.”