I Have an Invisible Stalker (Guardians #1)

Chapter 12

Olivia's POV

"Why are you here?" Samuel asks from where he's still standing across the table from me. "Don't tell me he's your date." He nudges his head at the boyish-looking guy standing next to him.

I follow his movement and find myself looking at the guy I'm now sure is Samuel's other charge. He has his eyes focused on me, which finally reminds me that he's still waiting for my answer.

"You're Brooke's friend, right?" he asks while scratching the back of his neck. 

"Yes, I'm her friend." I shake my head to get rid of the absurdity of the predicament I just found myself in. "You must be her cousin. She said... Wait, did you say I was interested in you?"

"That's what she said."

"She told me that you're the one who wanted to meet me. That you saw me at the hospital and asked her to set us up on a date."

"I've never seen you before and Brooke's the last person I'd ask to set me up."

"Oh." I glance from the stranger's uncomfortable grimace to Samuel's growing smirk and then quickly snap my eyes back. "I guess she'll have some explaining to do. Why don't you sit down?"

I motion at the chair he's standing behind and with a second of hesitation, he pulls the chair away from the table and sits. Samuel, in the meantime, takes the seat facing against the wall at the empty table beside us. He turns his body, so he is facing toward us, which creates less than a foot of space between his knees and my left thigh.

"I'm Olivia Han." I turn to Samuel's other charge, who is now sitting across the table.

"Nick Wright."

Right then the same waitress returns and pops a wide bubble with her gum. "He ain't as smart as he looks if he stayed. So, what's it gonna be?"

"I'll have a cinnamon roll and some orange juice," I say and then turn to Nick.

"Iced coffee and chocolate cake," Nick says and the waitress walks off without writing down a single letter.

"Isn't it a little late for coffee?" I ask.

"As if." Samuel scoffs. "He can have coffee at—"

"Not for me," Nick interrupts Samuel without knowing. "Caffeine does nothing for me."

"Still so rude," Samuel says.

I glance over to Samuel and find him leaning with his side against the chair's back and with his arms crossed in front of his chest. The scowl on his face is as dark as it was during most of his afternoon with me before he left for his next charge. Then another realization hits me.

"He's next after me, isn't he?" After all, the fact that Samuel is here right now, can only mean that Nick is the charge in line right behind me.

Samuel opens his mouth to answer, but Nick beats him to it. "What?"

"Nothing." I shake my head and turn back to the table in front of me.

"O...Okay..." Nick drawls and scratches the back of his head while looking at anything other than me. "What happened?"

I follow his gaze and find myself looking at the crutches, which are still propped against the wall beside me. "I guess since you didn't see me at the hospital, Brooke also didn't mention anything about my foot." I lift my left foot out from under the table, so he can see the low cast. "I was in a car accident recently, but before you ask about what happened, I can't remember anything about it."

"Because it was your fault," Samuel murmurs.

"It wasn't my fault." I glare at him.

"I wasn't going to say it was your fault." Nick lifts his hands off the table at the cold edge in my voice.