9. Chapter 9
Chapter 9
As Paige slowly awoke, the thunder in her head made her immediately want to go back under again, especially when a wave of nausea rolled over her.
This was quite possibly the worst hangover she’d ever had and as soon as she felt human again, she was going to kill Jules for whatever had happened the night before. She’d obviously let Paige get totally hammered, because she hardly remembered anything—she didn’t even remember drinking. The last thing she could remember with any real clarity was being at work, but according to the clock on the wall that was hours ago. Like, seven hours ago.
Everything between then and now was pretty hazy, almost like scattered, psychedelic dreams that dissipated upon waking, leaving her confused and not knowing what was real and what wasn’t.
Like … Morgan Freeman.
Even though he’d seemed very real, she was pretty sure he hadn’t been, which was a shame since it would’ve been cool to meet him. She was a huge fan and could’ve totally posted that shit on Instagram.
She also thought it highly unlikely that she had met Mr. Burns—being a cartoon character and all—but she could’ve sworn she’d had a few conversations with him. What those conversations had been about, she couldn’t recall, but they seemed real. Sort of.
Then, there was David.
But even though he seemed to play an almost constant part in the hazy previous seven hours, he didn’t seem any more real than Morgan Freeman or Mr. Burns. Mainly because, even though his presence could possibly be explained, it just didn’t make any sense that he would be there especially with long hair and a beard. Like a hot pirate. And if he wasn’t really there, then why was she imagining him, altered, like that?
Everything had to be fake. That’s all there was to it, she decided. And since it was, then that meant she’d gotten really fucked up. Why, she didn’t know, but the pounding in her head and the very real effort involved in not puking told her she had probably been doing shots. A lot of them.
Jules. Was. Dead.
As she thought of a few ways in which Jules would die, Paige did her breathing exercises, finding that they actually helped her head. Not much, but enough to where she started to feel like she could conceivably, maybe, possibly, be able to stagger to her kitchen and take a handful of Motrin.
However, that pipe dream vanished when she realized a few disturbing things:
She wasn’t in her bedroom.
She wasn’t even in her apartment.
She actually didn’t know where she was.
She also didn’t know how she’d gotten to wherever she was.
There was a large hand holding one of her boobs.
The hand holding her boob was attached to a warm body currently spooning her.
Paige could feel the tentacles of panic starting to wrap around her, making her entire body stiffen and escalating her heart rate, which in turn, caused her head to feel like someone was hitting it with a hammer. Focusing on her breathing exercises again, she told herself she wasn’t a defenseless young girl, that Carter was dead, and there had to be a reasonable explanation for why she was in bed with someone in a strange room.
Had she picked up a random guy at the bar and ended up in bed with him? If she had, that would explain pretty much everything.
But if she had, why was she wearing the ugliest nightgown ever? It had been a lot of years since she’d had sex, but she knew that this nightgown would be a non-starter.
Mindful of her head, she shifted her body a little to try and get a gander at the person behind her and that’s when she saw what looked like an IV catheter inserted into her hand. Somewhat shocked, she followed the clear tubing over to an IV pole and up to a half-filled bag of fluid.
Wait a hot minute. Was she in the hospital? Even more confused than she had been a few minutes ago (not to mention more worried, because the alternative was that she was somewhere getting an organ harvested for the black market), she looked around the room some more, as if she needed more proof than being hooked up to an IV. Her vision was hindered a little by the dim lighting, but she was able to see the bare walls, a white curtain dividing the room, and what was obviously a hospital bed she was lying on; the metal side rails were a dead giveaway.
She was in the hospital and it wasn’t a dream.
All for a hangover? That seemed excessive.
She started to feel a little fuzzy again, but she tried to fight it, remembering that there was someone in bed with her she needed to meet, since she had no idea who it was. She shifted a little more and the person behind her pulled her back against him in an even tighter embrace, as if reflexively. In the process, her boob got a healthy squeeze as well, drawing her gaze down to the hand, only to blink at the Tag Heuer watch on the man’s wrist.
Oh, my God … she knew that watch.
“David?” she asked tentatively.
There was movement behind her again, only this time it felt like it was the ‘waking up’ variety. Her assumption was confirmed shortly after when a throat was cleared, followed by a sleep-roughened voice, that said, “I’m here.”
She knew that voice, would know it until the day she died, but it simply made no sense that David was curled up with her like a lover. How? Why? What the fuck had she done last night?
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Is this real?”
“Yes, it’s real,” he told her, then repeated his question. “How are you feeling?”
Where to start? “My head hurts like hell and for some reason, we’re in bed together. And … you’re feeling me up.”
The utter confusion in her voice made David pause. It seemed, that unlike her earlier remembrance of him, this time it was rooted in the present, although she had no idea why he was with her. Which meant that as well as what happened at the restaurant, she also didn’t remember what had happened in the past few hours. It was like her ‘amnesia’ had grown, which didn’t seem like a good thing.
“I’m not—” he broke off and looked down, realizing that he totally was feeling her up. At some point, his hand had migrated from between her tits, to outright grabbing one. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
He let go of her like his hand was on fire. Then gently, so as to not jostle her too much, he began to separate the rest of his body from hers; to his near horror, he had a decent chub in progress.
Once they were no longer attached, he moved to the chair by her bed, where he proceeded to explain their sleeping situation. “We were in bed together because you wanted me to hold you.”
She didn’t remember instigating that, but then decided it didn’t matter and almost immediately forgot about it. She was getting her first really good look at him and saw he was the pirate David from her dreams, with long hair and a neatly trimmed beard. Which obviously meant that those dreams hadn’t been dreams at all and he’d been with her for hours. “Why are you here with me?”
“You don’t remember anything?” he asked. While he was glad to see she seemed more coherent, it was upsetting that she still didn’t have full recall.
“I remember being at work,” she said slowly, then tried to think forward from there. “Oh.” The word came out on a shocked breath as the first piece came to her with what felt like zero effort. “I saw you. At …” She could picture the inside of a building, with marble floors, but the name eluded her.
“Bender’s,” he supplied.
“That’s right,” she murmured, as her eyes widened. “You were with Ashley.”
“Yes.”
“She and I got into a fight.”
He nodded his confirmation, wishing like hell they didn’t have to re-live it; the first time had been bad enough.
Paige rubbed her forehead as another piece fell into place. “I called her a cunt, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“She was being one.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “She was.”
Paige stared at him as she recalled other parts of the encounter—the shock, the anger, the betrayal. “You have a son with her. You named him Jacob David.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I named him that for us, for you and me. To honor the boy we lost.”
“And Ashley let you do that? She let you give her child our child’s name? Bullshit.”
“She didn’t know anything about our child. She thought Jacob’s name was just my first and middle names, flipped. But she knows now, because you inadvertently told her about the miscarriage during your fight.”
She didn’t remember that. And while she wasn’t pleased that Ashley now knew about the miscarriage, Paige was even less pleased at having been the one to reveal it.
“I think I understand why I got drunk,” she said to herself.
He shook his head. “You didn’t get drunk, Paige.”
“I didn’t?”
“No.”
She frowned at him, feeling like there was something ugly that she was missing, something that was directly related to Ashley … and probably their fight. The bits and pieces she could recall made it clear the fight had been bitter, escalating quickly to where they had practically been yelling at one another and then Ashley had—
Paige’s thoughts broke off and her mouth opened, as if in wonder. “Oh, my God. She … pushed me.”
“Yes.” His voice was heavy with regret. “She pushed you and you fell.”
She slowly reached up and touched the back of her head, feeling a large bump. “That’s why I’m all fucked up.”
“You have a concussion.”
Paige sighed with displeasure at hearing that. Being in the hospital now made sense, but also made everything worse. She knew the basics about concussions (mainly from her love of football and a thousand episodes of Grey’s Anatomy) and she knew she didn’t want to have one.
But apparently she did and had Ashley to thank for it.
“I’m truly sorry, Paige,” David continued quietly, earnestly. “I’m sorry that you had to find out everything … like you did.”
His remorse barely touched her at all. She felt oddly numb and she didn’t know how much that had to do with the concussion. “Does ‘everything’ include your coming in Ashley’s mouth this morning? Or yesterday morning, I guess? Because that was awesome.”
She knew she was being a bitch for not graciously accepting his apology, but she didn’t care. Fuck him for being with Ashley. And fuck that bitch, Ashley, too, for purposely unleashing all that hell and smiling at Paige while doing it. There really was evil in the world and Paige had gotten in the ring with it tonight. And lost.
David inwardly groaned at the blowjob reminder. Thank God she’d remembered that nugget. “Yes. But I’m especially sorry that she caused you to get hurt so badly. It scared the hell out of me, to be honest, not to mention …” he trailed off as he remembered her date. Paige obviously didn’t remember him yet, leaving David momentarily torn as to whether or not he should say something. Deciding he probably should, he said, “Not to mention, the guy in the suit you were on a date with. I think his name is Hale?”
Paige’s expression was blank for a second, then she closed her eyes in dismay. “Oh, shit.”
“He’s probably still in the waiting room, actually,” he told her, thinking it might cheer her up.
“He came to the hospital?”
David nodded. “I’ve kept him updated on how you’re doing. He, uh, seems like a nice guy.”
“He is a nice guy,” she said softly.
Instead of her spirits being raised, they seemed to have deflated, instead, but before David could say anything else, Dr. Wiseman appeared, interrupting the conversation.
Since Paige didn’t really recall meeting him, there were introductions again and shortly after, David excused himself and left the room. He assumed Paige would want to be alone with her doctor for a few minutes, and decided to use that time to go have another chat with Hale.