Nikki Worrell - The Enforcer (NHL Scorpions)

Steven could feel his adrenaline flowing at the thought of talking to Lacey again. He just couldn’t get that bitch out of his system. How dare she not come with him? After all they had been to each other. The phone rang.

“Hello?” Lacey sounded sleepy. Steven did the math and knew it was almost midnight in San Diego. “Hello? Look, please stop calling me. You obviously have the wrong number.”

Right before she could hang up, Steven said, “Wait! Don’t hang up, Babe. It’s me.”

Lacey wouldn’t have been more surprised if she looked out the window and saw it snowing. “Steven? You’re the one who’s been hanging up on me? Why are you calling? I told you to leave me alone.” Would he never go away?

“Come on Babe, you weren’t serious about that. Look, I’m sorry about the way we left things last time. I shouldn’t have stomped off like that. I should have stayed so we could work this out. I miss you Lacey.” Lacey knew that he was leaving something out. She just couldn’t imagine what he wanted from her.

“What happened to you Steven? Were you always like this, and I just didn’t notice? Tell me what I can say to you to make you leave me alone forever. How can I convince you that we will never be together again?” Lacey truly didn’t know what to do about him.

“You happened to me. You did.” His voice was rising, and she could tell he was getting angry. “You got me all fucked up in the head. You ruined me! I can’t write music, Lacey. I can’t write it without you. Damn it, you little bitch. YOU happened to me! Now you have to make it right.” He was screaming at that point, and Lacey had had enough.

“Steven, calm down. I think you need to seek help. You need some anger management or something. I’m hanging up now. Stop calling me.” Lacey hung up the call, but it rang again about a minute later. She shut her phone off and went back to sleep, thankful that Steven was in Europe.

Lacey got three more calls from Steven the next day, but she just ignored them. She had called the phone company but was told that they could not block an unavailable number, unless she was willing to block all calls that could come in as unavailable. Changing her number seemed to be her only avenue left. She was going to go into the store on her lunch break and do that, but it pissed her off that she had to be inconvenienced because of that bastard Steven.

“Do you even believe I have to do this, Zoe?” Zoe went along with her to keep her company while she waited for the customer service girl to assign Lacey a new cell phone number. “After all this time, he just won’t go away. What a pain in the ass.” Lacey’s phone rang in her hand. “Oh my God, it’s him again.”

Lacey told the sales girl to give her one minute before she changed the number. She wanted to tell Steven that this would be his last call to her. Lacey walked out of the store and answered the call. “Steven, this will be your last call. I’m at the phone store right now getting a new phone number.”

“You don’t have to do that anymore, Lacey. I’m coming home to you. Now, don’t argue. We’ll talk it all out when I get there. But then we’ll have to be back in London in two months. That will give you time to tie up any loose ends there, while you help me compose that new piece.”

Lacey’s face paled. Steven sounded so matter of fact. It was eerie. Who was this man? He sounded bat shit crazy. “Steven, we’ve talked about this a million times! I am not going anywhere with you. I’m with someone else. You have to move on.”

“Fuck him, and fuck you! I’m coming to get you and bring you back with me. And Lacey, if I can’t have you, he can’t either! I’ll make sure of it! I’ll see you on Saturday.” Steven hung up, and Lacey stood there staring at her phone in shock.

Lacey went back into the store where Zoe was looking at the latest phone models. “Was that your hottie?” When Zoe saw her face, she grabbed Lacey’s arms. “Lace, what’s wrong? What happened?”

“That was Steven. He’s coming here to get me. He wants me to go to London with him, and he said that if he couldn’t have me, then he’d make sure Jody couldn’t either. Zoe, he sounded crazy. What the hell happened to him?”

Zoe was as stunned as Lacey. She had always thought there was something off about Steven, but she thought maybe she was just protective of Lacey. Plus, he was an artist, and they tended to be a bit different – kind of like goalies. Oops, her mind was wandering. “Okay Lacey. I think it’s time that you went to talk to the police. I know he hasn’t actually done anything illegal yet, but he did threaten you. Let’s go down to the station tomorrow, and just talk to someone, okay?”

Lacey agreed with Zoe. She didn’t know what to do, so going to talk to the police seemed like a good start. One thing she did know was that she was not telling Jody about Steven on their date night. She’d tell him tomorrow. “Holy hell Zoe, Jody’s gonna flip. Don’t say anything to anyone; I’ll tell him tomorrow. I’m not going to let Steven ruin our first date.”

Lacey got her new phone number and sent a text to all of her contacts to let them know she had a new number. She’d tell Jody that she kept getting wrong number calls for now, and then tell him the truth later.

Zoe was just pouring herself a glass of iced tea when the doorbell rang. She answered the door and let Jody in. “Would you like a glass of iced tea?”

Jody was nervous as hell. What he really wanted was a whiskey. “Sure, thanks.”

Zoe picked up both glasses of tea and led the way into her office. She took a seat in one of the armchairs next to the couch and placed her tea on the table. “Have a seat.”

“Thanks. Okay, look doc – I’m not at all comfortable being here. No offense or anything.” Jesus, he was starting this off great. That was exactly what he should do. Insult the good doctor.

Zoe smiled and waved her hand. “Jody, don’t worry about it. Therapy gets easier with time. Like I told you before, you don’t offend me in the least. Let’s start with something easy. What made you decide that you wanted to come and talk to me?”

It was important that Jody understood why he wanted to be able to have more control over himself. The better he understood what triggered his outbursts and why those outbursts had negative results, the harder he would want to work to change that behavior.

“I know I have some control issues. Well, control isn’t really the right word. Lacey can do anything she wants; I don’t care. But if another man disrespects her and I see it, I lose it. I don’t know what it is. Is it jealousy? It seems like so much more than that.”

“Okay,” Zoe said. “I can certainly understand you not wanting her to be disrespected, but why couldn’t you just tell the offender that he shouldn’t disrespect her? Why do you go to the extreme of threatening physical retribution?” Zoe wanted Jody to come up with the same conclusion she had.

“I don’t know. It just seems like the fastest way to end it. I’m big, and I can hurt people. They see that, and they back off. Problem solved. Is that really so bad?” Jody battled with this issue before. He knew that other people didn’t fly off the handle like he did, but why was it such a big deal? The results were the same.

Zoe asked him, “Have you ever tried to just tell someone that they were doing something that you didn’t like, as opposed to threatening them?” She wanted to keep pushing this point home. Jody always resorted to violence to end situations.