When I'm with You (Hope Town #3)(21)

She doesn’t look happy, but she gives me a weak nod before we move from the table and walk together outside. Not surprising, Levi and Seth are already in the SUV. I can see them talking as we walk around and get in the back of his Tahoe, Levi’s eyes never leaving mine until he was forced to in order to keep facing forward.

We continue our silence as we drive through town, and I’m thankful my house is on the way to Nikki’s apartment, so I can avoid being alone with Levi. How I have allowed myself to get this deep in our relationship is beyond me.

No. That’s a lie. It isn’t just on me. He did a damn good job of hiding his true colors from me for weeks. It’s just my fault that I let it go on as long as I have. The signs have been there for a while now, and I would rather be single with an occasional case of the lonelies than have to deal with this.

“You missed my street,” I whisper from my seat, the blinding pain slamming around my skull and making me feel weak.

“I didn’t,” he responds.

I lean my head against the window and try to argue, but Nikki takes my hand with a gentle squeeze.

“I think Ember needs to get home, Levi. She isn’t feeling well.”

“And she’ll get there when she gets there, Nikki.”

“Which should be sooner than later. Seriously, Levi, turn around.”

I squeak when the brakes compress harshly. I had been resting my head against the window, but the second the seat belt cuts into my stomach, I lose the battle with my nausea and hurry to open the door before losing my dinner on the street.

“Like I said, she isn’t feeling well,” Nikki snaps, unbuckling her seat belt and shifting to the middle seat to help me hold my hair back.

I had just finished heaving, feeling another wave of vomit fighting its way up my throat, when he slams on the gas. The door, not able to stay open with the power of his acceleration, bangs into my already pounding head. I have to choke down the vomit as the pain becomes something of the likes I’ve never experienced.

“It’s okay,” Nikki tries to reassure me, scooting back over on the seat and pulling me until my head is in her lap. I focus on the feeling of her fingers running through my hair, and it isn’t long until the hypnotizing movements have me asleep in her lap. Just as the pain dulls enough for slumber to take hold, I hear her mumble under her breath. “You’re a f*cking motherf*cker, Levi Kyle.”

I have no idea if he responds; my last thought is that she couldn’t be more right.





I WAKE UP IN A fog.

It takes me a second to realize that I’m no longer in Levi’s backseat but instead laying in the middle of my bedroom floor. The revolting taste in my mouth is enough to make me want to vomit all over again. My head is still pounding, but not like it was when a monster migraine rushed through my skull.

I’ve always had trouble with migraines. They don’t hit me as often as they did when I was in high school, but high-stress situations always have been a big trigger for me.

Pulling myself from the floor, I notice how weak I really feel as I move to the bathroom.

The second I’m upright, blackness tugs at the corners of my vision.

Well, that’s new. I can’t remember a migraine ever doing that.

I stumble with my first step, and I fight with the exhaustion that washes from the top of my head all the way to my toes.

“Jesus, what is wrong with me,” I mumble to the empty room. I look for Bam, but I don’t see him anywhere. “Bam-A-Ram,” I weakly call out but still nothing. He’s probably pissed at me for not giving him the rest of my lunch yesterday.

Ignoring the fact that I’m becoming overwhelmingly more exhausted with each moment I’m up and moving around, I turn the shower on. It takes me forever to get my jeans off, pulling my underwear with them and kicking them to the side. My arms get caught in my shirt as I pull it over my head, and for a second, I wonder if my arms had turned to Jell-O at some point while I slept.

The second I step into the steaming hot shower, I take a deep breath and try to remember how the hell I got home. The last thing I can recall is getting sick, then Nikki’s soothing touch helping to ease the pain enough for me to fall asleep.

Then nothing.

I don’t spend much time washing, just putting in the good old college try of hitting the hot spots with the bar of soap. It falls from my hand in a loud clatter the second I finish. I had the fleeting thought to ignore my hair, but the memory of puking in it last night is all the motivation I need to push through my exhaustion and reach for the shampoo.

I cry out in pain when my fingers push against a huge goose egg on the side of my head. The shampoo from my hands running down my face and into my eyes as I rinse it off just makes me cry out again.

“Shit, shit!”

I raise up, opening the shower door and jump out to grab a towel. When I’m standing in front of the mirror, I turn my head and move my thick hair out of the way. When I part my hair, I see the painful bump I had felt in the shower as well as a small cut in my scalp. That explains the headache, I guess.

I rush out of the bathroom and start searching for my phone. It takes me a few failed attempts, but I finally find it tossed behind the couch, just inside the front door. I fumble with the stupid thing before pressing the right prompts and holding it to the uninjured side of my face.

“Someone had better be dead,” Nikki grumbles in greeting.