can easily confuse a person. Remember the time Bradley got knocked out by that curling iron, and when he came round he thought he’d died and gone to hell?”
“Emmy, that was different. You were leaning over him wearing a Halloween costume.”
“But still, he wasn’t thinking straight.” She clasped his hand. “It’ll be okay, Nicky. I promise.”
CHAPTER 45
BEEPING BROKE INTO my consciousness, grating on my nerves. What was it? An alarm clock? I tried rolling to the side, but something dragged on my hand, and a bolt of pain shot up my arm. It took some effort, but I raised an eyelid. A white room. White blankets. Machines by the bed. Slowly, too slowly, the fog cleared and I remembered. The restaurant, driving away, the accident. Nick. Yelling at Nick. This must be the hospital.
A sharp pain cut into my arm as the blanket dragged across it, but I ignored that and the ache in my neck as I looked around the room. Had Nick gone? I couldn’t cope if he’d stayed. One argument was quite enough for today. I caught sight of somebody curled up on a chair in the corner and stifled a groan. Emmy. Of all the people I didn’t want to see at the moment, she ran a close second after Nick. Maybe I could just close my eyes and pretend to be asleep until she went away? Yes, that was a good plan.
“Hi,” she said.
Okay, perhaps not quite such a good plan.
“Hi.” My voice came out as a croak.
“Do you want some water?”
I nodded. My tongue and the sides of my mouth were all stuck together like a mess of papier-mâché.
She brought me over a cup with a straw in it, and I sipped, inwardly cursing her kindness. I didn’t deserve it. Not after what I’d done.
“Do you remember what happened?” she asked.
I nodded again.
“Can you tell me?”
What the heck should I say? Should I own up to sleeping with Nick? She’d be upset, but she couldn’t kill me in a hospital, right? Not with all the doctors and nurses around. Or should I leave that part out and make up another story about why I was upset enough to crash Nick’s car? I remembered it hurtling through a forest.
As usual, my mouth acted before my brain had a chance to catch up.
“I’m so sorry,” I blurted. “I ended up in bed with Nick. I didn’t mean for it to happen, and I’m so, so sorry.”
Of all the looks I’d expected to see on her face, confusion wasn’t one of them.
“Why are you sorry? He’s not that bad a lay, is he?”
“What? No, of course not. But I thought you’d broken up because Bradley said you weren’t together anymore, then I saw you in that restaurant and realised you hadn’t, but it was too late because we’d already slept together the night before. If I could turn the clock back, I would. But I can’t.”
“Night before last?”
“I think so. I wasn’t unconscious for that long, was I?”
“Nope. Less than an hour.” She checked her phone. “Awesome. I had that day in the pool.” One corner of her mouth tugged up in a smile as she tapped away at the screen. “Suck on that, Luther. Now, all the rest of what you just said, can you run that by me again?”
I told her the whole sorry tale, fighting back tears and adding on a thousand more apologies as I went. And at the end, Emmy started laughing.
“So let me get this straight, this whole time, you thought I was dating Nick?”
“Well, yes. Weren’t you?”
“Fuck no. Didn’t he mention I’m married?”
“You’re married?”
She waggled a fancy diamond ring at me. “Yeah, but I don’t always wear this when I’m working. Nick’s one of my husband’s best friends. He’s also an idiot. I can’t believe he didn’t tell you.”
“But...but what about the time I saw you coming out of his room in the morning? You’d slept in his bed.”
“Yes, but he wasn’t in it. He was at my house, watching a ball game with my husband and twenty other guys. Those nights always end in carnage, and I wanted to get some sleep, so I borrowed his place.”
“And his bed?”
“I didn’t want you to have another set of sheets to wash. Plus the other times I’ve done that, his bed’s been the only one that wasn’t buried under mountains of shit.”
Should I believe her? Could I have been so wrong?
“What about a couple of weeks ago when you came out