Within seconds, I had pulled him off her and punched him twice in the face.

I wanted to kill him.

“What the fuck is your problem, Hunter?” He held his now-broken nose between his thumb and fingers. Blood poured from it and down his arm.

“What the fuck is my problem?” I yelled, yanking my arms away from whoever the fuck was holding me back. “You enjoy taking advantage of girls who are too wasted to know what the fuck is happening?”

“Fuck you! Get off your fucking pedestal! She’s the one that wanted it. She asked me to come in here!” He accepted the cloth that someone held out for him and placed it on his nose.

I looked down at the bed, but she wasn’t there. “Chloe,” I breathed out.

“Dude, that girl left.” I wasn’t there long enough to find out who’d said it.

I was out of that house faster than I thought possible.

A surge of relief washed over me when I saw her. She was folded over, with her head in the bushes at the end of the driveway, puking. I stood behind her, holding her hair out of her way.

“It’s okay, Chloe,” I said, rubbing slow circles on her back.

She threw up three more times.

By the time she was done, she was weak and struggling to stay upright. When she finally straightened up—wiping her mouth and lifting her eyes as she did—the expression on her face turned my insides to stone. “What the fuck are you doing, Blake?”

“Wh—?”

“You have no right to get in my shit like that. You have no right to burst into rooms, acting like a fucking superhero!”

“Chloe, you need to calm down. You’re beyond wasted, and you’re talking shit.”

I grabbed her arm so I could give her a hug and try to soothe her.

She let me.

And then she cried into my chest. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed.

I started walking us to my car. “I know, Chloe. It’s okay.”

She apologized four more times on the way to the car and then twice more once we were inside. By the time we got to Josh’s apartment, she’d passed out.

“What the hell happened?” Josh asked, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

“She’s wasted.”

His eyes rolled so high, I almost wanted to punch him, too. “Okay, Captain Obvious.”

“What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know, how about . . . how the fuck did she get like that in the first place?” He paused a second and narrowed his eyes at me. “Did you help her get like this?”

“No! She was like that when I found her.”

He sighed, and opened the door wider for us. “Put her in my bed. I’ll take the couch.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Chloe

A doorknob turned. Footsteps. My eyes snapped open. I was a little groggy, but apart from that, I was fine. No pounding head, no need to puke. “Hey.” Josh was next to the bed, looking down at me with a huge grin on his face. “Morning, Chucky.”

“Chucky?” I took the glass of water and aspirins from his hands and downed them both.

“Yeah. You know . . . because of all the times you chucked last night.”

“Oh.” Heat crept into my cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “All good. Made me feel like a kid again. Come out when you’re ready. I have someone I want you to meet.” He started to walk out of his room. “I set some clothes at the end of the bed. I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to strip you down and change you last night.”

“Fair point.”

“Yeah. And Hunter would probably kick my ass,” he said, before closing the door behind him.

After showering and putting on the sweats and shirt Josh had set out, I made my way to the living room. Tommy was on the floor, playing with blocks, while Josh was in the kitchen. Blake was nowhere to be seen.

“So you must be the famous Tommy I’ve heard all about.” I got down on my knees and watched as he stacked one block on top of the other. “Josh, how old is Tommy?”

He came out of the kitchen with two coffees in hand. I’d never been so happy to see coffee in my life. “Nine months and three days, why?”

I stood up and accepted the coffee but kept my eyes on Tommy. “How long has he been sitting up for?”

“Twenty-six days,” he said proudly, motioning with his head to the sofa. He waited for me to seat myself before taking the spot next to me. “Why?”

“Dude. Your kid’s a genius. Stacking normally comes at around fifteen months.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded.

“Huh.” He looked down at Tommy, but his smile faded. “Who would’ve thought two high school dropouts could produce something like that?” There was sadness in his voice, completely separate from the boy in the bowling alley or the boy that talked shit and got high.

“Josh?”

His gaze slowly moved from Tommy to me.

“You know what you’re doing is beyond extraordinary, right? You’re a great dad—and an amazing person. You gave up your chance at being an irresponsible kid and took all of this on . . . and you did it on your own.”

“He’s my son.” He shrugged. “There was no question. It wasn’t like I had a choice.”

“You’re wrong.”

His eyes narrowed.

“There were a lot of choices, Josh. You could’ve given him up for adoption. You could’ve handed him over to his grandparents. You could’ve not had him at all. You could have just walked away. But you did none of those things. You went from being a kid to a man overnight. No one forced you to do it. You chose to. And I see how proud you are of him, and he’s going to know that. When he’s older, he’s going to see that.”