Crash: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance (6 page)

Katherine

A throbbing headache. It was the only thing I could sense, and it was all I could think about. It started as a dull, pulsing ache, and swelled until it felt as though my head could no longer contain it. I tried to scream, but my throat was closed up. Suddenly I was trapped in a car, blood in my throat, glass in my eyes, struggling to move.

I heard voices all around me, and felt hands restraining me.

“Get Lucy!” a voice shouted.

I grasped something in front of me and began to jerk at it. I gagged, and something slid out of my throat, I threw it aside.

“Nurse!” the voice shouted. “Help!”

Feet scuffled, and alarms shrieked everywhere. I was nearly oblivious to the panic in the air, my splitting head taking far too much of my attention.

“Here, give her this,” a woman’s voice said.

“What’s that?” asked the voice from earlier. “What are you giving her?”

“Just a sedative,” said the woman.

Moments later, my headache began to wane slightly. Soothing warmth spread over my body, and I began to relax. Darkness.

* * *

“Kat, can you hear me?” my mother’s voice asked.

“Huh?” I muttered.

“Kat!” Mom gasped. “She heard me! I knew I saw her eyelids move!”

I felt a hand take mine on each side and wondered who might be there with my mother. I tried to force my eyes open, but brightness made them ache and I quickly squinted them shut again.

“Mom?” I called to her.

“Yes, Baby, I’m here,” Mom said, squeezing my left hand. “I’m right here, Kitty Kat, and so are Steve and Luke.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Steve, honey,” she said, her voice strained with sudden concern. “And his son, Luke.”

Someone squeezed my right hand. Confused, I pulled it away and pressed it tightly against my torso.

“Who?” I repeated. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Oh, no,” Mom said softly. “Katherine… Steve is about to be my husband. Luke is his son. You met them before the accident?”

“Accident?” My mind was cloudy, as if shrouded in a thick haze that blocked conscious thought. I directed all my concentration toward trying to remember. Suddenly I gasped, “The accident!”

It all flooded back, and my eyes began to sting. I could smell gasoline, and I could hear the voices around me. I started to wave my hands and sit up, but hands gently pushed me back down.

“Kat! You’re okay!” Mom shouted. “You’re in the hospital! You’re okay!”

After a few moments, my heart rate began to slow down, and I relaxed back onto the bed. I’d finally managed to open my eyes.

A man stood behind my mother with his hands on her shoulders. He looked concerned, and I thought I vaguely recognized him, but couldn’t quite place the face. Then I looked to the other side of the bed. A pair of pale eyes met mine, and I recognized him. Sort of.

“Luke?”

His face brightened, and he leaned forward and took my hand.

“I’m here,” he said.

This was… he was my…

“You’re my boyfriend, right?” I asked him.

His mouth fell open, and his brows knitted. He looked at my mother, and then back at me. An awkward silence fell over the room, and he dropped my hand.

“What?” I asked, looking to my mother for answers.

“Katherine, do you have any idea how long you’ve been in a coma?” Mom asked delicately.

“A coma? Me?”

What the hell?

“Do you remember the car accident?” she asked. I nodded, and she continued, “You got hurt pretty badly. You’ve been in a coma for quite a while.”

“Quite a while,” I parroted her. “How long is that?” Mom said nothing, so I said, “Mom? How long?”

“Almost eight months,” she finally said.

“
Eight months?
” I shrieked. “What about Berkeley?”

“Berkeley can wait,” Mom said. “You’re lucky to be alive!”

The weight of that sinking in nearly dragged me back under. If I had been standing, I would have soon been lying unconscious on the floor.

“I almost died? Like… for real?”

Mom nodded, her face ashen.

“And… this is… my…”

I nodded at the pale-eyed guy.

“Stepbrother, Kat,” Mom said softly. “Luke is soon to be your stepbrother.”

Ka-Thump.

That was the sound of me hitting the floor in my brain. Stepbrother. My heart had skipped at beat at the sight of him. So much so that I was certain he was my boyfriend even after hearing my mother tell me he was Steve’s son. My brain just couldn’t process it at the time. Hearing that he was about to be my stepbrother was a sudden rush of confusion that my brain just couldn’t deal with.

“And that makes you…” I looked at the man standing behind my mother.

“Steve,” he answered. “Soon to be your stepfather, if you’ll have me.”

“Right,” I muttered, nodding absently. “Steve and… Luke.”

The heat of embarrassment crept out from under my flimsy hospital gown and up my neck, warming my cheeks. I’d actually called my soon-to-be stepbrother my boyfriend. He must think I’m a real idiot.

Luke

She’d said I was her boyfriend. My heart actually did a little thumpy thing when she said it. I felt like some schoolboy with his first crush, only my body responded significantly differently.

I chastised myself intensely for the twitch in my pants as the poor girl lay there just waking up from an eight-month coma. What kind of dirty perv was I to get a stiffy over my soon-to-be stepsister after her brush with death?

Dad and Lucy had gone off to find Katherine’s doctor, and she and I were sitting there in awkward silence. She was staring at the ceiling, and I was picking at a hangnail or something.

Could things get any more awkward?

“Where’s the nurse?” she asked, staring out the door.

“Why do you need a nurse?” I asked, pushing to my feet, concerned she might be in pain.

“I just do,” she said “Can you call one?”

“Are you alright?” I asked. “In pain?”

“No, I…
I have to pee
,” she hissed like a frantic cat.

“Oh,” I muttered, my cheeks flaming. “Oh, I get it. Sorry.”

I pressed the nurse call button on the side of her bed and waited. Finally a nurse answered, “Yes?”

“We’re in room 206. Katherine… needs a nurse,” I said.

“Alright, I’ll send her in,” came the response.

A few minutes later, a guy who looked like he permanently belonged on a beach in Malibu entered the room wearing blue scrubs printed with green palm fronds. He approached Katherine’s bed.

“What can I do for you?” he asked her.

“Where’s her regular nurse?” I demanded. “Laney? Lacey?”

“Stacey,” he corrected me. “She’s with another patient, so they sent me.”

“Well, I’m
un-sending
you,” I said firmly. She needed to go to the bathroom, and there was no way I was letting a male nurse anywhere near her.

“Luke, I really have to pee,” Katherine whined.

“Hold it,” I ordered her.

I turned my attention back to the male nurse who glared at me, but retreated. At least he got the message.

“What the hell was that about?” Katherine demanded. “I have to go.
Now
.”

“Not with a male nurse, you don’t,” I argued with her. “Stacey will be here soon.”

“I don’t care who takes me,” she whined. “I have to go, and I can’t wait.”

She threw the blankets off herself and tried to stand up. Before I could object, her regular nurse charged into the room.

“Hey, hey, lie back down,” Stacey said, pushing her gently back. Katherine’s face was lily white. “Your catheter probably slipped out of place or the container needs to be emptied or something. Let me check.”

Stacey shot a glance at me, and I realized suddenly she wanted me to leave the room, which I did immediately. Whatever she was about to do, I wanted no part of, anyway. I was just glad Nurse Surfer Boy wasn’t involved.

I paced the hallway until Stacey emerged and said, “She’s alright now. You can go back in.”

I headed back into the room and Katherine was staring at the ceiling again. I flicked on the television and turned on a football game.

“Who’s playing?” she asked.

“Carolina and Clemson,” I answered.

“Go Tigers,” she smiled weakly.

“I never figured you for a Clemson fan,” I said.

“Who
did
you figure I’d root for?” she asked.

“I figured you as more of a tennis kind of girl,” I shrugged.

She laughed and said, “My Dad was a Clemson fan. My blood runs orange. Who you rootin’ for?”

“Roll Tide,” I answered.

“Oh, ‘Bama? Good team. Real good team. Good coach this year.”

“Yeah, but the Bulldogs ripped them apart last week,” I said.

“Did they? How’s the rankings so far this year?” she asked.

“You’re not going to be happy,” I informed her. “Clemson’s like eighth right now I think. ‘Bama’s second.”

“And first?” she asked.

“How ‘bout them Dawgs,” I answered.

“Really? My buddy Chad must be thrilled,” she said. “He went to UGA for two years. Huge fan.”

“Chad,” I muttered, a darkness sweeping over me. “Who’s Chad?”

“Just a friend I hang out with sometimes,” she shrugged. “Just me, and him, and a small group of friends.”

“So no one-on-one time?” I asked, clenching my jaw.

“What exactly are you getting at?” she demanded.

“Are you dating him?” I blurted out a little more harshly than I intended to.

“Chad? No way. Strictly platonic,” she said. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” I shrugged, trying to act as cool as possible. “You know. Making conversation.”

I was so going to hell for the thoughts running through my head about the girl who was about to be family.

“Would it bother you if I was dating Chad?” she asked, staring at me intently.

“Why would it bother me?” I asked.

‘Bother me’ was not the term for it. Destroy me. Crush me. Kill me.

“I don’t know, you just seem a little concerned about it, that’s all.”

“You’re about to be my stepsister. I’m supposed to worry about you, right?”

“You hardly even know me,” she pointed out. “We met, I nearly died in a car accident, and eight months later we’re talking for like the second time ever.”

“Well, after eight months I kind of feel like I do know you a little bit,” I said.

“How? It’s not like you’ve been here every day.” I said nothing, and she added, “Have you?”

I shrugged dismissively, and her eyes widened.

“
Have
you been here every day?” she asked.

“Well, obviously not
every
day,” I said. Her face fell, and I added, “I had work and stuff. But I was here pretty much every second I wasn’t at work.”

A gust of air pushed out of her lungs, and she swallowed hard.

“Why?” she whispered.

“Is it hot in here?” I asked, pushing out of the chair and storming into the hallway. “I’m going for drink. Do you need anything?”

She shook her head, and I barged out of the room before I ended up saying or doing something I’d regret.