Chapter 15

Stef waited for a few seconds as her mind worried frantically at the sound of her daughter's silence. She knew exactly whom Callie was talking on the phone with, but she wasn't sure for how long. What she told him, what he said to her…

"Callie, open the door," she finally ordered in a stern yet soft voice. They hadn't discussed him much. She was too busy trying to convince her to come home and stay there.

Callie hesitated on the other side.

How much of the conversation had she heard?

Did she hear anything at all?

"Please, Callie. Don't do this," Stef pleaded with her. "We can't go back after we made it this far."

Callie took a deep breath before for forcing herself to reach for the door knob and twist it open, pulling the door towards her slowly.

Stef sighed in relief. "Good girl," she said in a low tone before walking toward her and grabbing the phone slowly from the teen's hand. "I can't believe I didn't even consider the possibility," she blamed herself. "How long?"

Callie pressed her lips together and glanced away. "How long, what?" Callie tried to play dumb even though she knew it was far too late for any of that.

"How long has Tommy been in contact with you?" Stef asked her, even though she was already scrolling through the incoming and outgoing call history on the girl's phone.

"It doesn't matter. I told him to stop calling me," Callie answered as if that just solved the problem at hand.

"Yes, I heard that," Stef admitted as she her eyes moved from the phone to meet the teen's gaze. "And what has he been saying to you? Has he been threatening you?" she asked a little more seriously. Callie sensed the angry look in her eyes and couldn't help but become nervous, even though she knew that her mother's anger wasn't being directed towards her. Still she didn't want her to turn this into a bigger problem than it was. She really felt like it was over between them now.

"Uh- I –," she struggled with her response. "It doesn't matter what he said. Not anymore," the teen answered casually.

"Of course it matters," Stef interjected.

"Why?" Callie raised her voice. "Why does it matter, if I never have to see him again?"

"Because your safety matters," the blonde interrupted.

"But I'm here. And I'm not going back there. So why does what happened in the past matter? You just said that we can't go back."

"Honey, I was talking about you. That's completely different."

"How?" the girl asked with seriousness depicted all over her body language, from the expression on her face to her composure.

"Because we can't just let him get away with this. He's harassing you, Callie. I would know." Stef responded back.

Callie shook her head in disbelief. She wanted to argue with the cop, to tell her that she was wrong, but how could she? She knew that Stef was just trying to protect her, but she wanted to move forward from that part of her life. She felt that she needed to forget about Tommy in order to move forward. She didn't want to rehash something just because what he did upset Stef. The situation was a dead-end.

"Look, I don't want you to worry about this," the woman tried to rationalize. "This is difficult for you to understand; honey, I know that… And I don't expect you to. But what I do need you to understand is that my job as your mother is to protect you. Even if you feel that I'm going overboard or whatever it is that your feeling, I need you to let me do my job. Part of that is making sure that he stays away from you and making sure that he knows that he is out of your life for good. Okay?"

Callie remained silent, partly because she knew that there was nothing she could say that would get her to change Stef's mind and partly because some part of her knew that Stef was right.

"I'll take care of it, love," Stef tried to assure her daughter.

Lena came out of the bathroom in her pajamas. She was toweling drying her hair, after having got out of the shower when she saw Stef standing at the far end of the wall talking on the phone.

"Let me know what you find," the blonde finished before hanging up the phone with Mike and glancing up at her wife.

"Find what?" Lena questioned when she saw the look on her wife's face. The blonde was trying to act as if it was nothing but Lena could see right past all of that. Stef's eyes always gave her away.

"Oh, it's nothing. Just work stuff. No big deal. I'm taking care of it," Stef hoped that by saying that she would put an end to the conversation. She sat down on her bed and took off her shoes before lifting her legs onto the bed and rummaging through Callie's phone.

Lena nodded as she tried to determine whether or not to let Stef continue lying to her since she didn't want to get into an argument on the same day she finally got her family back together. She attempted to change the subject when she saw the flip phone Stef had in her hand. "Who's cell phone is that?"

Stef continued to go through the incoming texts from Tommy. "It' Callie's."

"Why are you going through Callie's phone?" she asked out of curiosity.

Stef sighed, not wanting to lie to Lena but not wanting to give her any more reason to be upset with the teen. "It's no big deal, Lena," the cop repeated. "I'm taking care of it."

"Stef, you know I don't like secrets," the brunette admitted as she threw the towel on the chair and crossed her arms over her chest. "What's really going on?"

Stef contemplated whether or not to respond with the truth. "… The guy she was with. The one that was hitting her. He won't stop harassing her. I'm trying to track him down."

Lena remained silent for a few seconds. "…He called her?" she finally brought herself to ask.

"Several times," the blonde admitted. "And I was too blind to see it."

"What'd he say?"

"We both know she's not going to tell me. Good thing is she's not going to have to. There's enough death threats along with other disgusting things on her phone from Tommy that we can easily tie to his name. We just have to find him now."

"Death threats? Why?"

"Because… he thinks he can scare her into coming back, but there's no way in hell I'm going to let that happen. He has no clue who he's dealing with."

"Where is he?" she asked Stef.

"Hopefully, at his home address. Mike's stopping by now," she said as she placed Callie's cell phone on the nightstand. "It's being taken care of."

Lena nodded as she gave Stef a kiss on the lips, even though she had a million questions in her mind, but none of them were for Stef.

"And what about Callie? How is she doing with all of this?" the brunette questioned.

"Good. She's finally telling me the truth anyway. That's a start."

Lena stared fixated on Callie's cell phone on the nightstand. She couldn't help but feel a sense of relief that the teen didn't have it in her possession anymore, but something about having this new information scared her.