Maybe Baby (4 page)

From downstairs, I hear voices. Oh God, I hope Daniel's not waiting to see if I want to go back out. I pad down the carpeted stairway, and the hall and living room are dark. I see a dim light coming from the den off of the kitchen. I tiptoe quietly across the kitchen linoleum, noticing a couple of half-empty wine glasses, and an empty bottle of pinot noir on the table. The door to the den is ajar, and my mom’s back is to me. I can’t see Daniel’s face because my mom is kneeling in front of him as he reclines on the couch. I can see that his tuxedo trousers are down around his ankles.

I hear a soft moan escape from Daniel. I open my eyes and see my mom doing things to Daniel. Things that I know nothing about because I've never experienced them; never even knew they existed until now.

This is even worse than knowing she was with Jenny Marcotti's father.

This is sick.

This is depraved.

This is my mother.

“Does Tylar do this for you, baby? It’s okay, you can tell me.”

They continue on; I'm horrified as I watch every time Daniel plunges himself into her.

“Oh yeah, baby,” Daniel groans, increasing his rhythm. Mom moans loudly, grabbing his hair, as she climaxes.

At that moment her eyes lock with mine. She knows I've been watching. She's delighted with the show she has provided me. She smiles knowingly at me for a brief second, and then turns her attention back to Daniel.

He moans loudly getting his release, and then collapses back, pulling her on top of him, kissing her face.

“What a fuck,” he breathes heavily into her ear. The picture is freeze-framed.

“Stop, Mom!”

Beep.

“He’s my boyfriend!”

Beep.

“STOP!”

Bee-beep.

I was at war with a thin material settled around my upper body, my fingernails threatening to tear straight through. And my chest seemed to be trying to push a hurricane through my lungs, which was clearly starting to piss off some machine close to my right.

I pried my eyes open, and was greeted by the dim lighting of a hospital room. There was a long minute of some hazy confusion and nightmare-disorientation, before I began to remember the events from last night (at least, I hope that it was from last night. God,
please
don’t let this be something from a Lifetime movie where my trying to pretty much drink the entire Sinclair pool ended me up in a six-year coma!)

The party.

The wine coolers.

The pool.

The only thing that I could remember with diamond clarity though, was when I was completely submerged under water. The way my lungs were trying to steal air from every possible organ, and coming up with nothing. And when my body finally sunk to the very bottom, there was this huge bright light. And then…Yeah, I couldn’t recall anything after that. Except someone in black.

And then that dream. I’ve always been prone to bad dreams, but they were hardly ever like
that
; with so much detail marbled through them that everything was pretty much in high definition.

“Tylar,” a smooth, masculine voice said from my left.

That startled the crap out of me. “
God
,” I nearly shouted. Well, kind of. It actually came out more like something Demi Moore would have whispered in
Ghost
, but sure, let’s call it nearly shouting.

“Careful,” the voice was much nearer this time, and I was soon face to face with…Trey Sinclair?

I blinked. “What are you doing here?”

His eyebrows slowly glided up his face. “You don’t remember?”

“Yeah, I…” I bit my lip, “I remember what happened, just not so much what happened after…”

“After you’d been drinking and decided to go for a midnight swim in my pool?” He supplied, tilting his head with only one eyebrow raised now. Wow. Impressive combo. It only made the guy look that much sexier, if that were even possible. It also didn’t help that the sunlight streaming in through the window was highlighting his entire face.

I also took that moment, during which he no doubt expected some kind of response from me, to subtly check him out. I don’t know why I thought it was subtle, being that Trey was still studying me, but it was at that time I noticed that at some point he must have changed after--

“You saved me,” I blurted in my new Demi voice, remembering the person in black and the fact that he was the one that carried me, in his wet tux and all, to the ambulance.

And stayed.

“Wait, how long have you been here?”

He dug his hands into his denim pockets before answering. “I brought you here last night, and made sure that you were all right. And then I got here shortly before you woke up.” He threw in a shrug for added effect.

Which meant that he’d
seen
me wake up.

“How are you feeling?” he asked softly, interrupting my train of thought. His jewel-toned gaze was fixed on mine when I managed to look back up at him, and what I saw there was something that I
really
didn’t want to see: pity and concern with a good dose of curiosity.

Okay, that was so not going to work with me. The last thing I wanted to talk to my employer and a pseudo-stranger (an extremely hot pseudo-stranger) about was my stupid dreams.

“Okay,” I shrugged, aiming for nonchalance.

“Your heart monitor didn’t seem to think so a couple of minutes ago.” He turned to go sit back down in the uncomfy-looking chair against the wall.

I nodded my head, as if I were weighing the options. “Just one of my nightmares. I get them sometimes.”

He crossed his legs at the ankles and leaned back against the wall. “What were you dreaming about?” He asked, in an almost relaxed manner.

"I don't remember," I lied, looking away from him.

He didn’t get the chance to press me on the issue, seeing as how his cell phone chose that precise moment to ring, seeming much louder than it actually was in the suddenly-quieted room.

I glanced over at Trey, seeing him swiftly rise out of the chair while pressing a button on the phone that was now being held up to his ear. “Charlotte,” he drawled out the greeting as he made his way to the open door leading to the hallway.

God, that phone couldn’t have chirped at a better time. I watched as he disappeared around the threshold saying, “Yeah, I just came back to check on her…”

Charlotte.

I remembered a vague and unfamiliar female voice from last night. The date he brought to his tuxedo affair perhaps? I didn’t have too much time to wonder about her however, because as soon as Trey strolled out, a nurse swiftly made an entrance.

She didn’t take up the space in the small room quite like my last guest had, but her no-nonsense demeanor definitely wasn’t something to be missed, nonetheless. I sped-read her nametag: “Florence.”

“Ms. Preston,” Florence addressed me, and her formal tone already had me trying to sit up straighter. She made a beeline to my heart monitor, pressing buttons here and there. “I see that you’re awake,” she conceded while jotting down important hospital stuff onto her chart. I totally tried to sneak a peek at said chart, but she might as well have been writing in Morse code for all I could see.

I gingerly nodded my head, then realizing that she wasn’t even looking at me, answered, “Yep.”

She glimpsed up from the chart, her glasses slipping further down her nose. “You had quite the concussion,” she informed me.

Probably looking like a dashed-up bobble head, I nodded again.

Slowly, I took a breath, “How long was I out?”

“You were unconscious when you arrived, but your friend informed the night nurse on staff that you weren’t that way for very long. So I’d say roughly fourteen hours or so.”

My friend? Trey?

Oh, what I would have given to know what the hospital staff was thinking when they saw a man wearing a soaked tux strut in carrying an unconscious girl in a swimsuit!

“Also,” Florence continued, having the decency to ignore the slight blush I could feel taking over my cheeks. “Your ribs and throat are going to be mildly sore for a while, okay? We’ve given you pain medication to help with your headache, but the best thing for your throat and abdomen is time and plenty of rest. If you have any more questions, the doctor shouldn’t be too long,” she finished with a quick smile.

“Actually, can I have some water please?” I made sure to ask her before she made her exit. I was going to ask Trey before he left. Probably.

“Oh sure, hun,” came Florence’s swift reply. I watched her walk back over to the bed, reaching for a dull pink pitcher. She gave me another smile as she poured some water into a paper cup before unwrapping one of those accordion-looking straws. “Be careful of your sore throat.”

I delicately raised the cup to my lips, and took a hesitant gulp.

Geez!! She wasn’t kidding! ‘Mildly sore’… Ha. I think Nurse Florence was
putting
it mildly!

I forced myself to swallow it down and hoped like heck I could do so without spritzing it across the roo—

“Hey there, girl! How ya doing?”

I swear, the water I was trying to swallow hit the wall seven feet away as it all came back up in sputtering fits. I was still coughing when I turned to see Denise and Ray standing near my bed. Denise was wide-eyed, and Ray’s lips were twitching and threatening to let a laugh break through.

Florence looked like she was nearly about to hit the “Code Blue” button.

“Jesus, ‘Nise! The poor girl is just recovering from the
last
time she almost
drowned,” Ray teased, throwing an arm over Denise’s shoulders with a smile that gave the late afternoon sun a run for its money.

Denise’s eyes widened even more, her face paling, “Oh, Tylar! I-I’m so sorry, hun! Are you okay?” She quickly began fishing into her purse for God knew what. “Here, let me get you something to clean you up…”

“It’s okay, Denise. I’m fine,” I tried to reassure her with a straight face.

“Well here, let’s at least find you a comb for that rat’s nest hair of yours that you got workin’.” She produced a wide-toothed comb from one of the side pockets.

Seriously, what
wasn’t
in that purse?

I tried to not to grimace at the thought of what I must've looked like at that moment, while also trying not to have a vanity breakdown at what Trey must have been staring at while he was in here.

“Oh, wow,” Denise murmured while trying to get through a tangle. “Will she be able to shower anytime soon?” I heard her ask Florence, who I noticed was trying to sneak out of the room.

My nurse paused, seemingly having been caught. “Actually,” her formal tone was back. “She can whenever she feels up to it. I told her to be extremely careful, however. She’ll need someone to help her, I’m sure, if she plans on doing so today. Would you like me to send another staff member, or—”

“Oh, it’s no big deal. I’ll help her,” Denise offered. She was still working the dreaded comb through my hair, when Ray finally asked the million-dollar question.

“So, pretty girl, what happened?”

That’s what I loved about Ray. No judgment, no condescending tone, or scolding looks. Just concern, pure and simple. I glanced over at him, and saw that he was checking out the amazing view of the parking lot from the window. I took a, hopefully quiet, deep breath.

“That’s what I’d like to know, as well,” I heard Trey’s voice. I quickly turned to find him leaning against the threshold, while I was probably becoming bald in the process of beautification as I felt the friggin’ comb snag on a particular nasty snarl.

“Ouch!” I winced, scrunching up my nose while hearing Denise mumble a
very
unladylike curse.

“Shit, Tylar, are you okay? I didn’t think you were going do that, hun!”

“It’s okay,” I told Denise, before looking back over at Trey who wasn’t quite
in
the room and not quite out either. “Where’d you go?” I blurted.

He totally did the sexy eyebrow thing. Okay, this concussion thing was seriously starting to annoy me what with taking away my ability to converse like a normal person and all.

Trey must have decided to stay awhile, because he took a couple of steps into the room. “I was talking to your doctor just now."

“What’d he say?” Ray asked.

Trey looked over at the man, like he was just now seeing that we weren’t the only ones in the room. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he looked back over at me.

Denise piped in, “Well, the nurse already told us that she can shower. So she can’t be
that
worse for wear. Thank God.” She sauntered over to where she left her purse, and tossed that devil comb back inside.

I couldn’t tell whether the whole ‘Thank God’ bit was for the fact that I wasn’t in that bad of shape…or the point that I could actually shower. There really was no telling with Denise.

“Well,
she
said that they’re going to keep you for one more night,” Trey informed us.

Ah, so my doctor was a ‘she’? I think I was beginning to understand why he was gone for so long.

Whoa, where’d that thought come from?

“And that your blood-alcohol level wasn’t as high as I’d originally thought,” he continued.

Okay, that one irked me. “Well, yeah,” I said. “I only had a few wine coolers, and I’m pretty sure those things are more sugar than anything.”

“So swimming in my family’s pool late at night was a sober thought?” Trey parried.

I fidgeted with my fingers. “Well, no. But it wasn’t
my
thought.” Ugh. Tattle much, Ty?

That got his attention alright. He took a step closer, “And whose thought was it?”

I shrugged, glancing over at Ray who was watching me and Trey like he was watching a highly competitive tennis match. “Does it matter? I mean, it’s not like we can change what happened, right?”

“Wrong, Ms. Preston.” Trey quipped, going from zero to sixty in a quick second. “Because you're my employee. As was everyone else who was standing around the pool last night. And
as my employee,
you nearly drowned.”

I think I preferred him standing at least seven feet away. He was now using the same voice from when he saw me with Derringer.

“So, yeah, it matters,” he finished abruptly.