When I'm with You (Hope Town #3)(22)

“How did I get home last night?” I breathlessly ask.

“Ember?”

“Nikki!” I yell, closing my eyes when a pain shoots through my head. “How. Did. I. Get. Home.”

“Uh, you’re freaking me out, Em.”

“I’m freaking myself out!” I scream. This time, my head doesn’t just give a burst of pain. Now, I feel a joining wave of nausea.

“Levi dropped you off. Well, we dropped you off. After you got sick and passed out, I kind of went a little nuts and threatened to cut off his balls if he didn’t take you right home. I figured he was over it when we got to your house. Seth was pissed about how Levi was acting, but he got your door unlocked and Levi carried you in.”

“I don’t remember any of this,” I tell her. “Did you come in too? Or just Levi and Seth?”

“Seth made me stay in the car. I think he was worried about Levi going off the handle because I got a little lippy and wanted to keep me away from him. He just unlocked the door and came back to wait for Levi. You scared the shit out of me, though. I know you need your migraine meds and your bed when they get that bad. I just had to make him listen.”

“Did you take Bam with you?” I ask, still trying to figure out how I’m missing a huge chunk of last night.

“No, why would I take that beast with me?”

“I can’t find him. I can’t find him, and I don’t remember anything. On top of all that, I’ve done something to my head and I CAN’T FIND BAM!”

I hear her move around, the groaning of Seth complaining before she speaks. “I’m on the way.”

I hang up, drop to the couch, and look around my living room.

“What the hell is going on?” I ask the empty room.

I must have zoned out, or passed out is more like it, because the next thing I know, I have a frantic Nikki banging on the front door and screaming my name. By the time I was able to pull myself from the couch, she must have remembered she had a spare key and she was bursting into the door.

“Joe Jonas on a stick!” she screams, bringing a smile to my face. She loves using Jonas’s name in vain. “You scared the ever-loving shit out of me, Emberlyn Locke!”

I look up at her, hair wild and frizzy just sticking out in a million different directions, as she stares down at me. My head is still spinning, but I managed to sit and lean forward on the couch. My elbows propped on my knees and my head hanging between my legs.

“I found Bam,” she tells me, bending down so that she’s at eye level with me. “He’s limping a little but seems fine. He was tied to the back fence. Why would you tie him to the fence?”

“This makes no sense, Nik. You know I would never do that. I just woke up, and it’s like a whole chunk of my night is gone.”

She looks at me, worry flashing in her eyes. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“The ride home. I remember the ride home, throwing up, the car door hitting me …” I trail off and reach behind my head and feel another, smaller knot on the back of my head from where the door slammed me. “I have a bump from when he took off after I was sick, but where did I get this one?” I question her, feeling my eyes go wild as I push my head up, grabbing her hand and pushing it gently into my hair so she can feel the larger bump.

“Holy Madonna.” She gasps, reaching forward and poking around the injured skin. My head jerks away from her touch instantly. “Em, that didn’t happen when you were with me.”

I just look at her, and I can tell by the scared look in her eyes that we’re both thinking the same thing.

Levi.

Levi had something to do with this.

Bam nudges my knee, and I look down at my beautiful beast. He whines when I rub his furry head, and I know without a doubt that if Levi is responsible for my new aches and pains, he most definitely had a part in Bam’s.

“Let’s go get you checked out, Em. I would feel a lot better if you went to the hospital.”

I shake my head and look up from Bam’s brown eyes. Nikki, clearly thinking her suggestion is a done deal, is gathering some more clothing out of the neat laundry stacks I had made earlier yesterday before running out of time to put them away. I look down and realize that I’m still wearing just my huge bath towel knotted at my chest. Luckily, it’s large enough that even sitting as I am, I’m covering everything important.

Bam whines again when Nikki almost steps on him, moving away with a limp that makes my heart hurt.

“Here,” she starts. “Let’s get you changed.”

“I’m not going to the doctor, Nik. I can tell you right now that I most likely have one hell of a concussion. Whether that’s from the door or whatever happened to me when I got home, I’ll never know. But if I show up at the emergency room, this will get back to my dad, and I just can’t deal with his overprotectiveness right now.”

She frowns. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Maybe not, but it’s not going to change anything.”

Sighing, she drops the clothes on the couch next to me. I look over at the yoga pants and tank top and move to stand before dropping the towel. Nikki ignores me as I cover up my nakedness. We’ve been friends for so long that we lost our shyness a long time ago.

“I’m not leaving,” she tells me with determination so I don’t try to persuade her otherwise.