Lost In Me (Here and Now)

by Ryan, Lexi

  “My memories are starting to come back.”

  “More since last time?”

  I nod. “It’s weird, you know. I get these snippets, and a lot of them are insignificant. I remember jogging with Max in the mornings. I remember going into his gym and asking him to train me. I remember the first time he kissed me at the winter gallery opening.”

  “Anything about Nate?”

  I shake my head. “And nothing to make me think I would have had a reason to cheat on Max.” Except for my profound insecurity.

  What if I never got over that feeling that I wasn’t good enough for Max? What if those feelings made me do something really stupid? And what about Valentine’s Day, when he left me alone to take care of Meredith? Is that just the price of dating a good guy? Or was something going on there?

  She taps her knee thoughtfully. “None of this makes sense. Cheating? That’s just not in character for you. Maybe you didn’t realize things with Max were going anywhere. Maybe you didn’t think he was serious about you.”

  “You forget that he proposed three months ago.”

  “Crap. That’s right.”

  “Girls!” Mom calls from downstairs. “What are you doing up there? Come down to the party!”

  “Coming!” I call back.

  Lizzy’s staring at me. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? Not all the memory loss and bad crap, but marrying Max? Is this what you want?”

  “Of course.” But in that moment, with everyone waiting downstairs to congratulate me and ask questions about how many babies we plan to have, I’m not sure if this is really what I want or what I should want.

  MAX PROPS his bare feet on my coffee table and sips a beer. I had no idea a man’s bare feet could be so damn sexy.

  The engagement party couldn’t have gone any better, but I’m glad it’s over. As soon as we got back to my apartment, all my fears and insecurities faded away. Because Max makes me feel good.

  “I hear you picked out a dress last week,” Max says.

  “I’m not sure if I picked it out or my mom did, but that’s more or less true.”

  He frowns. “Do you like it?”

  “It’s beautiful, and hopefully you will like it.”

  I take the beer from his hands and set it on the end table before straddling him. I’m still in the red dress, in no hurry to put an end to the way his eyes roam over me while I’m wearing it.

  I sink onto his lap, my knees on either side of his hips. His gaze floats down to the dress’s low neckline and he swallows.

  “I’ve missed you this last week.” I rub my fingers over the stubble of his jaw. “Are you working a lot more than usual or is this normal?”

  He shrugs. “Money’s a little tight and I had to let a couple of part-timers go. Summer’s always slow. It’ll pick up when the semester starts and the Sinclair students decide they want to work out in something nicer than the dungeon that the college tries to pass off as a gym.”

  “Hmm. Well, we’ll have to figure out how I can see you more.”

  “When your doctor says it’s okay, we’ll run together again. That was always us time.”

  I arch a brow. “No offense to your very healthy-sounding plans, but I had a different kind of exercise in mind.”

  His eyes darken, his pupils dilating, and I slip the dress’s thin straps from my shoulders.

  He slides his hands under the soft cotton and cups my ass. “Hanna?”

  “Mmm?” My eyes float closed as his fingers massage into tight muscles.

  “What happened to your underwear?”

  I look up at him through my lashes. “I took them off when I got home. Seemed like they might just be in the way.”

  I kiss the corner of his mouth, the stubble at the edge of his jaw, and open my mouth against his neck. He yanks my hips forward and lifts his in one liquid movement, pressing my exposed sex to the hard denim of his jeans.

  “You know the worst thing about our night in the steam room?”

  I pull back. “I didn’t know there was a worst thing.”

  “Oh, there was something.” He traces my bottom lip with his thumb. “I couldn’t see you. I want to see you.”

  He wraps his arms around me and stands. I squeak and wrap my legs around him, locking my ankles behind his back to hold on.

  He carries me to the bedroom, lowers me to the bed, and clicks on the light on the bedside table.

  Slowly, he trails his gaze over me, from my red-painted toenails to my thighs. I lift off the bed as he grips the hem of the dress and pulls it off over my head. His eyes are hot when they return to mine. Hot and needy. It takes my breath.

  He pulls off his shirt and climbs next to me in his jeans. I wish he’d get naked, but his hands are on me before I can ask, his fingers following the path his eyes just took—from my toes, up my calves, to my thighs. He hesitates between my legs and skims a finger right over my center before resuming his northward journey over my navel and to my breasts.

  I’m already wet and aching and breathing heavily, and he hasn’t done anything but skim his fingers over me.

  “Tell me what you like.”

  What I like? Who would know that better than him? “I just—”

  His phone beeps and buzzes from his pocket. “Sorry.” He digs it out and tosses it on the floor without looking at it. “You were saying?”

  I shrug, suddenly self-conscious. “You. That’s what I like. Just you.”

  He groans and lowers his mouth to mine, one leg nestled between my thighs.

  His phone beeps and buzzes again, clattering against the floor.

  “You should check that,” I say against his lips.

  He exhales heavily and climbs off me to retrieve it, but when he looks at the screen, something in his face changes. “I’m so sorry. I’m going to have to go.” He taps the screen and shoves the phone back into his pocket. When he looks at me again, he rakes his gaze over me and shakes his head. “I don’t want to, but I have to.”

  I push onto my elbows and frown. “What’s wrong? Who was that?”

  “It’s a friend.” He grabs his shirt off the floor and tugs it on over his head. “I’ll fill you in on the details later, but I have to go help her out.”

  Her? My hands shake as I pull my dress back on and follow him to the door. He shoves his feet into his shoes, and my stomach twists. My voice is weak when I ask, “Who?”

  I can tell by the way he stiffens that I’m not going to like the answer. “Meredith.”

  The name hits me like a punch in the gut. Meredith. My mind conjures the images of him leaving on Valentine’s Day. His sweet attention completely diverted the moment she texted. The way he hurried out the door when she needed him. And now, on the night of our fucking engagement party, he’s going to her.

  “What does she need?” I ask, but my question is masked by the ringing of his phone.

  “I love you.” He presses a kiss to my forehead and pulls his phone from his pocket. “Hey… Yeah, I’m on my way.”

  Then he’s out the door.

  I watch him jog down the stairs, the phone to his ear the whole time. When he disappears around the corner, I return to my apartment. Breathe. Just breathe.

  But the reminder doesn’t help, and I have to rush to the bathroom to throw up.

  I never thought I’d be engaged to a man I couldn’t trust. I never thought I would doubt Max of all people. He hasn’t done anything to deserve my suspicion, but I can’t help it. The old insecurity is back, and it doesn’t matter what I look like now or how many pounds I lost, because Meredith is everything I’ll never be. Blond, slim, the kind of woman men’s eyes go to when she enters a room.

  And to top it off, she’s a complete bitch. William Bailey dated her for a while before Cally came back in town, and when he broke it off for his first love, Meredith got artificially inseminated and let everyone in town think it was Will’s baby.

  After brushing my teeth and settling my angry stomach with Sprite, I found my
underwear—so much for that seduction plan—and a pair of canvas flats and started walking.

  Nothing calms me like the sound of the river, so I hit the path behind the bakery. Three times, I’ve pulled up Max’s number on my phone, ready to call him and demand answers. Three times, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to be that girl. Insecure. Untrusting. He’s marrying me, isn’t he? And if he were doing something wrong, would he have told me where he was going?

  I pull off my shoes and walk in the cool grass, the stars mocking me from above with their happy twinkling. I don’t know how long I walk or how far, but by the time I’ve left the center of town and can see my mom’s house in the distance, the bottoms of my feet are raw from walking barefoot.

  In front of me lies the empty expanse of Mom’s backyard. The party is over. The band’s been packed up, the decorations taken down. All like it never existed.

  I’m not ready to return to my apartment yet, so I stop at the dock just between Mom’s and Asher’s adjoining properties.

  I sink onto the wooden planks, wrap my arms around my knees, lean my head against them, and tell myself everything is going to be okay.

  I focus on breathing. In. And out. In. And out.

  “You planning on sleeping there or just staying long enough to ruin that sexy dress?”

  I lift my head to see a dark figure leaning against the rail at the end of the dock. I blink until Nate Crane comes into focus. He takes a drag off a cigarette—no, not a cigarette, a joint. I sneer in disgust. I hate drugs. I have no use for people who can’t think of any better way to entertain themselves.

  “You planning on getting stoned the rest of your life or actually doing something meaningful?”

  He steps closer, and in the light of the moon, I can make out the half smirk, half smile on his lips. “Asher and Maggie invited me to your engagement party tonight, but I decided being stoned and useless would be more enjoyable. So would Chinese water torture, come to think of it. Looks like maybe you feel the same.” He takes another step closer and offers the joint.

  “Fuck no.” I wave away the puff of smoke left behind and cough for good measure.

  “Suit yourself,” he murmurs. He shifts his gaze back to the river, but instead of taking another drag, he pinches off the glowing tip into the water and tucks the rest into his pocket. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I sound like a sulking teenager.

  He arches a brow but doesn’t press.

  Releasing my knees, I pull myself up and stand beside him at the rail. “That first weekend we met, did I tell you about how much I wanted to open a bakery?”

  “You did.”

  I have to ask. “And you wanted me to do it?”

  “I told you I thought you should.” A frog sings in the distance, filling the silence. “You have talent.”

  “I love it, you know. Every time I walk in, I smile.”

  “Glad to hear it.” There’s a rough, pained edge to his words.

  “And you made sure I had a chance,” I say matter-of-factly.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Clearly he’s not interested in changing the “anonymous” part of our arrangement, and I’m too grateful to push the issue, but I can’t help the sigh that slips from my lips. “I feel like everyone knows more about my life than I do.”

  He looks out over the water. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything,” I whisper.

  “Why?” If an open wound has a sound, it’s the sound of his voice right now.

  “You have no idea what it’s like to be missing pieces of your memory, to feel like your own body is failing you.”

  He grunts. “Do you remember anything from our time together?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Will it come back?”

  The wind shifts, and a cloud blocks the moon and cloaks us in darkness. I’m standing in the dark with a man who’s a stranger to me. I should be uncomfortable—cautious at the very least. Instead, my muscles relax incrementally. There’s something comforting about darkness, about not being seen.

  “The doctor says it’s hard to say at this point,” I say. “Maybe, maybe not. The closer the memory is to the time of my accident, the less likely I am to remember it. Maybe I won’t ever remember you. Maybe if you hadn’t climbed into bed with me two weeks ago, I’d never have known about us.”

  “My life’s biggest regret,” he murmurs.

  I wince. If he’d slapped me, it would have hurt less. “I’m your biggest regret?”

  “No.” He growls the word then takes a breath. “I’m not this great guy. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Done a lot of shitty things, made a lot of selfish choices. But in the end, it’s all worked out.”

  I wish I could see his face, read the nuance of his expression. Instead, he’s only a silhouette in the night, and I’m left with nothing but his words and the low rumble of his voice.

  “I don’t regret much,” he explains. “But I do regret crawling into bed with you when I came to town.” He looks to the sky. “Your amnesia was a gift that I fucked up.”

  “You wanted me to forget you?”

  His chest expands on his inhale, and I have to fight this irrational desire to lean my head against him. To comfort him with my presence, despite what he’s saying. “It would be…easier.”

  “I’m not going to bother you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I won’t be the girl who runs to the tabloids to tell about her hot night with Nate Crane.”

  “Hanna.” He takes my shoulders and turns me to face him. He studies me for a beat. Two. Like he’s trying to solve a puzzle and the answer is in my eyes. Then he drops his hands and turns away again. While he stares out into the stillness of the night, I’m left to guess what he might have been about to say.

  “I might not remember what happened between us, but I feel something…” I make a fist and press it to my chest. “Something here. Every time you’re close.”

  “And what about him? Do you feel it when he’s close?”

  Hot tears sting the backs of my eyes and I nod. “I do.”

  “There’s your answer.” His gaze settles on my hand, his eyes burning into the ring on my finger. “That’s all you need to know.”

  “But I don’t even remember putting it on. How can I trust a decision I don’t remember making?” My question is punctuated by a distant owl call.

  “You’re the smartest girl I know. I trust your decision. Maybe you should too.”

  “I need to know something first.”

  He hangs his head. “You should talk to your fiancé.”

  “Did I sleep with you?”

  The clouds shift again, and the moonlight casts shadows on the beautiful hard angles of his face. My heart pounds hard as he steps closer. He tilts my chin up until my eyes are on his.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think we all make mistakes.”

  Something flashes in his eyes, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared, his expression whitewashed by that stoner-may-care blankness.

  I have to repeat the question. If I don’t, I might lose my nerve and run away without hearing the answer. “Did we have sex?”

  “No. We didn’t.”

  There’s no relief at his words. Not really. Only emptiness. Any way you paint it, I still betrayed my fiancé. I’ve been promising myself I’d tell Max the truth if I learned that I slept with Nate. Maybe I wanted the excuse to confess.

  “Goodnight, angel.”

  “Don’t go.”

  He closes his eyes, and I can’t help myself anymore. I touch his face, carefully, tentatively. He stands stock-still as I skim my fingertips over the rough stubble of his cheek, study him while his eyes are closed. Then I just hold there, neither of us moving or breathing. Caught in the moment and the moonlight.

  When he opens his eyes, they’re filled with pain. With longing. Is that real, or am I seeing what I want to believe?
He’s as much a mystery to me as this connection between us.

  He parts his lips and his eyes lock with mine. Just when I think we might stand here forever, a tragic tableau of secrets and heartache, he shifts a fraction of an inch and leans into my touch.

  “Dammit, Hanna.” The words are soft, tortured. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Kiss me.” And I can’t believe what I’m asking, but the command is out there and I can’t take it back. I don’t want to.

  “How am I supposed to say no to that?”

  “You’re not.”

  His gaze dips to my lips, and my heart races. A pace so painful and violent I fear it might burst from my chest right here and fall to his feet.

  As his mouth moves toward mine, a sense of calm washes over me. My shoulders drop. My breathing slows. For a moment, my past doesn’t matter. My future doesn’t matter. Only here. Only now.

  When his lips are so close I can almost taste him, he squeezes his eyes shut and leans his forehead against mine. “I love you too much to screw this up for you. I love you too much to let you beat yourself up over a stupid kiss.” He staggers back.

  “I’m sorry.” My hand goes to my mouth. Shame washes over me, a hot rush followed by the icy-cold grip of loneliness. “I shouldn’t have… I don’t know why—”

  “Go home, Hanna. Go be with your future husband.”

  “HAS ANYONE ever told you that you work too much?” Max asks as the front door swings closed behind him.

  I hand Mrs. Oaks her non-fat cappuccino and smile for her benefit as I say, “Takes one to know one.”

  She smiles back. “Could I also have the rest of your cheese Danishes, sweetheart?”

  “Of course!” I grab a box off the shelf behind me and fill it.

  “I’m going to surprise the ladies at Bible study with them,” Mrs. Oaks says as I ring her up. “I brought them chocolate croissants last week, and you’d have thought I brought them each a piece of the moon.”

  “You’re too sweet!”

  “It’s all true.” She pays and tucks the box under her arm. “You two have a lovely day. Tell your mom I said hi, Hanna.”

  “I will. Thanks.”