" She’s going to be fine. She just slipped and fell.”

“You know it’s because of your stupid brownies, right?”

“It’s all good.”

“Good thing Molly wasn’t here. She’d be pissed if she knew you got her so high she fell in her shower.”

I force my eyelids to open to figure out where I’m at and realize I’m in the back seat of Lydia’s car. The world outside the tinted window is speeding by in a blur so we must be moving. That, or I’m still super high.

“What’s going on?” I mumble, my voice thick and groggy. My head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, and my vision is still a little fuzzy, but I feel relaxed so at least there’s that. Actually, I feel more than relaxed.

I feel good.

“You fainted,” Lydia says from the driver’s seat, her voice tight with worry. “And you hit your head on the shower wall super hard.”

I burst into laughter, the kind of uncontrollable giggle that makes my chest ache.

For the first time in what feels like forever, I’m not thinking about everything that could go wrong or the property I’m losing each day I spend not married.

I’m simply thinking about how ridiculous my first experience consuming weed brownies went.

“You worry too much, Lydia. I’m fiiiine.” I drag the word out and dissolve into another fit of laughter.

“See Lydia, she’s fine,” Rae says immediately followed by a giggle.

“She made a very loud thud when she fell!” Lydia shrieks. “We heard you from all the way in the living room with Rae’s loud horror flick turned on! We need to get her checked out.”

I laugh again as Rae whispers to me. “You’re a lightweight.”

I press a finger to my lips, swaying toward her as if I’m whispering a secret. “I ate a second brownie. Don’t tell Rae.”

Her eyes practically bug out before she starts laughing so hard she doubles over the center console.

“I’m Rae, silly, and you’re insane. That’s way too much for someone your size.”

The edges of my vision start to blur, my eyelids feeling heavy as I rest my head back onto the headrest. This was a good idea, even if my head is aching like I just fell on concrete. At least now I’m not thinking about the fact that my dream is slipping through my fingers.

A few minutes later, the car comes to a stop, and I barely register the strong arms that scoop me out of the vehicle and deposit me into a hospital issued wheelchair.

“This is a little dramatic,” I mumble, squinting up at Rae as she pushes me along.

She smirks. “Lydia was right, you hit your head hard. We need to make sure you didn’t get a concussion.”

Lydia walks beside her, a rare smile tugging at her lips.

My heart clenches unexpectedly, and before I can stop myself, tears fill my eyes.

Maybe it’s the weed that’s making me overly sentimental and emotional, maybe I really do have a concussion, and it’s permanently altered my brain, or perhaps it’s the chaos of my life lately and the fact that I’m turning thirty soon, and everything just feels… overwhelming.

“I love you guys,” I blurt out, my voice cracking on the words.

Rae stops short, her expression softening. “We love you too.”

I’m not sure how much time passes before I’m lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV.

The drugs are supposed to help with the headache from my graceful collision with Colt’s fancy shower and hopefully counteract the effect of the brownies, though I don’t dare say that part out loud.

We didn’t tell them why exactly I slipped, figuring that was a detail better left out of my medical records.

Rae paces in the corner like a restless, black cat, her gaze flicking between the TV, her phone clutched in her hands, me, and the window like she’s considering jumping out of it.

“Cash is gonna kill me if he finds out why you’re actually here.”

I manage a weak laugh. “I’m fine.” Because really, I feel fine. It’s not so bad. “The drugs are definitely helping,” I say then burst out laughing because who knows which drugs I’m talking about. The hospitals’ or Rae’s brownies.

She arches an eyebrow, clearly more sober than I am now. “I know, but he’ll still be pissed. Probably punish me.” Her eyes widen as soon as the words leave her lips as if that thought isn’t entirely unwelcome, and I let out a groan.

Lydia’s perched in the corner; legs tucked under her as she types furiously on her phone. The door creaks open, and a nurse enters first, her smile warm and professional.

“Hi Regan, I’m Nina, your nurse,” she says with a chipper smile. “I’m here with the doctor on call who’ll be examining you for a possible concussion today.”

The words barely register. Because behind her is the doctor.

Him.

And nothing— nothing —could’ve prepared me for the emotional shock of seeing him again especially like this.

My jaw unhinges. My lungs forget their basic function.

I think I might even black out for half a second because the entire room feels like it’s tilting.

If it’s possible to somehow get high again without eating more of the brownie, yeah, that just happened.

A single drop of something slides from the corner of my mouth and hits the exposed skin at the dip of my hospital gown.

Drool?

A tear?

Who the hell knows!

My mouth’s a desert and my brain’s a tumbleweed blowing through it. Because standing at the foot of my hospital bed, in a pair of fitted light-blue scrubs and a smile that could disarm anyone, is Hayes freaking Walker.

Former North American professional bull rider.

A guy who I opened to about my biggest insecurities.

And the one-night-stand that I’ve never forgotten.

And now? Apparently, he’s my doctor treating me for a concussion.

Yeah, I’m way too high for this.

I blink. Then blink again. But he’s still there. And oh . He was hot back then, all cowboy charm and dirty drawls. But this? This is an era .

He’s in his hot doctor era.

He’s towering and broad, tanned and scrubbed clean, both literally and metaphorically, like he scrubbed the entire reckless past we shared off his skin and traded it for something more... stable. Respectable. Dangerous in a whole new way.

I wonder if the nurses know the way he could ride a bull back in the day. I wonder if they ever pull up his old videos just to watch the strength in his muscles as he commanded the animal and worked the crowd.

My pulse skips. I try to sit up and think better of it when the room tilts again.

Dumb. Ass. Regan. You’re way too high still.

I attempt to wet my lips but there’s no moisture to be found on my tongue. Cottonmouth —yeah, that’s what it’s called, right? Weed turns your mouth to sandpaper and your brain to soup. Pretty sure mine’s melting and bubbling out my ears right now simply from shock.

And yet while I’m spiraling, he’s smiling? That slow, devastating curve of his mouth. The same one I saw right before he lowered his face to my pussy and made me see stars in that random hotel room in Charlotte.

My throat makes a noise—some cross between a whimper and a squeak—and I somehow manage to croak out, “Water, please.”

Rae, bless her, is up in a flash, grabbing the cheap plastic hospital cup and pressing the straw to my lips like I’m a toddler who can’t handle holding her own liquids without making a mess.

I suck greedily, but my eyes never leave Hayes and his never leave mine.

I wonder if he knows what I’m thinking. I wonder if he remembers me.

Is mind-reading a skill doctors learn in school?

Or has that always just been him. Because I sure as hell haven’t forgotten that night.

Or the way he looked at me afterward, all dazed and reverent like I was something holy.

I haven’t forgotten the way I’d felt either: wild, alive, and for once, completely outside myself.

And I’ll never forget the way that I left: no drama, no promises, just one last kiss that lingered too long for it to be meaningless and then me skipping out the doorway, never looking back.

But this version of him? In scrubs, clean-cut with a stethoscope looped casually around his neck and muscles straining against his sleeves like he hasn’t stopped working out despite no longer being an athlete? Yeah, this is a whole new problem for me, and I might just be too high to handle it.

“Thank you,” I whisper after a second, long pull from the straw, managing some coordination between my brain and vocal cords now that they’re properly lubricated.

Not that it helps the full-body static buzzing beneath my skin. My cheeks are burning. My limbs feel both too heavy and too light. And my nipples, of all things, betray me completely beneath this thin gown.

Because Hayes freaking Walker is touching me now.

His fingers wrap gently around my wrist. Not possessive. Not casual either. Just enough pressure to feel like maybe he’s holding a little tighter than he normally would for a patient.

His thumb presses into my pulse point and his eyes flick to mine as he says, “All right then, Regan Marshall. How are you feeling?”

His voice is exactly the same—low, rich, with that slight country rasp that tells me he grew up in a rural town and hasn’t lost his roots.

God help me.

My breath catches as the memory hits: his hands gripping my hips, his mouth at my neck, his fingers wrapped deliciously around my throat, his body solid and relentless between my thighs.

Get it together.

I should say something, perhaps something witty, casual, normal, not insane like the thoughts running through my head right now. But I can’t. Not with his fingers squeezing around my wrist and that knowing look in his eyes like he knows exactly what I’m thinking about.

Spoiler alert: it’s him. Fingers wrapped around my throat instead.

He’s saying something else now, asking about nausea or dizziness, but it’s all a muffled echo behind the roar of panic and sheer want that’s in my bloodstream.

My eyes dip to his hands that are big, strong, veined and capable.

No tattoos. Just clean skin and long fingers that could still ruin me if they were curled just right inside me.

“Hey. You doing okay?” he asks, leaning in slightly, close enough that I can smell him.

Clean soap. Faint cologne. Heat .

I nod. Lie, Regan. Lie like your life depends on it because it might.

“Yep. Fine. Great.”

He raises a brow. “You sure?”

No. Not at all. Not in the slightest.

Because the man I once had the best night of my life with just walked back into it wearing scrubs and a smile... and I’m lying in a hospital bed high as a damn kite wearing nothing but a flimsy gown and zero defenses.