So I Married a Rockstar

Chapter Thirty

Ch.30: Someone You Know

My blood turned to ice, and a choked sob escaped.

I stumbled back, out of the room, and slammed into someone standing behind me, and that choked sob became a strangled scream.

"Whoa, Camden, what's wrong?" Elle's voice penetrated the panic-fog in my head.

I couldn't speak; I pointed to the bedroom with a shaking finger.

Elle's expression darkened as she stepped around me. "Don't tell me someone puked in here –" She stopped dead in the doorway.

For the longest moment, she didn't move and she didn't speak, then she turned to me, and her face was drained of colour.

"What the hell is this?" she said.

I tried to speak, but all I could manage was another sob.

Elle shut the bedroom door and put her arms around me. It was meant to be comforting, but I could feel how much she was trembling, and I recalled Jude mentioning that Elle had her own share of crazy fans. How much of this shit had she seen before?

Elle steered me away from the bedroom and towards the kitchen. The breakfast bar was still being used as a bed by a spiky-haired guy that I didn't know, and Elle briskly patted his face until his eyes fluttered open.

"What?" he mumbled.

"Off," Elle commanded.

He squinted at her.

"I'm serious," she said.

I didn't know if he knew her or if her hard tone of voice convinced him, but he rolled off the bar with a groan and shambled towards the steps that led to the roof.

Elle guided me onto one of the stools.

"Will you be okay here for a moment? I'm going to get Jude," she said.

Numbly, I nodded.

Elle hurried to the stairs.

I placed both palms flat on the bar and tried to calm my racing heart. It didn't work.

Knowing that Jude had a stalker had been unsettling.

Knowing that the stalker had been at Brentford when Jude and I went to pick up my stuff had been disturbing.

But knowing that the stalker had been inside the loft, inside my bedroom, was fucking terrifying.

I glanced at the party guests still conked out on the floor and the sofa. Had one of them done it? Was it someone I'd met last night? Had they looked me in the eye and smiled and laughed, then come downstairs and done this?

Elle came back into the kitchen area, Jude following. I jumped off my stool and ran to him because suddenly I needed him to hold me and make me feel safe. Jude hugged me tightly against his chest, and I breathed in the familiar smell of his skin.

"Tell me what happened," he said.

I did.

Jude went to check the bedroom, and when he came back, his face was a storm of restrained anger. His fists were tightly curled, his thumbs tapping rapidly against his knuckles, like he was trying to stop himself from punching something.

"You realise what this means, don't you?" I said. "Your stalker was here."

"You don't know that," Jude said. "You've had to deal with a lot of shit from fans this past week –"

"But not here," I interrupted. "This isn't out on the street, where any random can try to get close to you. This is your home."

Jude looked past me, but he didn't unclench his fists. "This shouldn't have happened, and I'm so fucking sorry that it did, but that doesn't mean this is the work of a stalker. I'm not proud of it, but I have do have some exes that might stoop to this kind of thing."