Previously…
– Jason and Sabrina’s date ended awkwardly when he second-guessed kissing her when he dropped her off. Still questioning his lack of action, he arrived back at home and then felt something strike him, knocking him unconscious.
– Alex received a strange, urgent series of texts late at night.
– Molly confessed to Brent that she broke up with Conrad because she is still in love with Brent. He reciprocated her feelings, and the two had sex.

Soft light spills through the curtains that cover the large window in Molly Taylor’s bedroom. Her eyes open only a fraction of the way, and she grimaces at the sudden intrusion of light as she gets her bearings. She closes her eyelids and breathes in deeply as the previous night comes flooding back to her. Memories of Brent’s lips against hers, Brent’s body enveloping hers, wash over her. With a delighted groan, she rolls toward the center of the bed… only to find it empty, other than the rumpled blankets and smushed pillows.

She sits up and grabs her iPhone off the nightstand. It is still early, several minutes before she had set her alarm to go off; after their late night of passion, she had planned to go into the office late today.

“Brent?” she asks tentatively to the seemingly empty room.

A moment later, he emerges from the bathroom, doing up the buttons on his shirt.

“You’re up already,” she says.

“Yeah. I need to get back to my place.”

“The boys will be fine. I’m sure they’ll assume you stayed over at Claire’s.”

“Yeah.” He busies himself rolling up one of his sleeves. “But I have to get to the station, too.”

Molly scoots up and sits back against the tufted, ivory-colored headboard. “Are you sure you can’t stay for a little while?”

He shakes his head. There is something terse about the movement, and she becomes aware of a pervading tension filling the room like a rolling fog.

“Is everything okay?” she asks. “Last night was…”

“Last night was a major surprise,” Brent says. “I know a lot happened when we were locked in that trunk, but this was… it was different.”

“It wasn’t different. Not really. It was natural.” She stares at him as he rolls up the other sleeve. “I meant what I said last night. I love you. When I admitted that to myself, I had to end things with Conrad.”

“I understand that. But it isn’t so easy for me.”

“What?” Even his tight-lipped expression is enough for her to understand, though. “Brent, do you regret that we made love last night?”

In the corridor just outside the small family law courtroom, Elly Vanderbilt finishes conferring with the legal team that has contracted her services for today’s custody hearing. With a nod, she leaves them and approaches their clients, who have just turned the corner at the other end of the corridor.

“Good morning,” Elly says to Spencer Ragan and Natalie Bishop, who are both dressed rather conservatively in, respectively, a dark gray suit and a knee-length black dress with a thin cardigan pulled over it. “I just ran through some loose ends with your attorneys. We should be good to go.”

“Thanks,” Spencer says, an uncharacteristic hint of nervousness in his voice.

“This is going to be fine, you guys,” Elly tells them. Her red hair is wrapped into a tight bun atop her head, and she wears a cream-colored blouse and gray pencil skirt. “You’re the biological parents. There have been no incidents in the time that Peter has been living with you that suggest there’s a need for the court to intervene.”

“I want to believe that,” Natalie says. “But Jason’s going to have his lawyers drag me through the mud — and that’s not even getting into the stuff Spencer has done–”

“Hey,” he snaps.

“Let’s keep the bickering at bay today,” Elly says. “Having someone notice that is not going to do you any favors.”

They grumble in agreement as Paula Fisher rounds the corner. Upon spotting them, she stops in her tracks for a moment and then continues.

“Hi,” Paula says. All four of them exchange uncertain looks for a few seconds.

“I just wanted to tell you that I’m praying for everyone today,” Paula tells her grandson. “I know this isn’t what anyone wants–”

“Tell that to Jason,” Spencer says.

Paula takes another pause before responding, “Jason is a victim in all of this, too. It’s unfortunate that he had to be put in the position of losing his son and feeling as if this were his only recourse.” She glares at Natalie as she says this last part.

“Easy,” Elly mutters to Natalie when she sees the other woman preparing to fire back.

“Is Jason here yet?” Paula asks, glancing around the corridor.

“Haven’t seen him,” Spencer says.

“Hmm.” Paula does another scan. “I wonder where he could be.”

—–

The sharp sound of crying assaults Trevor Brooks through the darkness. He bolts awake, almost immediately popping up off the pillow. Within seconds, reality coheres around him: that is Chase crying through the baby monitor; he feels immeasurably better than he did yesterday, when the flu hit him like a ton of bricks; and, strangely, the other half of the king-size bed has already been made.

“Alex?” he calls out, wondering why the baby is crying so much if Alex is already up and about.

He throws off the blankets, grabs his t-shirt from the nearby chair, and hurries down the hallway toward Chase’s room. When he opens the door, he finds the boy standing up in his crib, wailing so hard that his face is red.

“I’m here,” he says softly, rushing over to scoop up his son. “I’m here. It’s okay.”

He rocks the child gently and then carries him out to the cozy kitchen.

“Alex?” he calls again, but the only response he receives is silence.

Chase’s cries quickly mellow as he settles into his father’s chest. Trevor uses his free hand to flip on the coffee maker, noting how strange it is that Alex didn’t turn it on when he got up.

“Where are you?” he wonders aloud, before carrying Chase back to the master bedroom so that he can get his phone and see if there is any word from his husband there. Maybe Alex ran to the store to pick up breakfast or something else that they need for the house.

When he retrieves his phone, however, Trevor finds no messages.

“What in the hell?” he mutters as he resumes rubbing Chase’s back in a circular motion. Once the boy seems calm, he brings him back to the nursery and places him on the changing table.

“Let’s get you changed, and then we’ll figure out where Daddy is,” Trevor says, unable to keep a feeling of dread from filling his chest.

—–

Brent hesitates before responding. The silence feels like an attack to Molly, like a thousand needles stabbing at her, and it quickly grows unbearable.

“You said that you love me, too,” she says. “You said…”

“I know I did. And I meant it.” Finally, he softens and approaches the bed, but he does not go so far as to sit down on it. “But I love Claire, too.”

“Brent.” Molly’s eyes flare open. “If that’s how you really feel, you shouldn’t have…”

“Well, I do. I haven’t been faking this whole time with her.”

“I know that. But I figured it was…”

“I do love her,” he says. “I was planning to propose. I have a ring.”

Molly lurches forward. “What?”

“The night we got locked in that car and kidnapped, I was going to take Claire to dinner. I realized I’d dropped the ring in your driveway — that’s why I came back and caught Barrera’s guys trying to kidnap Christian.”

“Oh my god. Wow.” Molly sighs, feeling overwhelmed by this new information. The bliss that she felt mere minutes ago when she awoke now seems so distant. “Are you still going to?”

Brent drops his head. “I don’t know. I’m… I have a lot of thinking to do. I’m sorry — I got caught up in the moment last night. And my feelings for you — they are genuine. I don’t want you to doubt that.”

“I thought we were…” She trails off and shakes her head. “I thought we were going to be together now.”

He pauses, allowing another excruciating stretch of silence to roll out between them.

“I have some thinking to do,” he finally says. “Some thinking and processing and… I just need to sort this out.”

“Okay. Take a little time.”

“Can I trust you to keep this between us for the time being?”

“Yes! Of course. I’m not… I don’t want to cause trouble, Brent. I want to be with you. I want to have what we should have had all these years.”

He regards her with something that Molly fears is dangerously close to pity.

“Thanks,” he says, and for a moment, she thinks there is more coming, but then he rushes out of the room.

Molly remains in the king-sized bed, the covers still over her legs. A feeling of utter despair comes over her.

“Please, Brent,” she whispers as she hears his car starting in the driveway. “Please do what you know your heart is telling you to do.”

—–

When the double doors open, everyone floods into the courtroom. Paula takes a seat in the first row of wooden benches, swiveling her head every 30 seconds or so to see who is arriving. She anxiously eyes Jason’s legal team at the table in front of her. When Tim enters, he swiftly makes his way toward her.

“Claire should be here in a few minutes,” he says, standing in the aisle beside her. “She just texted me.”

“That’s good,” Paula says tensely.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

Paula shakes her head. “It’s your brother. He isn’t here yet.”

“I’m sure he’s on his way. Want me to call him?”

“I just did. There was no answer.” Paula folds her hands over her purse in her lap. “I hope something hasn’t happened.”

“He’s probably driving over,” Tim says, though Paula can tell that he isn’t entirely convinced now, either.

The two linger in quiet for a few moments, observing the activity swirling around them in the courtroom.

“I’m going to check in with Spencer, and then I’ll give Jason a call, too,” Tim says. “I’m sure everything is fine.”

“I hope so,” Paula says, and she remains seated as her eldest son darts over to the other side of the room to greet his own son.

“Jason, where are you?” Paula asks under her breath as she once again looks toward the doorway.

—–

Everything feels thick and dark at first. It takes a long time — seconds, minutes, it’s impossible to tell — before Jason realizes that he is in his own bedroom, in his own bed. Things start to come into focus. He sees light coming in through the drapes.

His head throbs.

Did I drink that much last night? he wonders, but he immediately knows that he did not. He remembers leaving The Wild Lady after having words with Tim, and he remembers dropping off Sabrina, and he knows that he pulled into his garage…

But then something happened.

“The hearing,” he blurts out, his tongue feeling heavier than it should. He jerks upward in the bed and looks around, desperate to find his phone.

But what he sees instead shocks him.

“What the hell?” he says, as he reaches out and smacks the shoulder of the naked body beside him. But the figure does not move.

“Alex. Wake up,” Jason says, pushing through his drowsiness. He lifts the covers but already knows that he, himself, is naked.

Alex stirs with a murmur and then shifts in the bed, turning toward Jason.

“What?” Alex asks, not fully awake, the word mushy in his mouth.

“Wake up,” Jason repeats, panic filling his system. And then it hits him.

“Oh my god. The hearing.” He tosses off the covers, not caring about his nakedness. He still doesn’t see his phone anywhere in the room.

“Jason?” Alex says wearily, but then comprehension strikes him, too. He lifts his head off the pillow in a start. “Jason? Where am I?”

“In my room,” Jason says, again searching the room as if the answer to this puzzle might be hiding somewhere. “Why are you in my room?”

“What? How?”

“I don’t know.” Jason catches sight of the time on the bedside alarm clock. “Shit. I’m late for court.”

“What’s going on?” Alex asks, struggling to sit up.

“You tell me,” Jason says. “I don’t remember a damn thing after I pulled into the garage last night.” He touches two fingers to his pounding head. “What are you doing here? What the hell is going on?”

END OF EPISODE 987

How did Jason and Alex wind up like this?
What will happen at the custody hearing?
Did Brent’s reaction to Molly surprise you?
Talk about it all in the comments below!

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