Moaning, I tried to sit up. I needed a shower, or a glass of water, or maybe to vomit—something, I wasn’t sure which, but something immediately. Only, I couldn’t move because I wasn’t alone in my bed and someone’s heavy arm was draped over my chest. I would have screamed, but it was only Nathanial’s arm. He was asleep beside me, breathing heavily against my shoulder.
Trying to rack my brain, I found that I couldn’t remember much of anything from last night. Which freaked me out a little. Actually, a lot. I trusted Nathanial, but something strange was going on. I think I would have remembered him coming over. I think I would have remembered drinking too much. Holy shit, did we have sex again?
“Hey,” I yelled, shoving at his side. “Nathanial, wake up.”
With a grunt, he immediately woke up. I ruled out the sex thing. He was fully clothed. Even his shoes were on. And his brown eyes looked only concerned, not lustful, as they opened. “Finally,” he breathed. “You’re awake.”
“What’s going on?” Now I was scared. And nervous—this wasn’t how I expected to see him again.
“Someone drugged you—like slipped something in your drink. We think it was Mike.”
It took me a moment to remember who the hell Mike was.Oh yeah, the threesome guy. Ew. I remembered my date with him yesterday. I remembered having lunch with Nathanial and his brother. After that everything else was a blur. How could this have happened?
I rolled away from Nathanial and onto my side. Jesus, I’d never been so embarrassed or confused in my entire life. “Drugged? Like he gave me roofies? What the fuck? This isn’t the 90’s!”
“No, not roofies. Your blood had traces of GHB in it—a different kind of date rape drug.”
“Oh, wonderful. That makes me feel so much better.”
Burying my face in my hands, I groaned.You will not cry,I told myself, not wanting Nathanial to see me emotional yet again. Except tears were threatening and I couldn’t hold it together. I had no idea how long he’d been with me—if he’d just shown up or had been here for hours. Someone, probably Rhett, must have called him.God, this was mortifying.How could I have been so stupid and let this happen?
“The doctor told us you’ll feel sick for a day or two,” he said softly, brushing his fingers up and down my arm as a means to sooth me. It nearly helped, but not quite. “It’s been about twenty-four hours so you should start to feel better soon. You want me to get you some water or something?”
It had been a whole twenty-four hours of this? I couldn’t help it—the tears came now.
“Hey. It’s okay,” Nathanial said, noticing I was upset. “Nothing bad happened. You were safe the whole time. Come here, please.” Wrapping his arms around my waist, he pulled me in closer against his warm chest. I should have let him comfort me, but instead I panicked.
I pulled away from his grip and hurried out of the bed. The world was spinning, so I pressed my palm to my forehead. After a moment, everything stopped and he came into focus. “You should go,” I told him, crossing my arms over my churning stomach and backing into my dresser. “I feel like shit. I know I look like shit. And…yeah. It be would better if you left while I try to wrap my brain around this.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded and left my bed. He gathered his things—cellphone and wallet—from my nightstand before walking over to me. I froze, unsure what he was about to do. I didn’t think I could handle it if he touched me right that moment.
But he didn’t touch me. It looked like he wanted to, but he refrained. Instead one of those animal sounds of his ripped from his throat as he hoarsely whispered, “You don’t look like shit, Ellie. That’s not possible.” Then he left me.
I waited until I heard the front door slam. Once the coast was clear, I made a quick trip to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. Then, needing some answers, I went into the living room looking for Rhett.Oh thank the Lord, Noah was here too. “When did you get here?” I said with a sigh of relief.
Noah dropped the Windex he’d been scrubbing the coffee table with, and immediately came to hug me. “Rhett called me this morning and I drove straight here,” he said. “What happened yesterday?”
Like I fucking knew.
Unable to answer, I cried into Noah’s shirt for exactly ten seconds. I knew the precise amount of time because I counted the seconds. Then I sucked it up, put on my big girl pants and stopped my ridiculous crying fit. I decided I wasn’t going to be upset. I was going to be pissed. Really, really pissed. Mike the asshole was going down.
“Rhett,” I said, turning to where he was perched on a stool at the kitchen counter.
“I know. You hate me,” Rhett said, looking more sincere than he ever had in his life. He ran his hands a few times over his closely shaved head. “I feel awful about this. Mike is officially banned for life from Chancy’s. I already called my manager and had him tell everyone at work that he’s a creep. The police know too. As soon as you feel up to it, we need to go down to the station and you need to give them a statement. We’re pretty sure it was him. Unless you can think of someone else you had contact with who might have done this to you.”
I sat down on the couch—because the room was still spinning. “That’s not what I was going to say. I’m not mad at you. I just want you to give me a run down on everything that happened yesterday because I can hardly remember anything. How did Nathanial end up in my bed?”
Noah looked equally curious as I asked that question. I never had elaborated on what happened between me and Nathanial three weeks ago in California. Rhett knew a little bit but not everything. Noah had been back at school so he knew even less. But I had a bad feeling they both now knew all of my business. Because whenever I drank I had a tendency to spill secrets. So who the hell knows what had come flying out of my mouth while I’d been on some roofie equivalent date rape drug?
Rhett gave me a quick summary. “You had lunch with Nate and his brother. You remember that?” I nodded and he continued. “Then you went back to work. You called me saying you were feeling dizzy. I picked you up. Then I brought you home and that’s when you got sick. A few times actually. I thought you had food poisoning. Nate came over around nine last night—by then you were much better. Just tired. I thought you were fine. Still, he insisted we take you to the hospital. So we did. The doctor ran some tests. It turned out Nate’s suspicions were right. You had low levels of drugs in your system—enough to make you sick.”
“Is that all?” I asked, half-sarcastic half-serious.
He grimaced and I knew immediately he was leaving something out.
“Um. Mostly. You also kept telling everyone you were pregnant with Nate West’s love child.”
Oh. My. God!
“And that you were keeping it because you wanted to have all his ‘little dragon-fighting babies.’ Don’t worry—the doctor tested you and you’re not pregnant. I guess because you ralphed a few times you’d convinced yourself that you were.”
Holy shit. I vaguely remembered saying all that. “Where was Nathanial while all this was happening?”
“With you—holding you, carrying you, and whatnot. Once he showed up he wouldn’t let me help you at all anymore. He took over. He’s been with you all night. Which made it surprising that he left so fast a minute ago. Not sure what that was about. I’m guessing you made him leave. But he’s a really good guy, Ellie. I don’t even think he minded all the ‘love child’ stuff.”
The room suddenly grew very hot very fast. My heart began beating ninety-nine miles a minute. “Excuse me, guys,” I told them. Then I bolted out of the living room as fast as my queasy stomach would let me. I hardly cared if Noah and Rhett knew all my business at this point or if they thought I was crazy. Because only one thing mattered—getting to Nathanial. And if there was even a chance that he was still outside, I needed to go check.
Slipping on my flip-flops by the front door, I rushed outside and down the steps that led to the driveway. Of course, there weren’t any extra cars in our drivew
ay. He was long gone.How could I have been so rude to him? How could I have woken up beside him and automatically assumed he’d had sex with me? I really liked him. Apparently, in my intoxicated state, enough to have his babies. I wanted him to like me too. And maybe he did since he’d come all the way from California to see me. Instead, I’d been a jerk and probably ruined everything.
After not finding an extra car, I was about to hurry inside to try calling him. But in the distance I spotted someone walking down the street. It was him. It had to be. It was freaking freezing outside. Where was he going? I didn’t care. I started running in his direction, my flip-flops slapping against the pavement, like a crazy person that I was after him.
“Hey,” I called out, shouting against the wind. “Nathanial, wait!”
He didn’t hear me so I kept screaming and running.
Finally he must have heard something because he turned around. “What are you doing?” he yelled and started moving briskly toward me. “Ellie it is brutal out here! You’re sick!”
Well, the hypocrite didn’t even have a coat of his own on. But he was right—I did feel sick. I stopped running and stood there. The wind whipped around me. My hair blew every which way and my feet were numb. He continued walking in my direction.
When he reached me, effortlessly and in one easy motion, he scooped me up into his arms and kept walking. I locked my fingers around his neck and let him carry me. He stared down at me, but neither of us said anything. I didn’t know what to say. We reached the house and he carried me all the way up to the front door before setting me down.
“Come inside with me?” I asked, scared out of my mind by what I was asking. But I was unable to push him away this time. I was fresh out of excuses—for myself and for him.
He nodded.
So I started to open the door, but he caught my arm before I could open it all the way.
“You sure you want me here with you right now?” he asked, clearing his throat. “Because if we go in there together it’s going to mean a whole lot more than anything so far. You get that, right?”
I understood his meaning. It was like we were publicly announcing to my friends that we were together. But I was pretty sure I already did that when I ran out of the house and after him. Besides, even if it scared me, even if I was moving into uncharted territory, I wanted this.
“I get it.”
And we went inside together. Hell, I even grabbed his hand.
CHAPTER 19:
NATHANIAL
I was in love with Ellie. I fell hard, and I fell fast—and I knew how insane that was. But I hadn’t been able to stop myself. I could even pinpoint the moment it happened, right down to the second.
It was when we were at the hospital. Ellie had been curled up in my lap. Under the influence of whatever drug that jackass had slipped her, she’d let her guard down completely with me. She was being very affectionate and saying any little thought that crossed her mind.
We’d been sitting in a room with Rhett for nearly two hours. By that point, we knew she had been drugged, the police had already came and left, and Ellie had been cleared to go home. But we were waiting on the doctor to run one more test—a pregnancy test. Because Ellie wouldn’t let it go. She believed so fully that she was pregnant that even I was starting to believe it. I knew otherwise though. I knew we’d been careful the two times we’d had sex. There was no way she was pregnant.
But, nevertheless we were arguing about baby names—of all things—like she truly was.
“I like Lucian,” she said. “Or Kale. Or how about Dragon? How cool would Dragon be? He’d be a total badass.”
“No fucking way,” I joked. “We can’t name our kid Dragon. Sorry, no.”
“Donatello.”
“What? This isn’t the Ninja Turtles.”
“Ralphie?”
“This isn’t a Christmas Story either.”
Rhett laughed at us from the chair across the room. “You’re not pregnant, Ellie. Stop it.”
Ellie ignored him. From there she started naming characters in movies. Her little game was ridiculous, but I played along. I didn’t even mind that we were stuck in this hospital. Or that the whole world would probably be reading about our ‘love child’ tomorrow morning on the internet. Being with her, even doing this, was the most at ease I’d felt in a long time.
Eventually the doctor returned and interrupted. “Sorry it took me awhile to get back with you. It’s been busy here tonight. I have the results of your test. Should we speak privately?” the woman asked Ellie.
“Oh no, whatever you have to say you can say it in front of them. They can handle it.”
“Alright, well…you’re not pregnant,” the doctor blurted out.
“Oh, thank God,” Ellie laughed and climbed out of my lap, wobbling to her feet. “I knew I wasn’t. Just had to be sure from all that vomiting I was doing earlier. Okay, boys, take me home. Am I good to go home now, doc?”
The doctor smiled politely. “You’re good to go home.”
Instantly the whole pregnancy thing was forgotten.
But there was one small moment, a moment where my eyes connected with Ellie’s after the doctor left, a moment where I got the impression that Ellie wasn’t one-hundred percent relieved. Maybe this was only the drugs talking. But I think for a small second, part of Ellie had been hopeful about being pregnant with my baby. Maybe I’d felt a little hopeful myself. And the funny thing was, I could picture myself in the future with a pregnant Ellie.
That was the moment I’d know. I was falling for this girl. The feeling was unexpected and it hit me rather hard. She wasn’t the first girl I’d fallen for at record speed, but somehow it felt different this time—like it could be the real thing.
On the ride home, Ellie had fallen asleep against my shoulder—like blacked-out, ‘can’t-wake-the-dead’ asleep. When we made it to her house, I carried her to her room and then I stayed beside her the whole night. Even though the doctor said she would be fine, I worried and barely slept. In the morning, she continued sleeping. At one point, I even tried to wake her just to be sure she was still okay. That hadn’t been pleasant. She’d promptly woken up and told me to, “Leave her the hell alone.” Then she’d passed out again.
At noon, I’d been forced to leave her. David needed to get to the airport and he needed the rental car to do that. So I left and went over to my new house. “She’s okay?” David asked as he loaded his bag in the car. “That sort of thing might not surprise me at a night club in Miami…but here? In this small town? That’s crazy.”
“She’ll be okay, but I can’t take you to the airport.”
“And I don’t want you to,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m fine to drive myself. I’ll call you once I get there. And then I’ll be back in a week with the rest of the family anyway.” He gave me a quick hug. Then he gestured for me to get in the car. “C’mon, let me get you back to your girl. You’ll want to be there when she wakes up.”
He was right. I really wanted to be there for her when she woke up.
David drove me the mile over to Ellie’s house before leaving for the airport. When I came back inside, I found Rhett awake and sitting on the couch in the living room. He wasn’t alone. Noah was here now too. “Morning…or afternoon,” I said by way of a greeting. It probably would have been polite of me to stay and talk to them, but I only wanted to be with Ellie. So I told them I’d see them when she woke up and quietly snuck back into her bedroom. The moment I crawled into her bed and settled in next to her, closing my own eyes, hoping to get a little rest myself, she’d woken up. I tried to be comforting and to not frighten her as I told her she’d been drugged. But I could tell…she was terrified. And my presence wasn’t helping.
“It would be better if you left while I try to wrap my brain around this,” she’d told me.
So I did the only thing I could. I left.
Dammit, I didn’t have a car to get home. I didn’t even have my coat and the weather here was so
much colder than what I was used to. It was only a mile to my new place, thankfully, so I chose to walk. Halfway into my walk, I heard Ellie shouting like a maniac for me to wait.
She was insane. It was freezing and she was sick. But her gesture meant everything to me. I carried her back to the house and we went inside together.
That had been a few hours ago.
And we really hadn’t spoken in the time since then. Well…of course we’d spoken to one another. Plenty, actually. But we hadn’t had a single second alone to talk on a deeper level. Not that I needed to have some deep conversation right this moment, but a little alone time would have been nice. Instead we’d been hanging out in the living room with Noah and Rhett all afternoon. The four of us had eaten junk food, played video games, and were currently on episode four of the first season of theWalking Dead. I got the impression that Rhett, Noah, and Ellie had lazy days like this often.
And nothing about this lazy day was bad. Actually, in some ways the day was perfect. I didn’t have many friends that I could just hang out with, doing nothing, all day long like this. Usually there was some obligation involved when it came to my friends—a party or a premier, a fancy restaurant or cool new club. And I was having a good time with Ellie and her friends. I felt like they’d accepted me as one of their own, no questions asked. But I wanted a little alone time with my girl before I had to go home for the evening.Was that so much to ask?
Noah seemed to read my mind. Because at that exact moment, as I was debating over what I should do or say to get Ellie alone, he announced, “I need to head back to school, guys. It’s been fun, but it’s a two hour drive and I don’t want Georgie waiting up for me.”
“Okay, you should get going then,” Ellie said, pausing the TV. She stood up to give him a hug. “I appreciate you taking the day off and coming here for me. It means a lot, Noah. Thanks.”
Changing Tides (Kill Devil Hills Book 2) Page 15