Page 92 of Weddings, Revenge & Fake Dating

“Dexter Benton?” I clench the hospital info desk, breathing heavily.

The woman’s eyebrows pinch as she studies me. I understand her wary glare. I’m still wearing the pina-colada-spattered party dress and my hair twist is unraveled from my sand-wrestling match with Roman.

“I’m his mother.” I hold out my driver’s license as proof.

With my identity confirmed, she types the info into her computer. “Room 236.”

The distance feels like it takes a lifetime to traverse. My hand grips the door’s frame to his room when I make visual contact and try to catch my breath.

What I expect is the worst: tubes looping over his body and down his throat, machines beeping in the background, his skin and bones bruised, bloody, and broken.

Apparently, I’ve watched too much TV.

Instead, Dex sits upright in bed, completely alert and eating a cup of pudding. There’s no blood, no tubes, and not even one beeping machine.

“Hey,” he says, sounding drained.

I let out the breath that’s been lodged tight in my throat since I learned where he was. Seeing him in one piece allows the tension to release like a deflating balloon.

My mom-mode activates. “You know I was joking when I told you to try drugs, right?”

“I didn’t try drugs,” Dex says.

“Stop. I’m trying to be a good mom since I’ve been a crap-tastic one. I never thought you’d actually do all those terrible things.”

“What terrible things?” He looks confused.

“I’m a pusher. I might as well have been your drug dealer.”

He sighs. “You’re not a drug dealer.”

“Then what happened?”

I hang my purse on a doorknob and collapse onto the bed beside him. I touch his shoulder, and his gaze falls to his empty pudding cup. His hair slides off his forehead, revealing a wound at his hairline.

“That must have hurt.” I cringe. Careful not to touch it, I push back the loose strands of hair to examine the nasty red-and-purple beach-ball-sized knot. It’s bad.

“We ditched Grandma at the VIP party, and then we snuck into a real club. I was dancing and having fun with my friends. I wasn’t paying attention, and I slammed my head into the edge of a metal spiral staircase. I got knocked out.” He shrugs.

“Are you saying you glow-stick-danced yourself into a head injury?”

He nods.

“No drinking? No zombie drugs that make you eat faces?” I ask.

Dex smiles. “Come on, Freddie would look terrible without his face.”

“That would be disturbing.” I harrumph.

“But I did sneak into an over-twenty-one club with my underage friends.” He waggles his brows, proud of himself.

“You little punk.” I cup his baby face and we share a conspiratorial grin.

My kid’s still the same. Mostly.

I’ll wait to break the bad news to him when we get home. He’s still grounded for ditching Mom and sneaking into an adult club. I may be a cool bad mom, but I’m not that cool or bad.

“Mom, I don’t want you to get back together with Dad.”