Asshole Alert
Everyone had been on edge since the peeping tom situation outside of Abby and Liv's place a few days ago. Fitz and Stephen were determined to keep the girls safe and had called a meeting to discuss exactly how to do so. The four of them were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee in their pajamas when a knock on the door sounded before Quinn let herself in.
All eyes were on her as she made her way inside the little kitchen with a big smile on her face. She plopped a box of donuts down in the middle of the table before giving everyone a cheery "morning". Quinn had jumped at the chance to be Abby's roommate. She was desperate to get out of the rat hole living with a guy who wasn't actively looking for a job or helping keep said rat hole clean while she was at work. She'd told him bye, grabbed her bag of stuff, and heading to the beach house.
Olivia had offered her bedroom to Quinn, saying it would be hers soon anyway, but she had declined. She was happy to be in a clean house with great people. Besides, Quinn couldn't put Olivia out of her bed knowing she was pregnant. She took the sofa. It was just for a week because Liv and Fitz were moving out the following weekend. Quinn planned on buying herself a bed and dresser, but Olivia insisted that the furniture in her bedroom stay there for Quinn to have. She and Fits had everything they needed at the new house anyways.
Rent wasn't due for a whole month, thanks to Liv paying off her half of the bills at the beginning of the month. It gave Quinn some much needed breathing room. Until then, she'd be a thoughtful roommate who occasionally bought breakfast.
When she reached the coffee pot on the counter, she poured herself a cup and took a seat near everyone else. "What are we talking about?"
Stephen gave her a smile, and said, "So this is the gun slinging Quinn I've heard so much about."
"You must be Stephen." Quinn told him and snagged a donut from the box.
She looked over at Abby with a grin as she chewed a piece of chocolate frosted donut, and said, "you were right. He is cute."
"Right?" Abby agreed with a devious smile.
"I'm sorry if it appears that we started without you, Quinn." Fitz began. "We honestly just sat down."
"Nah, it's fine. I went to get breakfast for everybody since the two of you were here. At least you saved me some coffee. Thanks for that, by the way." Quinn told him.
"We're all still getting used to the idea of you living here now. I've got to admit, it's calmed a lot of my fears, knowing you're here to help keep everyone safe." Fitz told her.
"It's been quiet around here since the creeper showed up outside. I've been looking every day for footprints or signs that any of the windows have been tampered with, but I haven't seen anything. It was probably just some random guy who thought he'd get a kick out of scaring the bejesus out of three women. He probably learned his lesson when the cops showed up..."
"Or when you ran outside to confront him with your gun." Abby chimed in.
Quinn snorted. "Either way, I don't think he'll be coming back."
The whole thing made Olivia feel violated. To know that a stranger had been outside the house watching them. She hugged herself tighter. "You're probably right, Quinn. But it makes me feel very nervous. I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable knowing there's a gun in the house either. It helps a little bit knowing that you know how to use it."
"I respect your feelings about guns. It would help me to understand it better if you told me why this random guy looking into the window freaks you out so much. Has this happened to you before?" Quinn wanted to know what was going through Olivia's mind. She thought she'd be better able to put her at ease if she knew where Olivia's fear came from.
Olivia looked at Fitz, trying to figure out if she should share her history with Quinn. "It's up to you, Liv. You know I'll support you whatever you decide." He told her as he held her hand.
"Me too." Abby told her from across the table.
"Why do I feel like I'm missing something important?" Quinn asked as she looked around the table. everyone was quiet.
Olivia finally took a deep breath and said, "Because you are. The reason this has me on edge like this is because I moved here to escape someone."
"Wait. What?" Quinn asked with big concerned eyes. "Really?"
"Yea. Before I moved here, I lived about an hour away. I was dating a man who was a lot older than me. He's the one who got me pregnant."
Quinn gave a puzzled expression before shifting her eyes to Fitz. "Oh. I assumed the baby was Fitz's."
"I think everyone else does too. No one has asked, and we aren't going to offer the information."
"Which is fine with me." Fitz added. "I'm going to adopt her and make her legally mine after she's born."
"Awww, that's nice." Quinn said. When she saw Olivia's face still holding a slightly fearful expression, she remembered her words when she started her story. "You ran from the baby's father I take it? Can I ask why? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I'll completely understand."
"I want you to know. When I found out I was pregnant I went to tell him. He expected me to have an abortion. He didn't want to discuss the thought of keeping the baby at all. He peeled several one hundred dollar bills from his wallet and told me he'd see me the following weekend, after I had recovered." Olivia shrugged. "I took the money and left my life there. I wanted to keep this baby. It's a part of me."
"Who the hell did he think he was telling you what to do?" Quinn spat out in an angry tone.
"Mama Pope is gonna love you." Abby told Quinn with a smile.
"Anyways!" Olivia said impatiently. "When I first moved here, I kept looking over my shoulder. I just knew he would find me here. He has money and he hates to lose."
"So, you think the guy outside was him?" Quinn asked.
It sounded ridiculous to Olivia's ears to hear the theory spoken out loud.
"You know the chances of that are like a million to one, right? If this guy...What is his name?"
"Collin Williams."
"He sounds like an asshole. Sorry, but he does. Collin would have to find out where you moved to. Did you tell any of his friends or family members?"
"Hell no!"
"Your parents wouldn't tell him, right?"
"No way."
"Did you know anyone who lived here before you moved, or did you pick this town at random?"
"Completely random. I knew I wanted to live in a beach town. This is where I ended up."
"Okay then. Collin would have to be a rocket scientist to figure out where you randomly moved to out of the blue. It couldn't be him, Liv." Quinn assured her.
"He's a lawyer. A good one. And he has lots of money and a mean streak. And after I moved here, I kept the phone on that he had given to me for like a week. He could have tracked me down that way." Olivia was trying to share as much information as she could that might point the finger to Collin as their peeping tom.
"Those are good points. But if that was the case, why did he wait so long to come look for you?" Quinn asked as she pursed her lips doubtfully.
"She is good, Liv." Abby stated. She was glad someone was pointing out the obvious.
Olivia slapped her hand on top of the table. "Look, I know I sound insane right now. I'm probably over worrying about this. And if it was just me it wouldn't be a big deal. But there is another person involved."
She put her hand protectively on her belly. "And he is NOT getting anywhere near Riley. He didn't want her then and he's not getting her now. I'll move away from here before I let him get anywhere near my daughter."
"Our daughter." Fitz corrected, and put his hand on top of Olivia's. "Don't get yourself worked up, babe. You know it's not good for you or the baby."
"I'm with Fitz. Don't get yourself worked up. I can understand why you are worried about the safety of you and your baby, but I'm going to do everything I can to keep you and her and Abby safe. If it turns out that it is your ex, and he's harassing you, there are laws against that." Quinn told her. "Besides, the two of you are moving into your new house in like, a week. You won't have to worry about whoever the hell it is that was standing outside the other night anymore."
Olivia turned to Fitz. Her eyes were wide, and she looked like she was going to throw up. He put his arm around her and asked, "Liv? What's the matter?"
"What if he knows about the new house? We've been over there every day since we saw him standing outside the window. He could have followed us over there. I can't live there if he's going to show up there too. There's no Quinn and no gun."
Fitz stood in front of her and put a finger under her chin to direct her gaze up to his. In a soothing tone he said, "hey. I need you to breathe please. You are all wound up. It's not good for you or our daughter. Your blood pressure is probably through the roof and all of this worrying isn't going to change anything about this situation. We are all here to talk about some ways to keep everyone safe."
Olivia let his words sink in for a few minutes, and then she wrapped her arms around his waist and clung to him. "He can't get her, Fitz. He just can't. I won't let him."
"I won't let him either. None of us will. Trust me, if the window creeper turns out to be your ex, he's not getting anywhere near either one of you." Fitz looked up at the other three people in the kitchen and said, "I think the first precaution should be that none of us are ever here alone."
Everyone agreed to that.
"I think Quinn should keep checking the outside of the house for signs of footprints near windows, or for any of them to have been messed about with too." Stephen added.
"I can do that." she told them. "Why don't you show all of us a picture of him so we can all know what he looks like. It would help to know who we are looking for."
Olivia grabbed her phone and googled the firm Collin worked for. When she found his photo, she sent it to the phones of everyone in the kitchen. "Done."
"Good. I think we need to keep a tight lid on this for now. Just the five of us." Quinn said.
"Why?" Abby asked. "I mean, I agree, but why?"
"Say you tell someone at the hotel that we had a peeping tom situation, and say it is Collin doing it." Quinn looked at Olivia and added, "Sorry, Liv, but if he finds out you work at the hotel and goes there to start asking questions and word has gotten around of what you told somebody, he's going to know we're onto him. It could put that person in danger too."
"That makes a lot of sense." Olivia agreed. "For now we'll keep all of this between the five of us."
"If you know Collin's address, send it to my phone too please."
"Why do you want his address?" Olivia asked Quinn.
"Because three days from now I have a day off at the hotel, and I'm going to go pull a stake out at Collin's place and see what I can learn about the asshole on his turf." Quinn explained.
************
Three days later, as promised, Quinn was parked in the driveway of a house on Collin's street. The beautiful empty house was up for sale but didn't have occupants just yet. Quinn had learned that the owners had already moved into their new house and were just waiting for the closing sale of their old one. It paid to do research ahead of time.
The front seat of her car was littered with strewn empty plastic wrappers of Quinn's favorite junk food. She ate when she was bored. It was hell on her hips, but no one had ever complained when they saw her naked, so she didn't think twice about it either. She was, however, regretting the large fountain drink she had bought at the gas station in the pre-dawn hour, and her kidneys were screaming at her to relieve them, but still she sat there. She had come too far to lose this guy over a need to pee.
Reaching for the pack of mini Oreos in the brown paper bag on the floorboard of the passenger seat, she debated eating them now or waiting a while longer. A noise to her right had her slightly lifting her head to look out the passenger window. She dropped the unopened package of tasty brown cookies and concentrated on what she was seeing.
From the awkward position she was in, Quinn saw Collin standing in the doorway of his house. But he wasn't alone. A tall blonde was all over him. Quinn made a low disgusted sound as she watched the open display of whatever the hell that was. He broke the kiss and patted her on the ass, sending her on her way. The woman with the shitty taste in men climbed into her car and took off. Quinn committed her license plate to memory and kept her eye on Collin. He scratched his balls and went back into the house.
"What the hell did Liv see in that asshole?" she asked herself. She grabbed her phone from the passenger seat and scrolled through her contacts until she found Olivia's name. She touched it and put the device to her ear.
"Hello?"
"Hey."
Olivia chuckled and said, "you suck at small talk, Quinn. What's up?"
"I just saw Collin. What an asshole!"
"You talked to him? Ohmygod! You said you weren't going to do that. You said..."
"Dude, calm down. I didn't talk to him. He was too busy with his tongue rammed down some skinny blonde bitch's throat."
"Oh. Well good. Maybe he's finally moved on?"
Quinn was about to tell Olivia that she probably didn't have anything to worry about when he walked out his front door and got into his car. "Shit!" Quinn exclaimed. She laid down in the passenger seat, face first, until she heard his car go by. "He's on the move. I'll call you back later."
She ended the call and threw her phone over into the passenger seat. Yanking on her seatbelt, she clicked it and then started her car before putting it in reverse and backing out of the driveway. "Where the hell are you going so early this morning, douche bag?"
In no time at all, Quinn sat up a little straighter in her seat and squinted at the car about two hundred feet in front of her. A car moved in between them, and Quinn had to pay a little more attention to where dipshit was going. He turned onto the interstate and she followed from a discreet distance. Quinn kept her eye on Collin's car, but stayed in the middle lane in case he suddenly veered off the interstate.
Collin drove on the interstate for forty five minutes before he got into the right lane and put on his blinker. Quinn followed him onto the off ramp with a weird feeling in her stomach. This was one of the exits for the beach. Maybe he was visiting friends? Maybe he was just spending the day at the beach? Maybe he was visiting friends and they were all going to the beach together? Any of that was possible but knowing that a weirdo had been outside their window recently, Quinn had other thoughts.
Grabbing her phone, Quinn had intended to call Olivia again. She paused long enough to consider that the news would probably freak the expecting mother out. The very last thing she needed was a worked up scared to death pregnant lady. She called Abby instead.
"Yea? What?" Abby grumbled.
"That's how you answer the phone? Really?" Quinn asked boldly.
"Yea usually. What do you want? I'm at work and shouldn't be on my phone. In fact, if I end the call all of a sudden..."
"Damn it! Why did you have to be at work today?"
"Because I like to shop."
"Shut up!" Quinn interrupted impatiently.
Abby grinned. "I like you, Quinn. You don't screw around or mince words. What's going on?"
"Listen! I staked out Liv's ex this morning. He's in his car and he's headed toward the beach. Now, I'm not saying he's going to see Liv. It could be a coincidence, but..."
"You don't believe in those." Abby supplied. "I'll call Fitz and have him get Liv out of the house for a while. You stay with him and see what the hell he's up to. I swear to god, if he goes near our house I'll..."
"Abby! Just call Fitz. We need to make sure Liv and the baby are safe. Give Fitz my number and tell him I'll text him updates. I'll call you when I know more." Quinn ended the call and concentrated on the asshole in the car she was tailing. She willed him to make every right or left turn that would take him in an opposite direction, but he kept on the road that led to the beach. Deep inside, Quinn knew he was heading for the beach house Olivia shared with Abby and herself.
"Liv? I've got to run over to the new house to meet the guy installing the security system. Are you at a stopping point, so you can go with me?" Fitz asked her. After ending the frantic call with Abby, he had called one of the guys who was on the security team at the hotel and given him the address of the house. After a very brief one sided conversation, Bradley agreed to meet Fitz at his new house and act like he was walking the grounds for a quote for a security system.
"Give me two minutes and I'll be good to go." Olivia told him. She finished her online order for more house stuff and shut her laptop with a click. "Okay. I'm ready."
Fitz gave her a smile, took her hand, and tried not to appear too anxious as he led her to the front door. He would figure out a way to keep her at the new house until Quinn let him know the asshole was gone from the area. He had to get Olivia out of the beach house she shared with the other two women permanently, and soon, before her ex got bolder with his attempts to see her. He might get ideas in his head, like trying to get her alone. Fitz would kill him before that happened. He was still shocked that the man was so persistent in seeing Olivia. Deep down, he was scared too.
Thankfully, Fitz got Olivia out of the house long before Collin did his first drive by at the beach house. Quinn wanted to watch to see what he would do, but instead she turned down a side road near the house. She parked the car and started walking before he turned around and came back for a second look. Acting like she was texting as she walked, Quinn took several pictures of Collin as he craned his neck to look at the house. She even got a picture of his license plate. Dumbass.
Keeping her head down toward her phone, but her eyes on Collin's car from under her lashes, Quinn saw him start to drive by for what she assumed was his third attempt to see if anyone was home. He stopped suddenly and called out, "hey!"
Quinn glanced up from her phone to see him looking at her.
"Yea, you."
She walked over to the rolled down passenger door and leaned on it.
"You live around here?" he asked.
"Yea."
"Do you know the girl who lives in this house?" he gestured to the girl's beach house.
Quinn took a second to try to figure out what she should say. She looked over at the house she had left when it was still dark outside that morning, to watch the house of the asshole she was having a conversation with right now. She decided to go with the truth and see what he would say. "You mean Olivia? Yea. What about her?"
Perfect. This bitch used her name, so she definitely knew Liv. "What's the name of that guy she's always hanging out with? I forget his name."
She squinted at him. "Don't you think it's weird that you're asking a stranger to give you information about somebody?"
"Shit! I'm sorry." He chuckled. "I didn't mean to freak you out. I'm an old friend of Olivia's. I haven't seen her in a while though, and I came down to see if she was home. I thought it would be fun to go to dinner. Just the three of us. The place looks kinda empty though, so I was going to text her, but I forgot her boyfriend's name."
He was a terrible actor. Now she'd lie. "Oh, that's so nice of you. She needs all the friends she can get right now.
"Really? Why's that?" he asked.
"She had such a douchy ex. Guy is a real pain in the ass from I heard." Quinn couldn't resist putting him in his place. She saw the flash of anger on his face before he concealed it with a worried look.
"She told me about him. Guy was a real jerk. Of course, that's just one side of the story."
He grinned at Quinn and she felt her skin crawl. Time for Collin to go home. "Yea, but hers is the only side I care to hear."
"Anyways, do you know her boyfriend's name? I'd hate to leave his name out when I text her, but I can't seem to remember it."
"You mean Mark?" The hotel manager's name was the first one to pop into her head.
"That's the one. Thanks!"
"What was your name? I'll be glad to tell her you were looking for her?" Quinn offered.
"That's okay. I'll text her." Collin held up his phone with a nasty grin before he peeled out, getting the hell away from the house as quickly as possible.
Quinn walked back to her car and called Fitz. Collin was crazy as well as an asshole. They were going to have to have another talk and amp the security way up. Maybe call the cops too? Quinn had a feeling that Collin wouldn't be too shy about confronting Liv if the circumstances were right. She didn't really know Liv that well, but she felt protective of her just the same. She could only imagine how Fitz, Abby and Stephen felt about her. If Collin found out about her job at the hotel or the beach house she and Fitz were about to move into, it would be really hard to protect her. She heard his voice through her phone as she climbed into the driver's seat. "Fitz? We need to talk."
