“Wake the fuck up.” A firm hand slaps at my cheeks, jarring the slosh that is my brain right now. “Carson, wake up.” This time water is splashed on my face.

“Jesus…” I barely get the word out before nausea hits my gut. I tumble out of bed, running into walls and fumbling to the toilet, where I throw up.

“He’s sick. You should go.” I hear Misty’s tight voice from somewhere in the other room.

“I’m not going anywhere. Kat’s hurt. She needs him.” Chase’s voice. I hear Chase. Why the fuck is my cousin here? Why does my head hurt so much?

Kat’s hurt.

I try to speak, but another bout of nausea rips through me and I heave over the bowl again. Whatever bit of food and water I had inside me comes out over and over again until I’m hacking up bile.

“You hungover?” Chase asks, handing me a wet cloth.

No man. I didn’t even have a drink is what I mean to say. What comes out is, “Nah mah, I no drink.”

“Sick?” He clasps my forehead. “Fuck, you’re burning up.”

“I no know. I no remember.” My mouth feels funny and my head is dizzy. My tongue is swollen to double its size. Speaking clearly takes serious effort. The room tilts and sways as I attempt to stand up.

Chase’s jaw tightens. “You need to get your shit together. Kat’s been in a car accident. Four-car pileup on the freeway, and it looks like it’s her fault. They’re thinking DUI.”

I run the wet cloth over my face and it feels like heaven. If I could crawl into the sink and let the water pour over me right now, I so would. Then a thought hits me. “Kat doesn’t drink and d-drive,” I stutter. “She Ubers everywhere.” I get this out around the cotton coating my tongue and throat.

“Well, I don’t know what happened. The doctors are trying to figure it out. We’ll know more when the tests come back.”

“Tests? What kind of tests?” Misty’s voice is high-pitched and piercing my ear. I glance her way and notice she’s bobbing Cora on her hip. I blink rapidly, seeing three of each of them streaming bits of color with every movement.

Chase crosses his arms over his chest and stares at her. “The kind that tells a judge how much she’s had to drink and if she’s on any drugs.”

Misty’s eyes widen and she nods. “Wow. I hope she’s okay.”

“She’ll live.” Then he focuses on me as I’m trying to put a long-sleeved shirt on. The holes are so much smaller than they used to be. Eventually, it dawns on me that I’m cold. My bottom half is completely naked. What? I haven’t slept naked since Cora and Misty moved in. I’m always in sleep pants just to be safe. Why the hell am I naked?

The questions swirl around in my head, but I’m unable to hold on to any one thought long enough to make any sense of it. I’m so tired. My head is pounding so hard I lean against the wall and press my temples.

“You don’t look good, man.” Chase grips me by the arm and brings me to the bed, where he sits me down. Then he walks into my closet and comes back with a pair of boxer briefs and jeans. “Here.” He tosses them on the bed next to me. Then he pulls his phone out of his suit coat pocket, brings it to his ear, and says something I can’t make out through the ocean in my head. The waves are crashing so loudly I flinch.

I focus on getting my underwear on one foot at a time, and I gotta admit, it takes more effort than it ever has in my entire life. All I want to do is lie down, let the pounding in my head disappear, and then deal with the day—until I remember Chase said Kat’s hurt. That’s all the motivation I need to get my jeans on. I sway into my cousin when I stand.

“Fuck. You’re not right.”

Jack enters the room and wraps an arm around my shoulders. That’s when I start to lose consciousness. I’m dragged through my house and into a car. The second my head hits the cool leather, I’m out.

---

I come to hearing my father’s stern tone. “How is that even possible? My son doesn’t do drugs.”

I blink a few times, trying to open my eyes, but it’s so goddamned bright and my eyelids are too heavy. I just can’t. There’s a pressure on my head that feels as though my head is in a vise.

“We’re doing everything we can, for both of them,” a voice I don’t recognize says. “Just be patient. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

Again, I try to come back to the surface, but the darkness takes me away.

---

Humming. I hear a pretty sound like a song, only it’s soft and far away. It’s a song my mother used to sing to me when I was little. I want to see my mother’s face. So bad. I open my eyes, and I’m greeted by perfect blue eyes and straight blond hair. For a second, it’s my mom. She’s smiling, and I try to lift my arm to her face, but I can’t move. Then my mom’s face morphs into my sister’s.

“Chloe,” I croak, sounding like I haven’t spoken in a year.

“Carson. Oh, thank God.” Instantly, her hands are on my face, and she’s kissing my forehead in quick presses.

The grogginess is trying to force me back down, but I push it back. I do a mental assessment, and my entire body feels lethargic. Heavy. Like I’d been asleep forever and am finally waking.

“You’ve been out for twenty-four hours, bro,” Chloe says.

How the hell did that happen?

“What happened?” Then two words hit my memory like a jack hammer. Kat’s hurt. “Kathleen!” I cry out and try to shift out and off the bed.

Chloe presses firmly against my chest to hold me down, but it doesn’t take a lot of effort on her part. I’m sluggish as fuck and can barely move my arms and legs without using a great deal of energy.

“She’s okay. They’re treating her. The airbag gave her face a nasty beating, and she has a raunchy bruise across her chest where the seat belt held her in place. Thank God she was wearing it. The drugs though… That was bad on her system. Especially with the, uh…other thing.”

Airbag. Nasty beating. Bruises. Other thing.

The words jumble around in my head until a doctor I recognize all too well strides into my hospital room. Dr. Dutera, the same doctor who has treated almost all of my friends and family at one crisis or another. He pushes his glasses up his nose and glances at me from head to toe before he comes over with a penlight and examines my eyes.

“Mr. Davis. Hadn’t expected to see you here, and especially not like this. How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.” No sugarcoating needed.

He nods and writes something down on his clipboard. “You got lucky. You didn’t have as much Rohypnol in your system as your girlfriend.”

“Kathleen was drugged?”

The doctor nods and checks a few things on the machine attached to the fluids being pumped through my IV. “Enough to know it wasn’t a medicinal dose. Had it been any more, you both could be a lot worse. I’ll be back later. You’re here another day. Cops want to talk to you though. Anytime we find Rohypnol on the drug screen, we have to report it.”

“The date-rape drug?” I ask, my voice betraying the shock.

“Yes, Mr. Davis. Try to rest and think about how you could have ingested it. There are no injection sites, so you must have eaten or drunk it,” he says before he leaves.

“Were you and Kat together on Friday?” Chloe asks. “We figured the two of you had somehow come into contact with it together, and she left and you went to bed.”

I scan my brain. “The last thing I remember I was sitting down to dinner with Misty early Friday evening. We, uh, were talking about her moving out, and then nothing. Everything goes blank after that. I don’t remember finishing dinner, going to bed, and I sure as shit don’t remember coming here.”

Chloe’s eyebrow rises in what I can only assume is speculation. “And Kathleen wasn’t with you?”

I shake my head. “No. That I would remember. I think.” I close both hands into fists, trying to remember what happened. It’s all a big black hole.

“Misty,” Chloe whispers and looks out the window. “That’s weird. Kat left work on Friday evening saying she had to meet with Misty at a bar downtown. The way Kat explained it, they were supposed to have some type of come-to-Jesus chat with one another.”

“But I was with Misty.”

Chloe shrugs. “I don’t know, but when I left work at seven thirty on Friday evening, Kathleen was heading to a bar named Bubba’s to meet up with Misty.”

Bubba’s is the shithole where Misty used to work before I came back into the picture. “Fucking hell. I need to see Kathleen. Now.”

“She, uh, doesn’t want to see you.” Chloe’s entire face crumbles into an expression of misery.

“What?”

She rushes to continue. “I don’t know what’s going on. When they finally got her awake, she was crying, carrying on, saying you hurt her. You ruined everything. I believe her words were that you betrayed her.”

Betray Kathleen?

I grind my teeth and brace against the mattress to sit up straight. “I’d never in a million years betray her.”

“I’m sorry. You do need to talk, but she’s in no position. And Chase… He’s got her on lockdown.”

“Fucking hell. My goddamn cousin. Saint Chase. You tell Chase I want to talk to him. Now.”

---

The door to my hospital room opens and Chase enters, my father hot on his heels. “Now, Chase, remember he was drugged and is in no condition for your wrath,” my father says as they both enter. Chase’s blue eyes are an angry blaze.

“Your wrath? I hear you have my woman in lockdown. Away from me. Hurting.” The words seep from my lips, coated in anger.

“That’s right. And you have some explaining to do before you’re ever going to talk to her again.” He throws down the gauntlet with absolutely no fear whatsoever. Whatever it is he thinks I’ve done, he’s going all out.

Against me.

My best friend.

My fucking blood.

I grind my teeth and lift my chin to the sky. “Chase, tell me what’s going on. All I know right now is both of us were drugged. I ended up in my bed. Kathleen ended up on the freeway in a four-car pileup. What the fuck happened?”

“You cheated on her, you fucking piece of shit.” Chase’s anger is so potent I can feel it pumping off him like an electric current in the small room.

“Chase, not that it’s any of your business, but I’d never cheat on her.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I’d have my mother strike me down from heaven above before I’d ever fucking cheat on Kathleen. I love her. I want her as my wife. She’s my future, Chase. My every…fucking…thing. You know she is. You know what the woman means to me. Has always meant to me. Now don’t you dare look me in the face and spew this bullshit.”

Chase shakes his head, and my father looks down and to the side. They don’t believe me. An arrow to the heart couldn’t have hit the mark better.

“Someone please tell me what’s going on.” I grind my teeth so hard I can hear it inside my head.

“You say you’d never cheat. Well, here’s your proof right here.” Chase holds up a phone I don’t recognize and points the display at me.

I squint at the picture and see a mostly naked Misty straddling my thighs, her lips on mine, and me lying under her.

“No…no fucking way. This can’t be me.” If I weren’t seeing this with my own eyes, I’d believe it was Photoshopped, but it’s definitely me.

“It is you. I’ve verified that already,” Chase says. “Keep clicking. There’s several for you to choose from.”

I swipe through the pictures and can’t believe my own eyes. I just can’t. “Chase, I don’t know what to say. I don’t remember this. Any of it.”

“Convenient,” he mumbles.

“Son. We make mistakes, and Misty is a beautiful woman…” My father starts to make excuses for what I can tell he thinks is me behaving badly.

“No. No. I would never. Not to Kathleen. Not to any woman. It took us forever to get here. Maybe it’s from before. When Misty and I hooked up over two years ago?” My voice sounds desperate, hanging on to any shred of hope I can come up with to explain what I’m seeing.

Chase tilts his head back and laughs. “Look at the fucking picture, asshole. Your daughter’s sippy cup is sitting on the end table in the background. The same one that was on your end table when I picked you up on Saturday morning. Naked and in your bed. Misty was wearing a fucking skimpy-ass robe too. Now what more do you have to say for yourself? At least admit you fucked up.”

I push the covers out of the way and off to the side so I can turn and get out of bed.

“Chase, I’m begging you on our blood and our honor as best friends. I was drugged on Friday. I don’t remember anything that happened. Kathleen was drugged on Friday. Does she remember what happened?”

“No, but I’ll tell you what it looks like.”

“And that is?” I lean over the bed, cock my head to the side, and stare at my cousin with every ounce of humility I have. “I’d never hurt her willingly, man. You have to believe me.”

Chase’s eyes turn hard, and then something clicks as he takes in my defeated posture and gaze. His shoulders fall, and he takes a harsh breath.

“Fuck. It doesn’t matter what it looks like. Only what it is. Kathleen doesn’t remember anything after leaving work. She doesn’t even know where this phone came from or whose it is. But the picture was the first thing Gillian saw when she pulled it out of the pocket of the pants the nurses handed us. She showed it to me, and Kathleen woke up and saw it over our shoulders and demanded to see it. We had no choice.”

“Whose fucking phone is it?” I flip it over and glance at the tiny crack in the right-hand corner. I know that crack. I’ve seen it before because my daughter did it last week while playing with her mommy’s phone. She’d dropped it on the tile, and it cracked. I offered to replace it for Misty, but she said I’d done enough and not to worry. “Jesus Christ. It’s Misty’s. That means she met up with Kathleen after she had dinner with me.”

“So, Misty saw both of you that night. She made you dinner and met Kathleen for a drink. She drugged you both.”

I shake my head. Could it be possible? I mean, sure, she was angry about me telling her she had to move and of course the issue last week at dinner. But drugging us? That’s extreme.

Chase grasps the phone again and starts squinting at the display and fiddling with it. After a few minutes of doing this, he sighs long and hard.

“I’m sorry, Carson. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.” He’s frowning as he shows me the screen and a pic where he’s zoomed in. I can see my face is completely lax and I’m unconscious. Even in the picture of her holding my hand to her leg, I’m loose-fingered. My hands are not gripping her flesh the way someone would while deep in the throes of passion.

The bitch fucking set me up.

“It’s okay, Chase. I know what it looks like. I’d never hurt her. I need to see her. Talk to her.”

He nods. “Let me go first. Tell her what we’ve put together. She, uh…has some news to tell you anyway. When she’s ready.”

Fuckin’ hell. More shit being held back and another span of time where I can’t go to my woman.

“Fine. Just make it quick. I’m there in an hour. I don’t care if I have to check myself out against medical advice. I’m going to fix this. I need her, Chase. I’d be lost without Kathleen.”

Chase closes his eyes and nods.

“Then you understand. Make her see. Tell her I love her and I want to see her.”

---

Chase wheels me into Kathleen’s room. The room is dim. Only a single light in the corner is illuminating the twelve-by-twelve-foot space. The moment I lay eyes on her, tears hit. It’s only the third time I remember crying in my entire life. The first, when I told my mother goodbye as she died. The second, when I saw Kathleen in the hospital fighting for her life after the fire. And now.

I struggle to get out of the wheelchair and go to her bedside. “My God, Kathleen.” It’s three years ago, all over again. Her lying prone in a hospital bed. This time her face is messed up. She has monitors everywhere, two black eyes, a swollen nose, and a cut lip. She looks as though she’d been in a boxing match with Muhammad Ali and lost.

“Baby…” I whisper, and her swollen eyes open.

Tears instantly fall down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to think.” Her words crack, and I get into the bed with her.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to do that…” Chase says.

“Oh, shut up,” Gillian says. “You did that to me the second I pushed out your twins, and you threatened to have the nurses fired if they crossed you. Leave them be. Are you going to be okay, Kat?”

She nods against my neck. “I am now.”

“Come on, big guy. Let’s have another chat about boundaries and other people’s relationships,” I hear her say as she pulls my cousin out the door.

“I’m not sorry I overreacted. Kathleen was hurting…” is the last thing I hear him say as they walk out of the room and down the hall.

I look down at Kathleen. “I love you so goddamn much, and I’d never cheat on you. You own my soul.”

More tears leak out of her eyes, and she holds me around the waist and sobs into my chest. “It was so real. And then I didn’t know where to go, what to do, and I was tired and groggy but still scared and devastated.”

With a careful hand, I run my fingers through her hair. “I’ve been told there’s only property damage from the accident. You were the only one who sustained any real injuries, and it’s pretty good that you hit those cars, because your car was headed toward the girder over the bay.” I swallow heavily and suck in a breath, smelling her hair, feeling her warm body alive and in my arms.

“I don’t remember anything after meeting up with Misty and her telling me you were fucking her.”

“So, you did meet up with her. On Friday.” She confirms exactly what I’d already put together.

Kat nods against my chest as I tell my story. “I had dinner with her and then don’t remember anything afterward. Chase says, in the pictures, Cora’s sippy cup is on my nightstand. She put me in bed, stripped my clothes, and took those disgusting pictures. Then she must have met up with you and showed them to you. But I swear, nothing happened. Even the doc said I couldn’t have functioned properly.” I run my knuckles down her swollen cheek, needing to touch her, connect with her on this level. “Do you believe me?” I’m holding my breath.

“Yeah, I do. I’m so sorry I lost my mind. I should have looked closer. Once Chase forced me to look at the enlarged images, I could tell you weren’t even awake. You looked unconscious.”

I chuckle, bringing some light into the darkness. “Because I was unconscious. Shit, I don’t even know what to do now. This woman lives in my house. She’s the mother of my daughter. That’s fact. If she could do this to us, what could she do to Cora?”

“But what do we really know about her?” Kat asks the million-dollar question.

“Not much. Honestly, she never talked about her upbringing. All she’s ever said is her parents are dead and she’s an only child. No family to speak of.”

“Seems suspect to me,” Kat says and then yawns.

“You need to rest. Why don’t you sleep? I’m here. An earthquake couldn’t get me to leave this bed.”

She rubs her hand up and down my chest soothingly. “There’s something else the doctors found when they ran my tests.”

A pounding fear hits my chest so hard I clutch at her body, holding her tight. I don’t know how much more I can take. What more could she possibly have thrown at her now?

“Whatever it is, Kat, I’m here for you. We’ll deal with it together. When we get out of here, you’re moving in. I’m going to have you and my daughter in my house. Period. It’s happening. So, whatever it is, it’s you and me, okay? No running.” I lean down and tilt her chin. Her lips tremble, and I try not to let her battered face anger me more. Not now. Not when she needs to share something serious with me. “What is it, Kat? Just tell me. I can handle it.”

She swallows and pushes off my chest so she can look me in the face. “When they ran the gamut of tests, they had to run all kinds of blood panels, and they found some of my levels were higher than they should be.”

“What kind of levels?”

“Progesterone.”

I shrug. “Sweetcheeks, I don’t know what that means.”

“Well, when they found that my progesterone levels were high, they did more tests. One very specific test and then an ultrasound.”

“Ultrasound? Of what?”

She turns to the left, reaches for the side table, and grabs a piece of paper. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.” She hands me the piece of paper.

It’s a baby sonogram.

“What is this?”

“It’s our baby.”

I glance at her bruised face, and the impact of what she’s just said hits me like a category-five hurricane hitting the Florida shore.

“See here…”—she points at a specific spot on the picture—“it says we’re ten weeks and a few days.”

“Ten weeks…” I whisper and glance down at the blob. It’s nothing more than a peanut shape with two tiny buds for hands and two buds for feet.

“Carson, say something.”

“We’re having a baby? You’re pregnant?” I gasp, shock skittering through my veins, making my heart pump double time.

She nods rapidly and doesn’t say anything more.

“How? You had the implant. We had this conversation before. Long time ago.”

“Yeah. So long ago I was supposed to get a new one. The implant only lasts up to four years. I’m a full year past that. At the time I got my renewal card, I blew it off because I was in such a deep depression about my injury and not having you in my life. My future seemed so bleak, and I just…never renewed it. And it didn’t register when we got back together that I’d need to…and…” She starts to shake in my arms.

I press two fingers over her lips. “Shhhh. You’re working yourself up. It’s not good for the baby. Oh my God, what about the Rohypnol? What did Dr. Dutera say?”

“He said the baby is fine. Obviously, we were all surprised by its appearance.” She runs a hand over her flat stomach. I lay my hand over hers.

“We’re having a baby,” I whisper, allowing the awe to roll over me fully.

“Yeah,” is her only reply.

“Oh my God. I’m going to be a daddy!” I smile huge, unable to control how much this news excites me.

“You already are a daddy.” Kat nudges my shoulder playfully.

“Holy shit. I’m going to have two kids.” At first, the thought fills me with joy, and then reality strikes. “I’m going to have two kids out of wedlock. Fuck. Kat, we have to get married. Like, right away.”

She groans and lays her head back. “Not this again.”

“Just promise me you’ll think about it.” If I have any say whatsoever, this woman will be wearing my ring before the year is out.

“How about we deal with Misty and her drugging us first and me getting out of here?”

I close my eyes and press my forehead to hers. We breathe one another’s air for a while. “Are you happy?” I ask her, afraid of what her answer will be.

“Are you?” She answers my question with a question. Typical evasive Kathleen.

I kiss her lips softly, being careful not to put too much pressure on her busted one. “Kathleen, having you in my life is the most natural thing in the world. You carrying my child is my dream. It’s everything I’ve always wanted for us.”

For a long time, she doesn’t say anything. Then finally she adds, “You’re my dream too. And I want this baby. I want you, me, our baby, and Cora to find a way to be happy and together.”

The tears fall again. I wipe them away with my knuckles and kiss her softly. “One day we’ll have that. I feel it deep.”

Together we lie with our hands over her stomach. I can’t feel our baby there yet, but knowing we’ve created life together proves just how much the universe is pushing for us. Now I just have to deal with Misty and get custody of my daughter.

For now, I let it go, close my eyes, and rest my head against the pillow, my hand over my baby and Kathleen’s head over my heart. Nothing else matters but having this woman safely resting in my arms, carrying my entire world within her body, mind, and soul.