Page 174 of Finding Delaware

This does not bode well for August. Not at all.

With a heavy sigh, I grab a water bottle from a table near the bed and dampen the edge of my shirt before wiping his face clean. My fingers thread with his, carefully avoiding the tubes sticking out of his veins.

And then I wait.

Taylor

Athree-ring circus elephant is stomping around my head. At least, that’s what it feels like.

The pounding is so bad I can feel it behind my eyes, against my eardrums. Is Christian blasting his music again? Groaning, I try to turn over but flinch when a burn scorches through my throat. Fuck, why does that hurt so bad?

A hand tightens around mine as I slowly try to open my eyes. They feel swollen and gritty like sandpaper. Bright light hits my corneas, sending shooting pain through my temples, and I hiss as I lift an arm to block it out. There’s a horrible taste in my mouth, my tongue drier than the Sahara. A wound on my bottom lip splits and starts to bleed.

“Hey, easy. You’re okay,” whispers the voice I constantly dream about, “don’t hurt yourself.”

Blinking rapidly to relieve my eyeballs, I turn my head to take in the man sitting next to me. Huckslee gazes down, his dark eyes glittering with concern as his brows crease. A straycurl falls over his forehead, the rest of his hair looking wild as if he’s been running a hand through it. Or someone else has...

The thought makes me cringe.

“What happened?” Wincing at the roughness in my voice, I eye the small tubes taped to my arm and the curtain surrounding us.

“I found you passed out in your truck with an empty liquor bottle, and you weren’t responding,” he answers accusingly, holding on tight when I try to pull my hand free from his. “I thought you had alcohol poisoning. They needed to give you fluids. Baby, what were you thinking? What happened?”

Baby.

I yank my hand away, feeling a painful twist in my chest. As I open my mouth to tell him what I saw, a nurse pulls back the curtain, interrupting us.

“Mr. Tottman, it’s good to see you awake,” he says with a smile, oblivious to the chaos in my head. “How are you feeling?”

Like my heart just got thrown in a blender.

“Fantastic,” I snap, avoiding Huckslee’s gaze as the nurse chuckles and nods.

“Oh, I bet. Let me just get your vitals real quick. As long as everything looks fine, we’ll get these tubes out, and you can be on your way.”

The entire time he checks me over, I keep my eyes down. When he’s satisfied, the nurse removes the tubes and wraps my arm with a strip of gauze. It isn’t until he leaves to get my discharge papers that I finally look Huck in the eye and hate what I see. He looks absolutely gutted.

“Why are you here?” I rasp, touching my tender lip as his jaw tightens.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

His response pulls an almost manic laugh out of me. “Wanted to drive up and surprise you. Didn’t mean to ruin your date.”

“Date? What do you mean?”

“With Greg.” My lips twist as I glance away, hating myself for throwing away two years of sobriety, for turning intohimagain.

Huck’s eyes nearly bug out of his skull as he sputters momentarily. “What the fuck are you talking about, Taylor? I wasn’t on a date. Greg asked me to meet him so that we could talk. I broke up with him through text on the plane in January, and he needed some closure. That’s all.”

“Please don’t,” I whisper, fisting the sheets at my sides. “Don’t lie to me. Give me that courtesy, at least. I saw the kiss.”

His lips part, and I catch the flash of guilt that crosses his face. “It...that wasn’t what you think, I swear–”

“Yousmiled, Huckslee. Afterwards. I watched you smile.”

“Baby. You have this all wrong.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, lids sliding shut. “He asked for a goodbye kiss and I thought he meant on the cheek. I didn’t know he would go for the lips, though I should have. And after, I smiled because–”

The nurse returns with my release papers before he can get another word out.

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