Maid for the Mafia by Jaylee

You Were Stalking Me

**ROMANY**

Mickey's eyes search mine nervously before he continues. Almost as if he expects his confession might drive me away. He would be wrong, but I'll wait until he's told me everything first. I want to hear it all. "Go on," I prompt him, edging forward so that my bare legs push against the fabric of his pants and I can feel the warmth of him.

He clears his throat, his gaze waltzing around my face as he speaks, "You walked out of the classroom talking on the phone with someone - I think it may have been your mom - and every other sound, every other person, every other thing - just disappeared. I watched you for the next twenty minutes while you laughed and joked on the phone. Bruno thought I'd gone deaf because he kept trying to talk to me and I wouldn't listen, but then I guess he noticed what I was looking at and shut up. When you set off toward another wing - I don't know - probably to your next class, I started to follow you, but that's when Bruno stopped me. He pulled me back down to earth and reminded me that my feet were on the ground and that I was there to handle some business, not chase college girls, and I let it go.

"After I straightened Jensen out on a few things-"

"Wait a minute!" I interrupt, my mind reeling as I remember that day. The mention of my mom is what does it. One of the last conversations that I had with her before her car accident was in the quad after Matthew's class. I could vaguely remember someone staring at me, but at that time in my life I was used to ignoring such things. Especially if they were exceptionally good looking. It was a defense mechanism. I never felt pretty enough back then. I thought I was too fat for anyone to love properly and if I saw a guy like Mickey, I would have avoided the temptation of him at all costs.

"What is it, doll?"

With a bite of my lip, I study his face. "I think I remember that day."

He nods, his eyes shuttering. "Yeah...I'm sorry about what happened to your mom. I-uh...I was there the day your teacher brought you outside. The day you found out she was...gone."

My eyes narrow and I frown as the familiar sadness washes over me the way it does *every* time I think about that day. "You were there? Why?"

flushes red with embarrassment. "I was getting to

cock an eyebrow at him.

that he's closer to me and his left leg hooks over my shins and under my calves. I smile inside, but keep my face

head. "Nope. I had no idea." Fuck Matthew, that bastard.

with some kid in his class that he could threaten with bad grades. Little did he know, Bruno wasn't there for grades. He was there for business. That entire class was filled with degenerates that padded my pockets. But not you." He looks away. "You were different and I wanted to know you." He sighs, shying a little when he says his next words. "It started innocently enough

"My business?" I quip.

after I got your name, I had you looked up. That's when I found out that you were Ruby's baby cousin. When I learned that, believe it or not, I actually had

crossing my arms over my chest in anger. I mean, I already knew that, I suspected it, but it was an entirely different thing to hear that my cousin had *in fact* been avoiding me. I snorted, "She always claimed

that meeting you was not on the table, I tried to shake it off, but...I

stalking me,"

head.

"You were stalking me."

then blushes

You were. Not maybe.

anything. The Dons - that's what they thought I was gonna do. When they heard I had an unhealthy interest in a college girl, they made me drop the

I say, interrupting him, then trailing off as I slip my legs out from under his and fold them up next to me on the seat. Looking in his eyes, I see more vulnerability than I ever thought possible for a man like him to have and it clutches at something in me, telling me that by the end of this story, I won't ever want to let him go. And...I do not

eyebrows draw together in outrage. "It