30. Sean
CHAPTER 30
SEAN
I wake up in a strange bed and a room smelling of strong chemicals. It takes me a minute to figure out I’m in a hospital room, and I have an IV stuck in my arm. Shit. Whoever took care of me must have seen my scars. I can’t worry about that now. I look around and find Ashley sleeping curled in a chair in the corner. Relief spreads through my chest just from seeing her, but I can’t for the life of me remember how I got here and why.
“Ash?” I croak.
She opens her eyes, and then sits up straighter. “Sean, you’re awake.”
“What happened to me?”
She stands and walks over my bed. “You were drugged at the Halloween party.”
I feel queasy. “What? How?”
“I don’t know.” She runs her fingers through my hair, and longing hits me hard. I want to pull her into my arms and never let go. “I left the party early. Your teammates called me at one in the morning because you were asking for me.”
I search for any memory of that, but my mind is blank. “I don’t remember anything.”
“Memory loss is one of the side effects of roofies.”
“I feel like roadkill. This is a million times worse than my biggest hungover. Why would anyone drug me?”
“The guys think one of the football players slipped something into your drink.”
My stomach churns. “For real?”
She nods. “Yep. I wouldn’t be surprised. They were pissed at you.”
“Why?”
She takes a deep breathe, then drops her gaze to my chest. “They were being sleazy toward me.”
I clench my jaw hard, getting aggravated even though I don’t remember a thing. “What did they say to you?”
“They said I looked hot, but it made me feel dirty.”
My nostrils flare. I’m angry beyond measure for more reasons than one. Sure, I’m not happy those assholes might have drugged me, but I’m more upset that they came on to Ashley and I don’t remember anything.
“Let me guess... I wanted to punch them in the throat for saying that to you.”
She lifts her eyes to mine. “Yeah. I never knew you had such a short fuse.”
I take her hand, lacing our fingers together. “Here’s the thing... I don’t usually lose my temper. But when it comes to protecting you, I turn savage.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so possessive of me when our thing was just sex to you.”
My eyes widen. “Who said that?”
“You did.”
Hell. Did we have a conversation about our relationship last night? That’d be the cherry on top. “When?”
“When Kenzie caught us. She asked if we were in love, and you said no.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?” She pulls her hand away.
“I’m sorry, Ash. I was freaking out, and I didn’t know what to tell her. But you remember me telling her that I didn’t want to end things with you, right? You’re the one who insisted we cool it off.”
“Because I was hurt, not because I didn’t want to see you again.”
I push the side button to raise the bed, then I reach for her hand again and tug her closer. “Ash, I’m not sure of my feelings exactly, but I know I fucking miss you, all right? And not only the sex part. I miss your wit, your laughter, the way you nibble on your lower lip when you’re thinking hard about something.”
Her pretty eyes widen. “You do?”
I cup her face. “Do you know many times I’ve listened to that blink-182 song?”
She sucks in a breath. “How many?”
“Hell…. I don’t know. But it’s been on repeat for the last couple weeks.”
“I missed you too, Sean. I was so scared when Alex called.”
“Come here, babe.” I reach for the back of her head and pull her lips to mine.
I kiss her slowly, savoring the sweet taste of her mouth. My heart is racing, and I’m sure she can hear it pounding it away. It sucks that I had to end up in the hospital to get clarity, but I’m not letting Ashley get away this time. I have no idea how we’re going to navigate our complicated family dynamics, but I won’t worry about it now.
She steps back, breaking the kiss. “We should probably take it easy.”
“I don’t want to. I need to make up for lost time.”
“I’d rather make out with you when you’re not feeling like roadkill.”
“Your kisses will cure me faster.”
“Food will cure you faster. The boys should be back any moment with breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” I arch my brows. “What time is it?”
She looks at her watch. “Quarter past six.”
“I can’t believe you and the guys spent the night here with me.”
“We were worried, Sean.”
“Is that Sean’s voice I hear?” Logan comes into the room, holding a bag of fast food, followed by Alex, and Darren
“Hey, guys.”
“How are you feeling, man?” Darren asks.
“Like shit. Hell, I can’t believe I was drugged.”
My teammates’ gazes darken.
“If they think this will go unpunished, they’re wrong,” Logan replies.
“You can’t declare open war against the football team,” Ashley says. “You need to be smart about it, since there’s no proof those goons roofied Sean.”
“We don’t need proof,” Alex retorts.
“Ash is right. I don’t want anyone getting in trouble or worse, getting kicked off the team because of those assholes.”
“Isn’t Ryder friends with the QB?” Ashley asks.
“Are you talking about Josh Fitzpatrick?” Darren furrows his brows.
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
I narrow my eyes. “How do you know that? Have you been talking to Ryder?”
My teammates exchange loaded glances. Hell. It seems I did more than ask for Ashley last night.
I decide that if they suspect or are sure of my feelings for her, I don’t care.
She crosses her arms. “No. Blair told me in passing. She doesn’t like Ryder’s friends much.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Anyway, why not get Ryder to use his connections to find out who roofied you?” Ashley continues.
“I’m not sure...” I say, but mainly because I’m still jealous as fuck of the guy.
“It’s not a bad idea,” Darren chimes in. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Wait. I don’t want anyone else on the team to know about this,” I say.
“Why? Are you embarrassed, Austin?” Alex smirks.
“I’m not embarrassed, dumbass. I just don’t want to escalate things.”
“Gotcha, no escalation, but narrowing it to one target. That sounds good to me.”
The glint of mischief in his eyes tells me there’s no chance this story won’t blow up in our faces. I glance at Ashley and find her reaching for her short hair to twirl a lock around her finger. But because it’s shorter, she can’t quite do it right.
She must sense I’m staring at her, because she glances at me. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Not to be a busybody or anything, but when did you guys start playing Flowers in the Attic ?” Logan asks.
“What?” Ashley’s face turns bright red.
Hell. I guess I was obvious last night.
“No judgment, but Sean wouldn’t relax until we called you, and then he called you babe,” Alex explains.
Ashley looks at me, asking with her eyes what to do now. There’s nothing to do but to confess, at least to the trio present.
“We’ve been seeing each other on the down low,” I say. “But we want to keep things quiet. So you have to keep your mouths shut about this.”
“No worries on my end,” Darren says.
“Yeah, we’ll keep your secret too, dude,” Logan replies. “But I can just say... getting it on with your stepsister... noice .”
“Oh shut up,” Ashley chimes in. “And hand over that bag. I’m starving.”