Page 4 of Heat Wave
There’s banging somewhere in the distance. It sounds like…pots and pans being used or…thrown. I absentmindedly rub the middle of my forehead, which is where the ache has gotten stronger since I sat up. Maybe if I can just take a quick peek, I can try to find out who is here with me. Maybe…it’s Terry?
I wrap the sheet around me tightly and pretty much pull it from the bed as I tiptoe down a hallway that has bright, ungodly light at the end of it. I would almost think I died, and this is the way to heaven if my head wasn’t hurting so fucking badly. That kind of shuts down the whole heaven thing since I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have a hangover in heaven.
Once I reach the end of the hallway, I hear voices, a male and a female one. I step around the corner and directly into a nightmare. At the door, a man stands with his back to me, but on the other side of that door is…Mrs. Abernathy.
Like something stupid, I gasp and draw their attention straight to me. Mrs. Abernathy’s mouth falls open and her eyes grow big and round as she takes me in. Half blocking her is Terry’s brother. Oh God! Half the shit I thought happened last night really did happen if he’s here.
We all stand in silence for a heartbeat, and then Mrs. Abernathy looks at Terry’s brother and frowns. “Waylon Abernathy! Did you sleep with little Oakley Nesbit?!”
And that’s when my eyes roll to the back of my head and everything goes dark for me. Somewhere off in the distance, I can hear Waylon still talking to his mom.
“I really want to tell you all about it Mom…”
Waylon wants to tell his mom all about sleeping with me. And how do I remember biting his butt when I was thrown over his shoulder, but not actually sleeping with him? I remember him dumping me in a shower. Was that where it happened? In the shower?
Why wouldn’t I feel…something?
What does it mean that I don’t feel anything? All the shit I’ve read and the movies always make it seem like you know if you’ve had sex with someone. All the romance books say I should be able to tell.
“Oakley.” A deep voice calls me from the darkness, and I realize I can’t stay passed out forever. “Oakley, honey, come on. Open your eyes for me.”
When I do, it’s to find bright blue eyes with swirls of green looking back at me. I sit up so fast I bump my head against his chin, which is hard as fuck. I flop back on the bed, grabbing my head. He lets out a few curse words before rubbing his chin like maybe my head did the same damage to him that his chin did to me.
This time, when I move to sit up, he places his hand on my chest to hold me down on the bed. “Slowly. Sit up slowly this time. And put your feet,” he pulls my feet from the bed, “on the floor first before you try to sit up.”
“Um…I can’t touch the ground.”
“What?” He looks down at where my feet are hanging off the bed and straightens up. “Damn if that doesn’t drive home the point, I don’t know what will.”
“What point?”
What is he talking about? And how did I wind up in his bed? What’s going on, and why the hell am I naked? Damn it, all I have is questions and a headache that is ringing like church bells.
Chapter Four
Waylon
Last night, when I fished Oakley out of the back of my car and tried to get her into my house, she ended up back over my shoulder, this time a little more belligerent than she was before. She bit me. On the butt. I took her straight to the shower and proceeded to dump her under the cold water.
She sobered up some. She also started to cry, looking up at me like I was a monster who just told her she was wearing a dress that did, in fact, make her butt look big. Not that Oakley’s butt is anything but perfect. Still, she gave me big watery green eyes that ripped at my soul.
“S…s…sorry.”
“I can take it from here, Waylon.” And just like that, my sister dismissed me, and I went to stand in the hallway and wait for her to bring Oakley out and over to the couch. But Terry never brought her out. Instead, she yelled for me, and when I came back into the room, it was to find Oakley lying on my bed in nothing but a towel.
Terry tried to sit her up, but I eventually told her just to let me pick her up and place her fully in the bed, pulling the covers up on her.
“Take the towel off so she’s not left lying in the wet thing, and come on into the living room. There’s nothing more to do for her tonight.”
Now, she’s covered in only a sheet, and she’s totally detonated my world like a little chaos bomb exploding through my life. My mom -and worse, my Nan- are both outside waiting for me to tell them what the hell is going on. I couldn’t really do anything to kill the idea my mom had about me and Oakley sleeping together when she was lying just outside my hallway in nothing but a sheet.
“Let me take care of Oakley, Mom, and then I’ll tell you everything.”
As soon as I figure out what the hell that ‘everything’ is. And here Oakley is, feet hanging off the bed but not touching the fucking floor because she’s tiny. Just how tiny being driven home to me on repeat since I scooped her up off the floor like she weighed nothing, and when I put my hand on her chest, it completely covered it. I could have slid my pinky and thumb over just a hair, and I would have been touching her nipples.
“I dreamed we slept together.”
“No. That didn’t happen.”
