Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sawyer

“Found him,” I hear from a familiar voice over my shoulder as I move the glass to my lips. I’ve made this move multiple times before, but I can’t seem to force myself to swallow the toxin. Instead, I reach for the ice water–the fourth glass I’ve had since arriving at Lucky’s an hour ago.

“What are you guys doing here?” I ask without looking up from the shot of Jack sitting in front of me.

“Came here to kick your ass,” Linkin says pointedly.

I realize instantly that I wouldn’t fight it. In fact, I’d welcome the physical pain. “Have at it. You can each have a free shot,” I tell them, watching out of the corner of my eye as one more sits on the opposite side of Linkin, while two take my other side.

“It’s not as much fun if you don’t put up a fight,” the big guy says, flagging down Lucky and ordering a beer. The others do the same, as I continue to drink water and stare at the whiskey.

I grunt in way of acknowledgement, not really interested in small talk. After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, I finally speak again. “How’d ya find me?”

“Wasn’t that hard,” Ryan says, taking a drink from his bottle. “You weren’t at home or at the ball field. Figured this was the next logical place.”

Again, more silence.

“You going to tell us what happened?” Dean asks, casually spinning his bottle on the bar.

“I don’t know,” I reply, exasperated. That’s the hardest part–the biggest pill to swallow.

“You don’t know?” Linkin asks.

“Are you telling me you don’t know?” I ask, turning and looking his way for the first time since they all arrived. Levi is over his shoulder, calmly drinking his beer and watching.

“Nope,” Linkin says, taking a drink. “AJ didn’t show up for brunch at the café. Meghan got worried and called her, but she didn’t pick up. It took several phone calls before she finally did. Said she was sick, or some bullshit like that, but Meghan knew. Said she could hear it in her voice. She was crying.”

All over again, it’s like someone thrusts a butter knife straight into my gut and twists. “So she didn’t tell Meghan that she found me in bed with my ex-wife this morning?” Just saying the words makes it hard to breathe, brings back those visions of her devastated face, and those tears–fuck, those memories are torture.

Linkin stands up. Fast. His barstool falls back and crashes on the floor. “The fuck did you say?” His voice is low and menacing and makes me glad that I’ve never been on his bad side.

Well, until today.

The others stand too, a show of brotherly solidarity, or some shit. A bond that I thought I was working my way into, but now I’m suddenly pushed to the outside. Hell, I’m so far on the outside, I might as well be in another universe.

“What the hell happened?” Ryan asks, his voice scarily similar to Linkin’s.

“I don’t know.” Fuck, I hate saying that.

“You said that already,” Levi reminds me.

“I know!” I bellow, turning in my stool and facing them. There’s a little size different between the four, but for the most part they’re an intimidating bunch. Even though I have Linkin by an inch or two, throw them together and something tells me I’d probably be on the receiving end of a few hard punches and probably two black eyes.

Taking a deep breath, I keep going. “I really have no clue, all right? AJ dropped me off at my house and everything was fine. I went inside and grabbed a beer, opened the back door to let some of the breeze in. I went upstairs to shower, and when I came down Carrie was there. She came in my back door and was sitting on my couch. That’s all I remember until I woke this morning with Carrie in bed with me. You can imagine the rest.”

“I should knock your fucking head off,” Linkin seethes, clearly getting into his protector of the sisters’ role.

“Wait, you don’t remember what happened?” Levi asks, a confused look on his face.

I exhale and perch my ass on the barstool. “Listen, if I really made the mistake it looks like I did, I would own up to it. But I fucking can’t. I don’t know what happened. I remember feeling tired and maybe a little funny. But I have no recollection of what happened.”

He keeps staring at me, as if gauging my sincerity. “What did you have to eat and drink?”

“What the hell is this? Are you gonna make sure he did his chores too?” Linkin asks, a smart-aleck smirk on his face as he looks over his shoulder at Levi.

Levi ignores Linkin’s comment and keeps staring at me, waiting. “Uhhh, I had the pizza and two beers with you guys at the cages, and then one beer at home. No, wait. Two. Carrie got me one.”

“Did you see her open it?” Levi asks, stepping forward and moving in front of Linkin.

“What?” I ask, confused by his question.

“Did. You. See. Her. Open. It. Did she get it from the fridge and you opened it? Or did she go get it and open it?” he urges.

I stare at him, trying to recall. Then it hits me. “She had it on the table. She had a beer for me and a glass of wine for herself.”

“You didn’t see her open it? It was already there?” Levi confirms.

“Dude, he already said he didn’t see her open it,” Ryan says.

Again, Levi just stares at me, waiting.

“No, I didn’t see her open it,” I verify.

A smile spreads across his face. “My man, you were drugged,” he says, shaking his head.

“What?” No way. I couldn’t have been. I mean, why would anyone want to…

Son of a bitch.

Carrie.

“I’m serious. I bet if we gave you a piss test, it’d come back positive for something. Probably Rohypnol or GHB, and if I had to guess, I’d go with the latter. It would make you lethargic and if given enough, would include gaps in your memory. Man, you were roofied.”

All I can do is stare at him. He seems so sure, so confident. I think back to last night, to each detail that I can remember and try to piece it all together. Now, when I look back at it, it shines in a whole new light. Did my ex-wife drug me? It sure as fuck sounds like it. Because if there’s one thing I know, I would never, and I mean never betray AJ like this. And I sure as hell wouldn’t do it with the one woman who cheated on me, essentially ending our short marriage.

“Let me ask you this,” Linkin starts. “Do you feel like you had sex?”

My eyebrows raise and I just look at him. “Really?”

“I’m just saying I usually feel…different. Better, I guess you’d say. Know what I mean?” he asks with a smirk.

“We all know what you mean,” Dean says, rolling his eyes.

Thinking back again, I try to recall any sense of relief I may have had, especially in light of how worked up I was when AJ left. “No, I didn’t feel like I had sex. I mean, the room didn’t even smell like it,” I add, feeling slightly embarrassed to be talking about AJ with her brothers-in-law.

“I don’t think that’ll hold up in a court of law, Perry Mason,” Levi quips at Linkin. “Without a urine test, we won’t know for sure, but I’d bet my next paycheck that she put something in your drink. I mean, it was a little convenient that she was there when this went down, and ended up naked in your bed with you when your girlfriend was expected to arrive.”

“How in the hell did she get you naked?” Ryan asks.

“No clue. No way it would have happened had I been sober,” I reply.

“We could go to the hospital and do the test, but the drug may be out of your system by now. It usually lasts about twelve to twenty-four hours.”

“No, no hospital,” I say, shaking my head.

“Then we may never know,” Levi adds, grabbing his beer and taking a drink.

He’s right. I may never know what actually happened to me, and I hate it. I want to drive to her hotel–or wherever in the hell she’s staying–and demand to know what happened. Now that I think about it, the whole thing is definitely fishy, and I’d agree with Levi that she probably drugged me. I just wish there was some way to prove it.

“I need to go see AJ,” I demand, trying to push my way through them to get to the door.

“Dude, you’re not even wearing the same shoes,” Ryan says, making me glance down and notice, for the first time, that I’m wearing two different running shoes. Hell, at least I got the right feet. “But you may want to wait a bit. Have you seen a Summer sister when they get pissed off?” he asks, each of the guys nodding their heads.

“Scary,” Dean says.

“Frightening,” Levi adds.

“Terrifying,” Linkin agrees.

“Certifiable,” Ryan affirms.

“But the make-up sex?” Linkin states with a beaming smile.

“The best,” Ryan finishes.

“Epic,” Levi chimes in.

“Phenomenal,” Dean states.

“Earth moving,” Linkin proclaims.

“What’s worse though, man, is when they all gang up on you. You don’t stand a chance,” Dean reasons.

“And right now, they’re all out for blood. Your blood.” This from Levi.

“That’s comforting,” I mumble, finishing off my water.

“Just go talk to her and try to explain. AJ always seems like the reasonable one,” Dean says.

“Are you kidding?” Linkin asks over my shoulder. “I’d say Meghan is the reasonable one. I always pictured AJ as the more…destructive sister,” he adds, and my mind instantly goes to the destruction we created in my living room that first time we had sex. Hurricane Ali.

“He’s smiling. I think he’s picturing her naked,” Ryan says, bumping my shoulder.

“And, the good news is that we don’t have to kneecap you, Tonya Harding style,” Linkin says with that big wolfish grin.

“That is good,” I confirm.

And just like that, we’re all talking and hanging out like they didn’t just threaten to beat me with a metal pipe. It’s good to chat, but my mind never strays from AJ. She’s out there somewhere, upset and crying, or maybe even breaking shit, because I hurt her.

No, I didn’t just hurt her, I decimated her heart.

A heart that she had just fully given me the night before.

I need to make this right. No, I will make this right, because there’s no way I can just turn my back on our love. No way can I let her go without a fight. I’m probably in for the fight of my life, but you know what?

I’m ready.