Page 95 of The Devil Gets His Due

I guess I haven’t squashed all the hope after all.

“Sorry we kept you waiting,”I tell the woman sitting on the exam table the next afternoon. I’m fifteen minutes late, which is what happens when you’ve got double the number of patients any doctor could squeeze into a three-hour period. “I’m Dr. Connolly. What can I help you with today?”

She smiles. “I’m Ally. We’ve actually met before. Last winter. You were outside Native Planet with Drew Bailey. I guess you don’t remember. It was pretty early in the night, like nine.”

I gulp. She’s referring to the night I married Graham which is, obviously, quite a blur. And she’s claiming we were still in LA at nine. So how the hell did we get to Vegas beforemidnight? “Oh, sorry. It was kind of a crazy night.”

She nods. “It was. Anyway, right before the fight with your boyfriend—Graham, I think?—you told me I should get this mole looked at, so here I am.” She stretches out her forearm, and I know immediately that Drunk Keeley was right.

“Do you see how the borders are irregular?” I ask. “We need to do a biopsy.”

She shrugs. “Sure, whatever.”

I turn to the nurse assisting me and ask her to get the lidocaine.

“So are you still with that guy?” Ally asks, glancing at my stomach.

My throat tightens. I wait for the sadness to pass, knowing it won’t, entirely. “Um, no. But given that you saw me fighting with him even last January, it’s probably for the best.”

“Oh…I meant the fighthegot in, when that guy tried to kiss you? Man, I thought he was going to kill him.”

I’ve just inserted a needle into the lidocaine but stop to stare at her. “I don’t remember that.”

She tilts her head, dumbfounded that I could have forgotten. My ability to appear sober when I’m not strikes again. “Remember that guy just grabbing you? He, like, threw you against the wall, and Graham had him on the ground in seconds. It was crazy.”

I smile weakly as I return to what I was doing. I’m a little embarrassed both my nurse and my patient are aware of this story, especially when I’mnot. I must look extremely classy right now. “Yet somehow, I managed to notice a mole on your arm. One-track mind, I guess.”

“I wanted to talk to you about it but you guys went around the corner, and then like two seconds later, Drew grabbed you both and pushed you into a limo.”

I stare at her. Ishouldplay this off and act like I remember, but I’m too stunned. “She did?”

Even as I ask the question, though, I’m starting to put some things together. Like Drew telling me how“relieved”she was. Like how she’d“heard an earful”from her husband, but“all’s well that ends well”.

Like the fact that we were still in California at nine but somehow got to Vegas well before midnight…which we could only have managed by private plane.

Something Drew would have on speed dial.

Drew callsme back within the hour.

“I heard about you and Graham. I’m so sorry. You guys were so cute together the other week, at Ben’s house. I really thought it was all going to work out.”

Maybe it’s my imagination, but she sounds guilty.

“Actually, this is related: that night, the night we went to Vegas? I don’t really remember how we got there.”

She is very quiet, for a long moment. “I’m so sorry,” she finally says. “You seemed okay. I mean we were all drinking, but according to Josh,Iwas the drunk one. You don’t rememberanything?”

I run a hand over my face. I can no longer claim I regret getting that drunk because I wouldn’t have this baby coming if I didn’t. But it’s probably going to remain embarrassing for a good long time. “Very little. Did you…get us a plane?”

She sighs. “Yes.Fuck. I took care of the plane; I took care of getting you to the airport before you’d evenagreed. I even had my assistant arrange everything in Vegas. I was drunk and felt like I was playing fairy godmother, and it wasn’t until I woke up that I realized it might have all been a really bad idea. I’m so, so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. I mean, clearly,Iwas the one pushing to marry a stranger.”

“Oh,” she says. “Not really. I mean, you were on board, but the whole thing started with Graham.”

“Graham?” I repeat. That can’t be right. Graham Tate was coerced into this nonsense by me and me alone, possibly with Drew’s assistance.

“Wow,” she says. “You really don’t remember anything, do you? It was so cute. He said he knew he was going to marry you the first time you ever spoke on the phone.”

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