Dr. Chase Hudson (The Surrogate Book 2) (23 page)

“You're impossible,” I said, a small smile
toying with my lips. “In the future when you're with someone
and...”

“The moment,” she said, cutting me off.

“I'm sorry?”

She tilted her head up to look at me for the first time
since she got onto my lap. “Someone once told me to be in the
moment,” she explained. “I think that was pretty good
advice,” she said, lying her head back on her spot.

“Okay,” I said and the silence fell again.

It wasn't long before we both slowly drifted off to
sleep.

Her whole body jolted, jerking me awake. “Hey,”
I said, my voice sounding rough from sleep. “You alright?”

“Dream,” she explained, her head looking
toward the clock and then she was pulling out of my arms.

“Where are you going?”

“It's almost one,” she said, reaching for
her keys and wallet.

“So what?” I asked, sitting forward.

“I just... it's time to go,” she said and
if I hadn't been so consumed by my own, I might have heard the
sadness in her words.

I downed the rest of my scotch to steady my nerves.
“I'll walk you to your car.”

“No,” she said quickly. “No. I'm
fine. Stay here. Relax. You look... tired.”

I fucking was. Down to my bones.

“Ava...”

“Thank you Chase,” she cut me off, moving
toward the door quickly and closing it behind her.

I looked at the closed door for a long moment.

So that was it.

She was gone.

Fuck me.

After the Sessions

Twenty Minutes

I got drunk. Too drunk to drive home.

I walked into the bedroom, kicking out of my shoes and
moving toward the bed. I fell down into it and climbed under the
sheets, rolling onto the side where Ava used to lay.

Which was a mistake.

Because the sheets and pillows smelled like her.

Vanilla.

Sweetness.

Everything I would spend my life missing.

Five Hours

My phone screamed into the silent space, making me
spring up in bed and reach for it off the nightstand.

“'Ello?” I said groggily into the receiver.

“Is this Dr. Chase Hudson?” the voice asked
and suddenly I was not only sober but more awake than I ever had been
before. Because I knew that tone of voice. I knew who used that tone
of voice.

“Yes.”

“This is St. Mary's hospital,” she started
and I was already in my shoes and moving through my office.

Fucking fucking fucking Eddie.

“Is he alive?” I barked, not needing the
shit they spoon fed all the worried families. I needed the facts. I
needed something to either solidify or brush aside the swirling
sickness in my stomach.

“Yes, he's alive.”

“He overdosed,” I guessed as I threw myself
into my car.

“I'm afraid so.”

“Is he stable?”

“Yes. Unconscious. But yes.”

“I'll be there in ten,” I said, hanging up
the phone.

Alive. Stable.

I walked through the emergency room doors ten minutes
later, my feet feeling like cinderblocks were attached to them.
Heavy. I fucking felt... heavy.

“Eddie Gregori,” I told the nurse at the
station.

She glanced down at her paperwork. “Right this
way, Dr. Hudson,” she said in the somber tone they used for
situations like that - when the only fucking person you had in your
life OD'd. Again.

People always said loved ones in hospital beds looked
small. That had never been true of Eddie. He always seemed to swallow
them up. Like they weren't meant for men like him.

He was pale and almost bluish under the lights. But he
was still huge. Still healthy looking. Well, that would be true if he
didn't have a bunch of tubes sticking out of him. Fluids. A
respirator.

“He was brought in an hour ago. The doctor gave
him Narcan which he has responded to. He should be back to normal in
a bit...” she said, letting her voice sound a little more
cheery than was necessary.

“Thanks,” I said, moving toward the side of
his bed and taking a seat on the stool. I heard her thick soled shoes
make their way out of the room and I rested my forearms on Eddie's
bed. “You have some timing,” I told him, shaking my head.

There was no response. Of course. It wasn't some cheesy
movie. It was real life. Loved ones didn't miraculously wake up
because you spoke to them. But he
would
wake up. I was going
to be there when he did. Then I would be there to guide him back on
track. Into rehab. Into outpatient treatment. It didn't matter how
many times he dragged me down to the hospital, heart in my throat
praying it wasn't the time I would get there and be told he didn't
make it. I would be there.

I wondered as I sat at his bedside if it all wasn't
just a way for me to try fix the past. I had to save Eddie because I
couldn't save my mother. I had to save the kids at the group home
because I couldn't save myself. I had to save Ava because I couldn't
save Mae.

I hung my head on that heavy thought, listening to the
monitor beep out Eddie's heartbeat. It was a hollow kind of comfort.
But it was fucking all I had left.

Six Days

I wasn't the kind of man to wallow, to wrap my
disappointment and sorrow around myself like a protective barrier.
That wasn't me. I knew better. Situations had to be dealt with and
then they needed to be moved on from.

So I convinced
myself that was what I was doing when I pulled out the number I
had
written down from my machine at work.

Natalie's number.

Calling her was a way of moving on, of moving past the
churning black hole that was taking up residence where my heart used
to be.

So I called.

And I set up a date.

Seven Days

I spent the whole next day feeling fucking sick about
it. I spent the day feeling like I was betraying Ava.

But I told Mary to let Nat into my office before she
left for the night on Monday. I walked her through to the bedroom to
pour us drinks, then very pointedly moved her back into my office,
closing the bedroom door.

Natalie took in the whole thing with a raised brow,
sitting down on the side of my desk and making her skirt hike up on
her thigh.

“You've done well for yourself,” she said,
gesturing around.

“I heard you have as well,” I nodded,
knowing she had finished school and went back to teach women's
studies.

She shrugged away the compliment, sipping her drink. “I
was surprised you called,” she admitted, watching me.

“Why?”

“Because, Chase, when we were in our twenties,
you couldn't keep your hands off of me. Even when we were fighting.
It was always an intensely physical relationship. The other night at
Chaos... you barely looked me over.”

“I noticed you weren't wearing a bra,” I
countered.

She rolled her eyes, setting her drink on the far end
of the desk then cocking one of her legs up on the arm of my chair so
her skirt slipped up high. “What color are my panties, Chase?”
she asked like a challenge.

And, fuck, she was right.

I didn't even want to look.

“Exactly,” she said, putting her leg back
down. “So what is going on with you? Because I know I haven't
lost it,” she said with a confident smirk. “You got
yourself a woman?”

I laughed humorlessly, raking a hand through my hair.
“No.”

“That's not a 'no I don't have a woman', that's a
'a woman has me, but I don't have her',” she told me, a brow
raised, daring me to contradict her.

Jesus Christ.

When did I become so easy to read?

“Something like that,” I nodded, saluting
her with my drink.

“Damn,” she said, nodding.

“What?”

“For a shrink, honey, you were always pretty
clueless about yourself. You always seemed to think you got out of
your shitstorm of a past without scars. Babe, they're all over you.
And you have always kept people at arm's length so they couldn't see
them.”

“Nat...” I said, shaking my head.

“Don't
Nat
me. We dated for a
year. We were practically living together for a year. You know how I
knew about your mother? Eddie told me when he came over to your place
drunk one night while you were at the library. You never once
mentioned the fact that you found her body. You never told me that
she was bipolar. You never told me that that was why you went into
psychology. You never let anyone in on that.”

Fuck me.

I let Ava in on that.

Easily.

Like it meant nothing.

I hadn't even thought of hiding it.

“This woman,” she pressed, watching me,
“does she know about her?”

“Yes.”

“So, back to
my original statement:
damn
.
I never thought I would see the day when you let someone in, Chase. I
never thought you would roll up your sleeves and show a woman your
damage.” She paused, looking at me hard. “What's she
like?”

A part of me wanted to tell her, wanted to get it off
my fucking chest.

I couldn't.

“She's gone,” I said, shrugging. “That's
about all there is to know.”

Unphased, Natalie rose from my desk. “Want to
come to the university next week and be on a panel for my class?”
she asked.

“A panel?” I asked, not trusting her tone.

“A panel of men,” she clarified with a
smirk.

“Will I leave with my balls still attached?”
I asked, feeling a smile toying at my lips for the first time in a
week.

“I don't know. I have a particularly ruthless
class this year. If you give them so much as a hint that you're
disagreeing with them, well, no promises,” she said, making her
way toward the door to the waiting room. I followed her.

“Alright,” I said, reaching for the
doorknob.

“Thank you so
much,
Dr. Hudson,
”
she teased in an old, familiar way.

But I wasn't paying attention.

Because the second I opened the door, my eyes found
Ava.

She was standing at the reception desk, a big envelope
in her hands that she was in the process of putting down.

“Ava?” I asked and even I heard the wonder
in my own voice.

Sharp as ever,
Natalie didn't miss it either. Her head snapped in Ava's direction
and a knowing smirk went
to her lips. “I will see you next week,” she said,
glancing one more time at Ava before she quickly moved to leave.

Ava took the opportunity to drop the envelope and turn
to follow the path Natalie had just walked.

“What is this?” I asked and she froze for a
second.

She turned slowly,
her chin lifted slightly. “
That
,”
she said, her tone a little sharp, “is your payment. Which was
apparently and, I assume,
mistakenly
canceled.”

“You were just going to leave three thousand
dollars in cash on the reception desk?”

“You always seem to be... the last one out. I
figured you would find it first. But... yeah. So... now you have it,”
she mumbled, “and I'm... gonna go.”

She didn't get a step before I called her. “Ava,”
I said, and she stilled again. “It wasn't a mistake.”

She turned slowly, her face looking guarded. “What?”

“It wasn't a mistake. I am not billing you.”

After the night when she called me drunk... yeah the
idea of billing her for sessions felt dirty, wrong.

“Why not?”

Christ.

I was going to tell her.

To fucking hell with the consequences.

I ran a hand down my face. “I need a drink,”
I said, turning back toward my office. I went to the sidebar, mixing
drinks, and handed her a martini before I threw back my scotch. “Can
you come sit down with me for a minute?” Her eyes went to the
couch with what I could only describe as suspicion. I moved over and
she chugged her drink before following and sitting down a full
cushion away from me. “I'm not billing you.”

“You said that. You haven't said why.”

“Fuck,” I said, rubbing my hand over my
brow. How the hell could I even start to explain? I looked back at
her, resigned to get it over with when I noticed how red and puffy
her eyes looked. “Have you been crying?”