Page 68 of Never Date A Player
My heart races, hands shaking as I grab my phone and purse and glance in the mirror. My hair is channeling the eighties, but I can’t worry about that right now. I flatten it with my palms and race back to Lewis. “What’s wrong with her?”
He closes the front door, his hand on my lower back, urging me to the Jeep. “I don’t know. They took her to the hospital.” He looks straight ahead, mouth tense. “She’s very sick.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
How can life be so normal one minute, and a disaster the next?
Lewis and I arrive at the hospital to discover Cali is in the ICU.
My best friend in the entire world almost died this morning.
The notion has my stomach clenched in pain, and the danger isn’t over. Cali had a reaction to Molly, or ecstasy—whatever—some crazy club drug I had no idea she was into. She can be wild, but Cali doesn’t do drugs; at least, that’s what I thought.
Cali’s mom worked in the casinos. Cali got an earful, growing up, about the danger of addictions. She said she’d never do that stuff. And in the morning, before work?
None of this makes sense.
It’s two people at a time in the ICU and her mom and brother are in there. They let me peek inside, but Cali was asleep with a fever and I didn’t stay long.
Lewis and I wait in the waiting room for word. I spend all day and night on a polyester hospital chair clinging to Lewis’s arm, freaking out, not knowing if the medication the doctors gave Cali to counteract her reaction to the drugs will work. Maddie said Cali aspirated after she got sick and passed out. If she hadn’t been at work when it happened… if she’d been alone… I won’t let my mind go there.
Head tipped onto Lewis’s shoulder, eyes closed, I feel my cell phone vibrate. I almost drop it in my haste to check the text, eager for word from Maddie.
Jaeger: She’s awake. Room 12.
Jaeger is here in the hospital? I don’t stop to figure out how he got into the ICU. I’m running toward the room, Lewis’s heavy footsteps a second behind me.
Maddie is the first person I see when I walk in, then Cali propped up on pillows, her reddish-blond hair plastered at odd angles to her head. She’s upright and clear-eyed, with dark circles under her eyes, but alert.
I blink back tears and walk to her bedside as the others leave to give us room. “You’re awake.” I smile, my hands fidgeting with her blankets. She swats them away and I choke back a sob. She’s sassy. She’s going to be okay.
Jaeger peers in from outside the door, a strained look on his face. The way he’s hovering, I imagine that’s how he found a way to sit with Cali all night along with her family. Who would say no to a guy so clearly distraught, and so tremendously large?
Cali’s smile drops as her gaze catches on Lewis. A lot has changed over the last couple of days. Cali doesn’t know Lewis and I are in a relationship, but it’ll have to wait until she’s rested and home.
For now, I have a few questions. “Cali, how did you get mixed up with this?”
She flops her head against the pillow. “Not you too. I drank a damn mocha yesterday morning, that’s all.”
She explains at length, for the second time, apparently, how she didn’t take drugs willingly. She was drugged. By Jaeger’s ex-girlfriend, or someone his ex knows. The same ex who’s squatting in Jaeger’s house, forcing him to crash at our place. Jaeger thinks his ex is responsible for having someone put drugs in Cali’s mocha yesterday morning when she got a lift to work from a friend.
What is it with people not backing off when someone’s moved on?
The police don’t believe Cali’s story as easily as her friends and family do. After a few days in the hospital, she’s released and immediately arrested.
It’s a freaking mess.
Jaeger paid her bail (because he’s apparently loaded) and she’s home resting, while I’ve had to return to work.
I check my watch. Only one more hour until my shift ends and Lewis arrives. He’s given me space these last couple of days to take care of Cali, but I miss him.
The casino hosts a celebrity golf tournament every year, and with the huge crowd this week, it’s one of those rare times I don’t mind serving the rear of Mont Belle Lounge. I’m slammed and earning a ton of tips, and not only from the regulars. I’ve served several celebrities, my last a retired offensive lineman, who was kind of an ass and demanded I bring him a fresh beverage after he thought his lime garnish frayed. He still gave me a ten-dollar tip.
Celebrities have an image to uphold. No one wants the rep of a cheapskate, because that gets around, as Cali and I know from watching entertainment news religiously.
A middle-aged man and his wife replace the offensive lineman at my table. They’re a nice-looking couple. She’s petite and blond, the man dark-haired and tall, with broad shoulders. He’s fit and too attractive to be anything other than another celebrity.
I immediately approach their table, because these people get cranky if they’re made to wait for more than ten seconds. “Can I get you something to drink?” I plaster on a wide smile, which I’ve learned results in better tips.
