Page 1 of Caught Up In You

CHAPTER 1

WYATT

October 14

“Wyatt!”

My sister’s voice wakes me from sleep like the whistle of a train: loud, then trailing off as she races past my bedroom door. The bathroom light floods the hallway, and I squint.

“Hazel? You okay?” I croak as I pry myself into reality. I sleep like the dead, and it usually takes half an hour and two cups of coffee before I’m able to put words in the right order.

But then I remember two things:

1. My baby sister is pregnant.

2. She’s due in four days.

I sit straight up in bed.

“Hazel? What’s going on?”

“Well, here’s the thing,” she calls from the bathroom. “I might be in labor?”

I trip out of bed and reach for a pair of sweatpants that’s lying in a heap on my floor, then join the heap when my big toe getscaught on the hem and I go down like a bag of hammers. “What do you mean,might be?”

“Well, either my water just broke or I peed myself. But nothing is happening. No, like, contractions or anything. So maybe it’s just pee? I have no idea, this being my first rodeo,” she says. I can’t get over how remarkably calm she sounds. Like there isn’t a whole person about to emerge from her body. “Actually, there’s a puddle on the floor next to my bed. It’s either pee or amniotic fluid. If my water broke, I have to be at the hospital within an hour even if I’m not feeling any contractions. So I need to figure this out. Can you go smell it for me?”

“What?”I am not awake enough for this conversation. My brain is swimming in questions and thereallygood dream I was having about eighties-era Bruce Springsteen. It was all white T-shirt and biceps and an ass that wouldn’t quit andthe Boss. You know how it is.

But finally, with great effort, I land on one question. Just one.

“What does amniotic fluid even smell like?”

“Uh, not like pee!” she yells back. “I’m going to stay here on the toilet because when I stand, more…uh…liquid…comes out?”

“Right,” I mutter. I take a deep breath and try to feel every part of my body in this moment. This is not a dream, no matter how much I want to keep caressing Bruce’s ass in those jeans. Hazel is pregnant, and there might be a baby comingright now. And all that stands between me and a screaming ride to the hospital is me smelling a mysterious puddle.

“Please?” Hazel begs.

I sigh. “You better make me that baby’s godmother,” I tell her as I pad down the hallway and into Hazel’s room. Thankfully the floors are wood, so whatever greets me will be easy to clean up. It’s about the only thing that’ll be easy to clean up in my sister’s room, which is stuffed with teetering stacks of textbooks and hardcovers and overflowing with potted plants, each healthierand hardier than the last. “It’s like the Rainforest Café in here,” I mutter, stepping over a pothos vine.

“Who else would be the godmother?”

“Maybe that little bitch from high school? McTinsleigh?”

“Ryleigh. And you’re just mad that I loaned her your leather jacket and she threw up coconut rum on the lining.”

“You bet your ass I’m still mad about that,” I reply, locating the puddle. “I found that jacket at a flea market in Orlando, and itstillsmells like a spring break mistake.”

I take another deep, centering breath and remind myself that this is probably just one in a long list of disgusting tasks that awaits me as a future live-in auntie. Because there is going to be a whole-assbabyliving in my house. And anyway, Hazel is my little sister, and there’s not a thing I wouldn’t do for her, including smelling a mysterious bodily fluid. My love for Hazel is why I’m here in Cardinal Springs to begin with, and that has turned out not to be such a bad thing. Hazel has given me all the best things in my life, and she’s about to give me my niece.

The puddle is roughly the size of a serving platter with a Jackson Pollack–esque spatter pattern radiating outward. It’s clear, as far as I can tell. I’ve been working in bars for more than a decade, so I’ve dealt with many a mysterious puddle. But I’ve never had to smell one.

“Let’s fucking go,” I whisper, squaring my shoulders. Then I drop to my knees, get as close to the puddle as I can tolerate, and sniff.

“Well?” Hazel shouts.

“Saddle up, cowboy!” I yell back. “We’re having a baby!”

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