Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Grinning, because I knew I was about to piss him off, I started typing.
I wasn’t left in suspense long.
He was reading the comments aloud, smiling and replying to almost every single one.
Then he got to mine.
It started out with ‘hey, I’m your biggest fan!’ then ended with ‘the girl finds out that she’s delusional, and the stalker she thought she had was actually a figment of her imagination. Spoiler!’
He got to the ‘figment of her imagination’ part then cursed. “Fuckin’ A, you bitch! I told you not to spoil it!”
I grinned, then started typing.
“Well, I guess that’s the least that you can deal with since you played a role in my best friend’s suicide,” I replied angrily, reading the words aloud as I typed them.
That was the first day that I was blocked by Taite DeRosa.
But it wouldn’t be the last.
8 weeks later
I watched on Taite’s live stream as he shared his fan mail.
“I know this has become kind of a new thing with us,” Taite was saying. “But I just had to share how excited it makes me to read fan mail from people.”
Taite started opening up his fan mail.
He had a stack of probably fifty envelopes.
He was about ten deep when I saw my envelope start to slowly rise to the top.
The glitter bomb had been a huge hit.
But this one…
The card was opened, and the moment that it was, the card started to sing.
And sing.
And sing.
And sing.
I read on the box that the card would sing for a solid seventy-two hours.
Just when you thought it stopped, it would start up again.
He’d probably throw it away within the hour.
But for now, I got a kick out of how many times he tried to break it, rip it apart, and stomp on it to get it to stop.
All the while he was cursing my name, because you know damn well I signed it.
Love, Hollis. Your most hated fan.
I give just about enough of a fuck to keep me out of jail.
—Texts from Hollis to Keda that’ll never get answered
QUINCY
6 months later
“What’s this?” I asked, catching the paper that’d just printed on the printer next to my brother’s desk.
I tilted my head, my brain playing some weird game of déjà vu with me at the name on the paper. One thing in particular, though, had my eyes fixated on it.
A name.
Hollis.
Hollis.
Hollis.
Hollis.
“That is the comedian’s information. The one who’s coming to town tonight and playing at the Cowboy Stadium,” Quaid grumbled. “We’re working jointly with Ft. Worth Police Department and Irving Police Department, because apparently this comedian dude is a big deal.”
Funny, if he was such a big deal, why had I never heard of him?
I read off the information about him and drew a blank. “Never heard of him.”
Now the name Hollis was definitely ringing a bell.
“Me, neither,” Quaid admitted. “But he’s apparently number one on Spotify right now and thinks he’s hot shit because of that.”
I flipped to the next page and froze.
I hadn’t seen her face in six months, but I’d know it anywhere.
It wasn’t every day that you told someone her best friend had committed suicide, and she lost her goddamn mind.
The name definitely made sense, now.
“And that’s his stalker,” Quaid said, seeing the image I was staring at.
Stalker? What?
“What?” I asked in surprise.
Had I heard him correctly?
“His stalker,” Quaid repeated. “Or, at least, his alleged stalker. I read the judge’s report. Truthfully, I didn’t think he had enough evidence of her being a stalker to warrant a restraining order, but he still has one. Either way, we have to enforce it. If she’s seen anywhere near his vicinity tonight, she gets arrested.”
I shook my head, trying to figure out how the shy, broken woman who was Hollis Aue, could also be Taite DeRosa’s stalker. The two didn’t add up.
“Huh,” I shook my head. “I can’t see it.”
In the photo they had of Hollis, she was dressed in white. She was smiling wide for the camera, and her eyes were sparkling. She had straight white teeth, dark brown hair, and beautiful cognac-colored eyes.
Even the harsh way the printer framed her face didn’t detract from her beauty.
“If she’s a stalker, I’ll eat my shoe.” I shook my head.
But seriously, there was no way this woman was a stalker. She didn’t fit the vibe.
“They are all crazy, Quincy. Don’t you know that by now?” Quaid jeered.
I flipped him off. “Fuck you.”
Apparently, I had a rap sheet of crazy females I tended to date for long periods of time before I figured it out, so sue me.
I was attracted to crazy.
“What kind of evidence did they have?” I asked. “Why’d they give him a restraining order?”
Just as I asked that, Garrett walked up in plainclothes, looking a little worse for wear.
“What happened to you?” Quaid asked.
“Got in a fight with a suspect. Suspect decided to flee, I chose to chase. Caught him right before he was trying to go over a barbed wire fence. He fell into the dumpster, and I had to go retrieve him because dumb-fuck decided to fall on his carotid. Got a bit dirty,” Garrett grumbled. “Hey, that’s your hot chick from that suicide a few months back, isn’t it?”