The man knew me so well.
“Yeah,” I grumbled, my eyes going to the laptop again. She’d gotten up and moved out of the screen. “Did you find out anything else about the girl and our engagement?”
“You weren’t engaged the last time we spoke before your accident,” Trace answered hesitantly. “But you also said you’d found out something, so maybe in order to get that information, you got engaged to the chick. I don’t know, man. I’ll keep an ear to the ground, though. We’ll get you out of this.”
I heard him say something else under his breath, and I strained to hear what he said, but I could barely make it out.
He’d been doing that a lot. Saying things softly, as if he wanted to tell me something but couldn’t quite work up the nerve.
Him, and everyone else.
I could’ve sworn it had something to do with ‘stubborn girls,’ though.
“All right,” I finally sighed. “But Trace, if there’s something you need to tell me, you should tell me now. I know I’m missing something here.”
“Did you ask your sister?”
“Yeah,” I grumbled. “She had no clue I’d even had a girl in my life. Which then pissed her off all over again because I wasn’t coming home enough.”
Trace started to chuckle, then sobered. “Don’t beat yourself up. You’ve bridged that gap with her, but it’s her that has to take that last step. You can’t do it all.”
No, I couldn’t.
But the guilt was never-ending.
My sister had been in a bad situation…then again, so had I.
It was either leave her behind, where I had the promise that she would be happy and healthy or take her with me and run.
And running was no place for a child.
She grew up happy—ish. She grew up healthy.
And she’d found the love of her life…which was more than I could say for me.
The doors to my room pushed open and my doctor appeared, smiling at me as he came.
His eyes took in the laptop in my lap, as well as the phone to my ear, and he frowned.
“All right, man,” I said with a sigh. “I’m about to get sprung. You decide to tell me what I’m missing, I’d love it.”
Trace hung up laughing.
I hung up pissed off.
Which didn’t bode well for the doctor when he told me he wanted me to stay another night.
“No,” I refused. “I’m not running a fever, I have a very mild concussion, and I have shit to do that doesn’t include me staying here.”
“It’s okay, Ross.” Another man pushed through my open hospital door. “I’m taking him home with me tonight.”
Layton Trammel.
I’d know that pretty face anywhere.
I wonder if he knew that I wasn’t going to be sprung today without supervision.
Did he have anything to do with this or was it all his daughter’s doing?
The questions that sprang to mind nearly made my head spin.
Did he recognize me? Did he know that his girl and I were ‘engaged?’
Dr. Ross sighed. “As long as he’s under supervision, I don’t mind him going home.”
I would’ve gone home whether he wanted me to or not…
“He’ll be with me, and my girl. My girl is exceptionally worried about him,” Layton drawled, his eyes coming to me.
I felt like an oily hand had just run down my arm, causing the hair on my arm to be rubbed the wrong way.
Yay.
I got to spend time with my worst enemy. The enemy. And the icing on the cake was that he has no fucking clue that I was someone he knew.
As if he’d fucked over so many people that I wasn’t even on his radar any longer.
It was goddamn annoying, was what it was.
Common decency would’ve been him at least remembering nearly taking a man’s ability to reproduce.
To give the man credit, though, I’d changed a lot from that little grunt that I’d been as a new recruit. The one he’d known.
This Rafe, the new Rafe? Nobody knew this Rafe.
And I’d be keeping it that way.
She knows you.
That stray thought felt like a lead anvil hitting me straight in the chest.
Nobody would ever know me like that—which was why I slammed the laptop shut and didn’t bother opening it back up again.
Not for a very long time.
Which was a huge fucking mistake.
Chapter 10
I have the patience of a saint. Saint Cunt McFuckoff.
-Coffee Cup
Rafe
Three weeks later
I went home to what should have been my empty house and instead found the she-devil standing at my door.
She had a baking dish in her hands, and she was smiling at me with a smile so white and bright that it was blinding.
I really, really disliked her.
But, after talking to Trace, I realized that I’d been working a job.
She was part of that job.
Lucky for me I’d been sharing my findings with Trace, otherwise, I’d be just as lost here with him as I was with the Janie girl.
The Janie girl that nobody seemed to want to tell me about.
It’d been a long three weeks, and still, to this day, I’d gotten nothing out of my friend.
Why, I couldn’t quite figure, but even Trace—my old good friend—wouldn’t say a word.
And when I asked, he’d give me the same spiel he’d given me the first time. “You’ll know when you’re meant to know, and not a moment before.”
The doctors had told me not to push my memory.
I’d remember when I remembered and pushing could actually set my recovery back even further.
Which I thought was a crock of shit, but again, I wasn’t the expert. Or, at least, that was what Trace kept telling me.
“Whatcha got there?” I called as I put the kickstand up on my bike.
Yes, I’d ridden the bike home in the middle of a rainstorm.
Seemed only fair
Angelina She-Devil Jolie, also known as Elspeth Trammel, smiled sweetly at me. “Pecan pie.”
Gross.
I grimaced and tried to give her a smile, but I couldn’t hack it.
“I’m sorry, Elspeth, but I’m not feeling all that well…” and I wasn’t. “I’m gonna have to take a shower and maybe go to bed. Can we do dinner tomorrow to make up for it?”
Elspeth frowned and scooted closer, bringing the smell of her disgusting pie with her.
The feeling of her hand on my hand felt like poison on my skin.
I’d watched a movie the night before on my phone during a stakeout of the Trammel residence, and a certain scene came to mind. The main two characters that were running for their lives through the woods and were being complete dumbasses about it.
They should’ve stayed where they were because they had protection at their backs, weapons at their fronts, light so they could see and strength in their numbers. But they decided to split up, two and two. Then they all ran into the fucking woods where it was dark, split up, and never once thought about looking up with their flashlights.
So, there they were, running with their stupid flashlights that barely illuminated three feet in front of them, and not goddamn once did they think to look up until they felt the alien’s saliva drip on their skin.
The alien’s saliva burned like acid…which was what Elspeth’s touch was reminding me of.
I pulled my arm back. “You should probably not get too close. Germs.”
She smiled at my suggestion.
“If I get sick, then you can just take care of me,” she suggested.
Yeah, fucking right.
I didn’t take care of anybody.
Except for maybe Janie.
She’d look a-fucking-dorable sick.
I’d totally sit next to her and willingly be in her germ
zone.
Why? I couldn’t tell you.
Which immediately pissed me off.
“Take care of yourself, Luis.”
Luis.
I gave her a fake smile and wrapped her in my arms, even though I felt like vomiting into her hair when her lips pressed against my neck.
To keep my mind off of the state of my stomach, I allowed my eyes to roam around the street, my eyes spotting a familiar car.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, sweetheart,” she whispered, pulling away.
Then she left with a small wave, leaving the stupid pie behind.
I didn’t so much as wait for her to get to her car before I headed inside and went straight to the bathroom for the shower that I’d been speaking of.
Once I had my clothes off, I got in the shower, my thoughts drifting to the car.
It was a familiar car, but I couldn’t say how I knew it.
Something about that car, though, brought up the stirring of memories that was making my heart pound.
And that pounding only showed up when I thought about her.
Janie.
***
Janie
The entire ride over I’d berated myself for showing up unannounced, but I had to talk to him. I had to know. I had to see.
What I saw made me realize that what I had with Rafe was gone.
He may not remember me, but he sure looked like he remembered her.
They looked happy.
I felt like my heart had just been ripped from my chest. As if someone had reached in, gripped it in their large fist, and squeezed as they ripped.
I didn’t look back as I started my car.
I didn’t think about him while I drove.
And I definitely didn’t think about his favorite coffee when I walked into my favorite little hole in the wall coffee shop that reminded me of him.
No. Not one single bit.
Also, that was a lie.
Everything was a lie.
I wasn’t sure that anything would ever be the truth again.
Chapter 11
Home: where the ho & me come together.
-Welcome Mat
Janie
One month later
It started out as an accident, at least on my part.
At first, I’d said yes to the coffee because he’d looked lost.
The day that I’d shown up for my coffee after seeing Rafe with that woman, I’d been lost. I must’ve looked lost, too, because a kindred soul had found me standing there. He’d asked to have a seat, and I’d shrugged.
I hadn’t really wanted to be alone, and this guy seemed harmless.
Wrong.
The second coffee date, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough either.
But, as the coffee dates wore on, I realized that they weren’t too bad. If he was lonely, who was I not to share a coffee with him? I was literally at the coffee shop anyway.
It was on the fifteenth such coffee date that he’d brought his mother. He’d brought his mother to introduce her to his girlfriend. Apparently, that would be me.
What the fuck?
Kayla had nearly cried as I’d recounted what had happened that day.
“You’re joking, right?” she’d wheezed. “Oh my God. You’re going to be stuck with the asshole forever if you don’t fix this right now.”
I had no idea how right she was.
See, in my quest to get over Rafe, I’d created a monster. A monster that talked, breathed, and spoke to me.
Tegan Aggrad, a twenty-eight-year-old police officer who worked with my father, wasn’t what I was looking for.
Yet, in my grief over what I’d seen with Rafe, I let it go too far.
“You want to meet my dad,” I said, surprised.
“Yes,” he said.
“You’ve already met him,” I told Tegan.
Yes, as my boyfriend, they hadn’t met.
But, at work, they had.
They knew of each other. They just hadn’t met each other outside of work in the form of us being boyfriend and girlfriend.
“Okay,” I hesitated. “Tomorrow?”
He shook his head. “Now.”
“Now,” I repeated, sounding like a parrot. “Ummm,” I hesitated. “I’m not sure if my dad’s home.”
He gave me a look that clearly said that I was purposefully stalling…which I was.
I didn’t want Tegan to come to my house. I most certainly didn’t want to introduce him to my family.
Yet, I couldn’t say no.
He gave me those puppy dog eyes, and I felt terrible.
“Fine,” I shrugged. “Let’s go. You can follow me home.”
Tegan opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off.
I knew exactly what he was going to say, “Let me take you home.”
My reply was always the same. “You’re not taking me home because I’m not leaving my car here.”
Yet, when I told him that, he’d then say, “Well you should’ve let me pick you up.”
Which I would then reply with, “I don’t want to be stuck there in case someone needs me.”
It always happened like that. Always.
So, I chose to circumvent it by getting into my car and slamming the door shut, effectively cutting him off before he could say anything more that had the possibility to annoy me.
He sighed and turned to leave, and I felt the nervous tick start.
I didn’t want him to come to meet my dad.
I didn’t want him to see where I lived, and I most certainly didn’t want to do anything that had to do with him getting any closer to me.
My house was my space. My sanctuary, and I didn’t want him in it.
Yet, as I pulled out of the driveway of the coffee shop, I didn’t speed in front of him so he couldn’t follow me home—though he probably knew where I lived as did the rest of the people in Kilgore.
Everything was okay, at least I felt like I was handling it okay until I pulled up to the gate that led inside and saw the familiar bike parked next to it.
I swallowed thickly as I pressed the opener and the gate started to slide open.
The man on the bike turned his head and looked at me, causing my breath to hitch.
I hadn’t seen him in a month, yet it felt like only seconds had passed.
He was still just as hot as he was the last time I saw him, though he had a scar on his forehead that came down out of his hairline thanks to being thrown across the room all those weeks ago.
“Janie,” he stared.
My heart soared as I thought he might’ve remembered, but when nothing more was forthcoming, I realized that he hadn’t remembered me. In fact, I was fairly certain he was just being nice as he said hello to someone.
“Hi,” I smiled…or tried to anyway. “Can’t get in?”
He shook his head. “Rang the bell. Have some news. Been sitting here for about fifteen minutes now.”
I fucking hated my family sometimes.
They thought it was funny, leaving him outside like this.
Yet it wasn’t funny.
It pissed me off.
Greatly.
“Who is this?” Tegan’s voice came from behind me, causing me to jump in my seat.
I leaned a little farther out of my car to see Tegan standing beside his open door, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
I could practically read the anger rolling off of him as he stared at Rafe, who hadn’t been startled by Tegan’s appearance, and who also was still semi slouched on his bike looking bored.
“This is Rafe,” I said. “Head on in. The door will close in about thirty seconds.”
Rafe didn’t bother to waste time. He dropped his foot, leaned the bike up straight, and then kicked the kickstand back before starting it up.
The familiar roar of the bike had me smiling as I watched him ride inside, and when I followed shortly after him, I
completely missed the anger that flashed in Tegan’s eyes.
I also missed the way his hands fisted, mostly because I was staring at the back of Rafe’s head.
He looked good.
Very good.
And my heart fucking hurt just having him in the same vicinity as me.
I wanted him more than I wanted my next breath.
***
Rafe
I clocked him out of the corner of my eye as he’d pulled in, but my entire being had been solely focused on the woman. Janie.
I had forced myself not to look at her, check up on her, or see her for the last month purely because I knew that I didn’t need to be doing what I was doing.
I still hadn’t remembered anything about our time together—and I knew for certain we’d spent some time together.
One didn’t feel this strongly about a person if there’d only been an introduction.
Yet, nobody said a word to me about Janie. In fact, she was never brought up. Not ever.
Not when I was in the room with her father and the rest of the men of Free. Not when I spoke with Trace, and most certainly not now when she was standing there looking at me.
I got off my bike and waited for Janie to get out of her car—a car that looked familiar, yet I couldn’t figure out why.
“Come on,” she gestured to me, heading for the door to the offices.
I’d been here before, of course, but nothing felt familiar as I walked with them.
“How’s Elspeth?” Janie asked, sounding like she’d rather be asking anything other than that.
“Fine,” I murmured, annoyed to hear about my fake fiancé. “She’s working.”
Janie’s face fell.
“Why do I feel like I know you?” I whispered.
Her eyes widened. “Because you…”
“Janie,” Tegan, the twat whistle, called. “I’d like to meet your dad before I have to go to work.”
I gritted my teeth as her eyes widened. “Do you need Uncle Sam? Or do you need them all?”
I clearly read the change in subject. “One of them is fine for now,” I offered.
Janie grinned. “My dad is on his way.”
“That’s fine,” I murmured.
“Your dad will be here soon?” Tegan asked, even though Janie had just stated that fact.
“He’s coming,” Janie snapped. “He said he’d be here in about five minutes. He was walking my dogs for me.”
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