Chapter 35 Stripper Barbie Returns

Allie

Gracie and I ended up waiting an extra day to venture back out. Luckily, a scandal involving a few professional athletes, their wives and a rumored swinger's party - complete with a sex tape - had taken the spotlight off of us.

It was a struggle to get Gracie out of bed on this overcast Wednesday morning. She dawdled over every task, clearly having gotten used to spending her days at home. One hour and fifty long minutes later, we were finally out the door, looking more or less presentable. We were clean, brushed, dressed, and at least one of us matched.

Someone picked out her own clothes, and it showed. My sweet Gracie-girl was sporting purple pants, a yellow shirt with a duck face on it - an actual duck, not the ridiculous puckered-lip selfie thing - a red and black tutu and hot pink cowgirl boots. Those had been a gift from her Uncle Josh.

My fashion-challenged mini-me had accessorized her ensemble with a sparkly princess crown, courtesy of Nico, an assortment of glittery plastic bangle bracelets courtesy of Uncle Tony, and a sky-blue backpack covered with dancing unicorns that was bigger than she was. Her Grandma was responsible for that monstrosity. I wasn't exactly sure what was in the backpack today. When I had asked that very question, I was very informed rather disdainfully that it was filled with "my 'portant treasures, Mommy".

The accompanying eye roll was a scary preview of pre-teen years to come, and I decided not to push my luck. My look was a bit more subtle than my daughter's...skinny jeans and a red Storm Front t-shirt half tucked in the front, with my cute red high-top sneakers.

I got her secured in her booster seat and backed out of the driveway. The cloudy skies gave way to big fat raindrops before I'd even driven a mile down the road. I flipped on my windshield wipers, only to hear "squeak, squawk, squeak, squawk" as they swiped and stuttered back and forth across the surface. They left a nice wide stripe of rainwater on the driver's side of the window, right in the middle of my line of sight. Lovely. I'd forgotten I needed to replace my wiper blades. Again. I only remembered when it rained, which wasn't that often here in L.A., so they've needed to be replaced for a while.

Nico lived about fifteen minutes away from the preschool, which was about fourteen minutes too long with the discordant wiper symphony we were subjected to. I turned the radio up a little louder, and we sang along to The Beatles for most of the drive. Thanks to Nico, Gracie knows most of the words, although we couldn't convince her that it was 'She had a ticket to ride' rather than 'She had a chicken to ride'. I was sure Alex was somewhere in the cosmos, laughing his ass off at that one.

After getting Gracie dropped off at preschool and fending off the nosy questions of a few parents there, I was able to make it into the office without too much difficulty. The rest of my morning was spent trying to catch up on the work that had accumulated over the last week and a half. I had only been able to do so much from home, with Michael's order for me to stay off of social media as much as possible. I appreciated his efforts to shield me from the worst of the comments, but I couldn't do my job properly by sticking my head in the sand and pretending that the Twitterverse didn't exist.

By lunchtime, I felt like I'd made a small dent in the backlog. I got a call from Nico while I was sitting at my desk eating the grilled chicken salad I'd brought for lunch, letting me know that he and the band would be rehearsing at the sound studio at our house this afternoon. They had apparently talked to the sound engineer after listening to the upcoming album again this morning, and they decided they needed to go back into the studio tomorrow morning to re-record one of the songs. Something had felt off to them, and they all felt it could be better. That final tweak was all that was needed before the album would be released next month.

They were scheduled to kick off the pre-release album hype this weekend, with a live show at a small local venue. They would play a few of their biggest hits, followed by the first single that was going to be released on the new album. The next couple of weeks after that would be filled with radio interviews with stations across the country, and a few TV appearances on various talk shows.

Mid-afternoon, the door to our office suite opened, and a beautiful blonde walked in. She was tall and slender, with very large, very fake looking breasts spilling out of her dress. Neither Michael nor I had any appointments scheduled, so I assumed she was looking for the law firm on the second floor of our building. Our secretary had just left to run some errands for Michael, and he wasn't back from a lunch meeting, so I walked into the outer office to greet her with a smile, about to direct her to the correct suite. Before I could open my mouth, she gave me a withering look, her gaze scanning me from head to toe. By the sour expression on her face, she clearly found me lacking.

"You!" she said icily, stalking toward me to tower over me. "You need to leave Nico alone!" She seethed with anger, her absolute loathing for me plainly visible as she glared down at me. She was several inches taller than I was, and paired with the stilettos she was wearing, she was close to six feet tall. I took a step back out of reflex, cursing the fact that I was alone in the office.

I put my hand up to halt her. "Ma'am, you need to step back before -"

She grabbed my arm, trying to twist my wrist and I screamed, yanking out of her grasp. Her fake fingernails were like talons as they dug into my skin, and I was sure she'd drawn blood. I put both hands on her chest and shoved as I tried to put space between us. I caught her off-guard, and she tottered on her ridiculous heels for a moment, giving me time to whirl around to my office and slam the door. I locked it as she pounded her fist on the door, screaming for me to "leave her man alone before she slit my fucking throat". Well, alrighty then.

I heard the sounds of something crashing and glass breaking in the outer office as I grabbed my office phone and dialed 9-1-1. I explained the situation, emphasizing who Michael was and that it seemed to be a crazed fan of a musician he managed. She had stopped pounding on the door by that point, but I couldn't tell if she was still out there. While waiting on the line with the emergency dispatcher, I pulled out my cell phone and sent a text to Michael. I didn't want him walking back into the office if that nutjob was still here.

A few minutes later, I heard the sirens, and the dispatcher confirmed that the officers had arrived on-scene. I thanked her for her help, and hung up, waiting to be given the all-clear by someone before I attempted to open the door. I could hear the officers announce themselves, and I called out to let them know I was in the back office.

After they had me open the door, and then checked my ID to make sure I worked there and wasn't the actual nutjob, they told me there was no sign of her, other than the mess she'd left in the outer room. She'd knocked a laptop and lamp to the floor, thrown papers everywhere, and by the looks of it, thrown a coffee mug against the wall. What a fucking mess!

I heard Michael's voice from outside the suite door, and assured the officer with me that it was OK to let him in. After assessing the situation, Michael pulled the camera footage up on his phone to show them. I'd forgotten that he'd installed cameras in the outer office after a rash of break-ins on our block a year or so ago. I didn't recognize the woman, but Michael thought she looked familiar.

"Have you called Nico yet?" he asked, eyeing me with concern. Damn, I was not looking forward to that call. He was going to lose his shit over this.

"No, but I will. I'll call Lana first, so she can start working on damage control if the press gets wind of it."

After calling Lana, who muttered "I'm getting too old for this shit" before assuring me she was on it, I called Nico. As I predicted, he promptly lost his shit. Within twenty minutes, he stormed into the office like an avenging god, Matt and Josh hot on his heels. He grabbed me and hugged me tight, and I felt his big body tremble as he buried his face in my neck. He pulled back to arm's length and looked me over carefully, his gaze zooming in on the scratches on my arm. I'd declined medical attention but had taken the time to wash them with antibacterial soap once one of the officers had taken photographs of my arm for his report. They weren't deep, but the bitch had broken the skin and they did sting. I would find the First Aid kit and bandage them up once I got home.

Michael showed Nico the security footage, and I heard them discussing it while Matt and Josh fussed over me. "Nico sent Tony to pick up Gracie at her preschool, and he's going to take her back to the house," Josh told me, giving me a hug. I heard Nico yell "that fucking psycho bitch!" and looked over at him. He was pacing back and forth like a caged animal, running his hands through his shoulder-length waves.

Michael motioned to me, and I walked over to him. "Nico and I both recognize her as the woman who showed up at his old house two years ago. Monica something-or-other, the one who stripped in the middle of the driveway. I'm having the attorney head to the courthouse to file for an emergency restraining order right now. We hadn't bothered renewing it after the original order expired, since we hadn't heard a peep out of her since her initial arrest."

"Ma'am," one of the officers said, "there will be a warrant out for her arrest on charges for trespassing and assault, as well as destruction of private property. We may be able to add additional charges since she made a threat against your life as well." I just nodded, a little overwhelmed trying to process that Stripper Barbie, who we had all thought was a fairly harmless - and really slutty- overzealous fan, was actually a fucking psycho bitch, to quote Nico.

Once the police had photographed everything and gotten statements for their reports, I was exhausted. My head hurt, my arm stung like a bitch, and I just wanted to go home. Nico hustled me out to the blacked-out SUV that Michael had ordered, complete with Marco, our favorite bodyguard/driver.

"Marco will be your shadow until this crazy bitch is caught," Michael assured me. "We had pulled back a little on the security detail, but I'll call them and get all hands back on deck."

Matt and Josh rode back to the house with us since they'd left their cars there. We all walked in to find Tony and Gracie watching Beauty and the Beast. Tony was twirling her around the room, waltzing to 'Be Our Guest' as Gracie stood on his feet and clung to him for dear life.

"Look, Mommy. Uncle Tony and me are dancing," she greeted me happily, giggling as Tony dipped her.

Matt whipped out his phone and shot a video as they finished their dance while singing along at the tops of their lungs. Gracie actually knew those words.

Once their song and dance routine was over, I settled her down to watch the rest of the movie, while the adults went into the kitchen to talk.

Matt stopped me as I walked into the kitchen, a shit-eating grin on his face, and asked if it was OK for him to post the video of Tony and Gracie. He showed it to me, and I agreed. Her face wasn't clearly visible, just her profile as they whirled around the room. Besides, pictures of her had been plastered all over the internet recently anyway. He chuckled and glanced at Tony, who hadn't noticed our hushed conversation. After tapping on his screen for a minute, he slid his phone into his pocket and wandered over to sit at the island, trying to look innocent.

I pulled out my phone and looked at his Instagram feed. He had tagged Tony in the video. His caption read "I'm not sure how this Beast convinced Beauty to dance with him. Uncle Matt might need to rescue her. #TwoLeftFeet, #SheIsABetterSinger" I snorted. Yeah, Tony would get him back for that one.

Nico walked into the kitchen with the first aid kit and proceeded to clean and bandage the deepest of the scratches on my arm. He still looked really upset and kept apologizing that I had gotten hurt.

"It's not your fault, honey. She clearly has issues."

"But she attacked you because of me, Sunshine. If you hadn't been able to lock yourself in your office..." His voice trailed off and he swallowed hard.

I cupped my hand around his jaw and brushed a kiss on his cheek. "I'm OK. I got away and I'm safe now."

He nodded but didn't look convinced. As he finished putting everything back in the first aid kit, I leaned over and whispered, "Hey, you're pretty good at that. Do you want to play doctor later tonight?" I waggled my brows in an exaggerated leer, and he laughed as I'd intended. I wanted to lighten the mood in the room. He hugged me, and I heard Tony and Matt bickering good-naturedly behind us. Tony had clearly noticed Matt's Instagram post.

"I've seen you dance, buddy. You have absolutely no room to talk about me having two left feet. Does Becca own any steel- toed boots? She's gonna need them," Tony told him as Josh watched the video and laughed.

Matt flipped Tony off and told him that Becca liked his feet just fine. "She especially likes the fact that the old saying is true. Big hands, big feet, big di - "

"Shut up, motherfucker. I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you. That's my sister, remember?" Nico interrupted him with a scowl.

Once everyone stopped talking about bad dancing and dick jokes, Tony asked to be filled in on what had happened, and Nico told him about crazy Stripper Barbie.

"So, that's going to be the latest tabloid headline, unless another celebrity swinging scandal is exposed in the next few hours," Nico said, rolling his eyes.

Tony looked at me and gave me a small smile. "Maybe I can take some of the heat off of you guys for a while," he offered quietly.

Josh scoffed. "How are you going to do that, offer dancing lessons to the paparazzi?"

Tony flipped him off, then chuckled nervously. "Nope, uh, I'm gonna let them find out I'm gay."