Chapter 60
Dylan watched Hazel as she walked towards the exit. He wondered what had her so…anxious? Frazzled? He couldn’t quite tell.
He waited until the nurse left Logan’s room, then he entered. Logan was sitting up in bed, watching TV.
“Hey man,” Dylan said, sitting in the chair next to the bed. “How you feeling?”
Logan had a faraway look in his eyes. There was a long pause before his answered. “Oh, hey. Sorry. Uh…I’m doing okay, just wiped.”
“I bet,” Dylan said.
“Where did Hazel go?” Logan asked, looking towards the hallway.
“She said she had some errands to run,” Dylan shrugged.
“Oh.” Logan was relieved. It would have been awkward to have her in here with Dylan, he thought.
Dylan dug into his burrito. The two quietly watched the soap opera that was on TV for a few minutes.
“These shows man,” Dylan laughed. “They’re so wild and unbelievable.”
Logan laughed. They watched the rest of the show in silence. When it ended, Logan switched off the TV and turned to Dylan.
“Hey, are we cool?” He asked.
“After you almost died? Yeah, I’m just glad you’re okay man,” Dylan said, tossing his burrito wrapper in the trash.
“I know I haven’t been the greatest friend…” Logan started.
“Seriously, forget it. We’ll start with a clean slate,” Dylan said.
Logan nodded and thought for a moment. “I know that I almost died…But I don’t really remember much after I left your house last night.”
“Oh!” Dylan’s eyes grew wide. “You don’t know how you ended up here?”
Logan shook his head.
“Well,” Dylan said. “Hazel told me that she got home and found you basically passed out on the couch. Natalie was there…”
“Wait…why was Natalie there?”
“She lives with Hazel,” Dylan shrugged. “Anyway, Natalie was trying to manipulate you somehow, so she put a bunch of sleeping pills in your wine. She told Hazel that, and Hazel called 911.”
Logan leaned back onto his pillows, taking it all in. “Natalie drugged me?”
“Yeah man, I couldn’t believe it either.”
“Can we do something about that? Legally?” Logan asked.
Dylan let out a snort. “You bet your ass we can, and we will.”
“Good,” Logan said.
“And about what I said last night…forget it. I’m going to help you divorce this bitch.”
I sat in my car, burrito in my lap, and just stared at my phone screen. I had opened Maria’s response to my text, but that was as far as I had gotten.
As much as I had enjoyed the kiss in the moment, now that I was away from him and Dylan I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it.
My phone buzzed with another text from Maria:
“You cannot send something like that and then not tell me!”
“Sorry,” I send back to her. Then typed: “Yes, Logan kissed me. Trying to sort out how I feel about it.”
“You don’t know how you feel after being kissed by perhaps the hottest guy on planet Earth?? What is wrong with you?” She sent back surprisingly fast.
That was a good question, actually. A normal person would have been over the moon about it. But not me, because I had to overthink everything.
“Can you meet me at our diner?” I wrote back. The diner I had Dylan take us to the night before was the one Maria and I would visit after a night out. It was the only diner we ever went to.
“Be there in five,” she said. I laughed. She lived about fifteen minutes from there but I had no doubt she’d be able to make it in five.
I turned the key in the ignition and looked down at the burrito in my lap. I shoved it into my purse, unsure what else to do with it.
Once I got to the diner, I walked in and looked around. Just as I suspected, Maria had beaten me here and claimed our booth by the kitchen.
“I ordered us coffee,” she said when I sat down to join her. “Now spill. I want every last detail of that presumably delicious kiss.”
I shook my head and pulled the burrito from my purse.
“The fuck?” She said.
“Dylan got this for me.”
“Dylan? I’m so confused. You kissed Logan and Dylan bought you a burrito?” Maria said, giving me the side eye.
“Oh!” I said. “Oh my god, I haven’t told you about last night yet.”
“Unless it involves another kiss, not interested.”
“It doesn’t, but it does involve drugs, alcohol, violence, sexual tension, and a near-death experience,” I said, opening the burrito.
She stared at me for a moment. “Okay, you got me. I’m very interested.”
I gave her a run-down of the evening before, between bites of burrito. I couldn’t believe it had all only happened the night before. It felt like ages ago. Maria’s mouth was agape the whole time.
“She drugged him?” After I told her about calling 911 then following the ambulance to the hospital. “This bitch is absolutely insane.”
“I know, I knew she was terrible, but this?” I shook my head. “I still can’t believe it.”
“Okay, so Logan’s at the hospital. When does the kiss come in?” She said.
“I’m getting there!”
At that moment, the waitress came by with our coffees. When she set mine down in front of me, she looked at the burrito I had half-consumed. She gave me a questioning look.
“It’s a long story,” I said.
She sighed. “Can I get anything else for you ladies?”
Maria ordered a pancake breakfast, and the waitress went on her way.
“So Dylan met me at the hospital after I arrived there,” I started. “He came into the waiting area with me, and after I cried into his shirt, he kissed me…”
“WHAT!” Maria yelled. The other couple that was in the diner turned and looked at us.
“…on the top of my head…”
Maria’s face fell. “This is a real roller coaster ride you’re taking me on.”
“He apologized. But then he started to kiss me for real, before the clerk interrupted us to tell us Logan was ready for us.”
Maria threw her hands up in the air. “Oh, come on!”
“He had a chance to kiss me again later that night, but he didn’t. He gave me another top of the head kiss and left,” I picked at what was left of my burrito. I still wasn’t sure why Dylan hadn’t kissed me after we left the diner. It made me feel self-conscious, like I had done something wrong.
“But that’s okay because then Logan kissed you! Right? We’re to that part of the story now finally?”
I laughed. I told her about the conversation leading up to the two kisses, then described them in as much detail as I could possibly give her. Talking through it gave me just as many butterflies as it had when it happened.
Maria had rested her chin in her hands and had a dreamy, faraway look as I told the story. She was probably imagining herself in my place, if I knew her as well as I thought I did.
She let out a deep, happy sigh when I finished.
“Girl. You are living in an actual fairytale,” she said.
“Well I do have the evil sister for that,” I said with a laugh.
“So…okay, he kissed you, you had the biggest grin on your face as you described it to me — it sounded amazing by the way and I am mad jealous — so what is the problem?” Maria asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, I just…I got to thinking about Dylan, and how Logan’s still married to Natalie, and…”
“Oh god. That overactive brain of yours. If you’d stop thinking so much, you’d be a lot happier you know,” she said.
“Trust me, there’s no turning this thing off,” I said, wrapping up the rest of my burrito.
“So now it seems like you really have to choose,” Maria said. “Do you want Logan, or do you want Dylan?”
