instead of confronting me, yelling at me, breaking stuff, busting knuckles—the things Knight did to cope—he’d mustered a smile. An eerily disturbing smile that had made my heart beat like a wild beast’s for all the wrong reasons. And while I wanted to respect his wishes to be alone, I also feared I’d completely blown it by letting him be by himself when he was hurting so much.
My phone buzzed in my hand. Another call from Texas. What in the hell?
I was waiting for Knight to show a sign of life. I’d left him dozens of messages. But answering phone calls was never on my agenda, let alone unidentified ones. People knew not to call me because I don’t—didn’t—speak. In my mind, my talking was still enabled by random spurts of confidence, rather than being a regular occurrence. Many people in this room still hadn’t heard my voice.
It seemed surreal to consider casually taking a call and starting to talk as if the last eighteen years hadn’t happened.
When the third call from Texas lit up my screen, I excused myself and walked over to the outside area, sliding the door shut behind me.
I pressed the phone to my ear, but didn’t say anything.
“Hello?” I heard a desperate, female voice.
It sounded like she was running. Her panting blasted in my ear, and there was background noise of wheels squeaking, an elevator pinging, and cell phones ringing.
“Hello? Is there anybody there? Moonshine?”
Moonshine? Why would she call me…?
Knight.
“Who is this?” I retorted.
My whole body broke out in hives at the thought he was in trouble. A bad feeling settled in my stomach like a brick. I paced from side to side in the little garden.
“His mother.”
I stopped pacing. Stared at the glass door. My fingers were going numb.
“His birth mother, I mean.” She sounded far away now. Her running came to a stop.
“Where is he?” I demanded.
I didn’t have time to be shocked. Knight’s mother knew him? Was in touch with him? Everything about this screamed surreal and bizarre. My head spun. I stumbled down, forcing myself to sit on a wooden bench behind me. I was shaking like a leaf, unsure if it was from the cold, the adrenaline, or both.
“He’s in the ICU.”
“Visiting his real mom?” I struggled to breathe.
I heard her gasp on the other end and realized how insensitive that had come out.
“Sorry—I mean…”
“No, it’s okay. I don’t have time to get offended.” She sniffed. “He is hospitalized. He overdosed.”
“On what?” I screamed into the phone, shooting to my feet, slapping the door open and galloping back in, even though I had no idea where he was or how to find him.
“On everything. Alcohol. Cocaine. Xanax. They’re pumping his stomach right now.” I could hear in her voice that she was trying hard not to break.
“Is he okay?”
“He threw up most of what he’d taken, I think. But there’s no way of knowing how much of it got into his bloodstream.”
“Where are you?” I ran past our families to the other side of the floor, zipping by without acknowledging their existence. Luckily, everyone was too cocooned in their own misery to notice.
“I’m outside his room. They wouldn’t let me in because I’m not…” She paused for a second, taking a ragged, shaky breath, before finishing. “Because I’m not family.”
“Tell me where he is!”
She gave me the directions, and I practically flew there.
Dean couldn’t know this. Neither could Lev. I knew it was a horrible thought when my boyfriend was possibly fighting for his life in the same hospital as his ailing mother, but I loved the entire Cole clan, not just him.
When I got to the room number she had given me, I found her in the hallway. Petite. Blonde. Velvet blue eyes and an ankle-length, unstylish dress I knew she’d get slaughtered for at the haughty Todos Santos Country Club. She was pretty, but looked nothing like Knight. Maybe he looked like his biological father. To be perfectly honest, he very much looked like Dean, even though they weren’t blood-related.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” Her posture was bowed, defeated. Like a wilted flower.
“I’m the girlfriend,” I said breathlessly, sticking my hand in her direction.
“I’m…” she started, biting down on her full lip.
Lips. That’s what Knight had inherited from her. Her luscious, round Cupid lips.
“I don’t know what I am to him.” She put her fist to her mouth, trying to swallow back a sob.
Without meaning to—and perhaps without wanting to, either—I wrapped my arms around her. Having the person who’d brought Knight