by Cole Gibsen
I giggled, and the knot of tension inside me dissolved. Once we’d made it down the hall, he pulled me inside my bedroom, shut the door, and leaned against it with folded arms. “Want to tell me what that was about?”
“Meh.” I flopped onto my bed. “Any chance we can skip Dr. Q’s psychoanalysis and move onto the cupcake-eating portion of the night?”
“Are there any red velvet?”
I snorted. “How long have we been friends? Do you think there was any chance there wouldn’t be red velvet?”
“You don’t like red velvet.”
“True. But I like you.”
His arms fell to his side. “Rileigh, I’m so sor—”
“Don’t!” I sat up. “If you apologize to me one more time, I swear I’ll punch you. What happened to Kim was not your fault.” I patted the bed beside me.
Q sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. He shuffled over to my bed and plunked down beside me. “If it’s not my fault, why do I feel so terrible? Sometimes, I think maybe you should punch me—because I deserve it. I took away the love of your life.”
“No.” I rested my head on his shoulder. “You saved him. And me. The only thing you deserve is a mountain of cupcakes served on a platter by one of my mom’s underwear models.”
He laughed. “Well, you get on that.”
I smirked. “That’s what she said.”
“Not in my world.” He grinned mischievously and threw an arm around my shoulder. “Now, want to tell me why you were making the ‘Rileigh Martin Fists of Fury’ at poor Lisa Pope?”
“Lisa! I knew it started with an L!”
Q shook his head, his chin bristling the hairs on the crown of my head. “You’re avoiding the question.”
“I’m not avoiding anything.”
Q snorted.
I scowled up at him. “It’s just that Lisa was talking about college and when I told her where I was going … ” The words died on my tongue and I shrugged. “Am I making a mistake?”
“What do you mean?”
“I could go away, you know. I received acceptance letters from colleges across the country but … I … ” I shook my head.
Q nodding knowingly. “You can’t leave him.”
“I can’t. But at the same time, I know I can’t put my life on hold for something that might never be.” A dull ache throbbed inside me. “He might never remember me, Q. I know that. But I can’t let go. At least, not yet.”
“Oh, honey.” Q gave me a tight squeeze. “Nobody expects you to let go.”
A girl’s high-pitched laugh breached the door, and I went rigid beside him. “I know Debbie meant well, and it is graduation and all, but I’m just not in the mood for a party.”
He glanced down at me as a smile slowly uncurled on his lips. “Your wish is my command.” He stood suddenly, leaving me scrambling to gather my balance before I face-planted on the bed.
“What are you going to do?”
He walked to my closet and threw the doors open. He pulled two blankets from the top shelf and rushed over to me where he dumped them in my lap.
I raised an eyebrow. “Q?”
“Take the blankets to the roof. You, me, and the rest of the samurai will have our own party. We can just chill outside, watch the stars, talk, whatever! It will be great.”
It really did sound great. But there was a problem. “What about all the people here? Debbie will freak if I leave my own party.”
He waved a hand through the air. “That’s the easy part. I’ll tell them that Kara Littner’s party has Jell-O shots. This place will be cleared out in ten minutes flat.”
I blinked at him. “Q, you’re a genius.”
“I know.” He pulled me to my feet. “Now take the blankets to the roof. I’ll tell Drew, Braden, and Michelle the plan and get them spreading the rumor. When everyone’s gone, we’ll come up.” He opened my bedroom door and pushed me into the hallway, right in front of my mom.
Debbie arched a perfectly manicured eyebrow and folded her arms across her chest. “Rileigh, what are you doing with those blankets?” Beside her stood her boyfriend—and Network official—Dr. Jason Wendell. The look on his face was far more suspicious than Debbie’s accusatory glare.
“Um.” I cleared my throat. Think, Rileigh! What plausible reason could I have for carrying blankets out into a party? I smelled smoke and thought I’d tear these blankets into strips and tie them into a rope so we could escape. No. Two blankets would never make enough rope to reach the road from our twelfth-floor condo. Maybe, Me and my classmates were feeling nostalgic and thought we’d reenact the team-building parachute fun we had in elementary school gym class.
I bit my lip. Of the two, the latter had more credibility. But before I could speak, Q swept to my side. “Get back, Deb.” He shoved me between the shoulder blades, making me stumble forward. “We found Terrance McGill sitting on Rileigh’s bed and rumor has it”—he lowered his voice conspiratorially—“he has bedbugs.”
“Dear God!” Debbie jerked back. “Rileigh, take those to the trash chute immediately. We’ll buy you a new bed set tomorrow.”
“Will do.” Q and I exchanged sly grins.
Dr. Wendell’s frown deepened, but I ignored him as I brushed past. He controlled my Network assignments, but he certainly didn’t have any say in how I spent time at my own party.
Q and I emerged from the hall. Michelle caught sight of us and wandered over. “What are you guys doing with the blankets?”
Q wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “We’re starting our own private party on the roof. But first, I need you, Braden, and Drew to help me clear the room. Get the guys and meet me by the kitchen bar. I’ll give you the details there.”
She smiled. “Sounds like fun!” She spun on her heels and disappeared into the throng of students.
Q turned to me. “Okay. You go to the roof and we’ll meet you there in ten.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder. “You are the best friend a girl could have.”
“I know. Now get out of here.” He gave me a gentle shove toward the door.
“Okay, I’m going.” I took a step forward and stopped. “Bring me up a nacho plate? With extra—”
“Jalapeños,” he finished. “Fine. Now go!”
Giggling, I turned back to the door. Only a true friend would kick you out of your own party with the promise of extra jalapeños.
The night was most definitely looking up.
I spread the blankets out on the roof and sat, leaning on my hands so I could tip back my head and look at the sky. The city lights masked the glow of stars. Even so, the sky was remarkably clear, a velvet blanket of black just waiting to envelop me.
I crossed my ankles and sighed happily. The night’s chill would soon be gone, replaced by the sticky summer humidity that always made me long for cooler climates.
If you hate the weather so much, you could have picked a college up north. You could have picked a college anywhere.
I flopped back on the blanket and threw my arm over my face in an attempt to drown out the nagging voice of doubt that had plagued me ever since I decided to stay in St. Louis. It wasn’t like I’d based my decision solely on Kim. The other samurai were here, as well as Dr. Wendell and my work with the Network. Staying was the right decision.
So why did it feel so wrong?
The rooftop door behind me squealed open and shut with a soft click. I didn’t bother to move my arm from my face as rubber-soled shoes padded across the concrete. “Did you remember to bring my nachos?” I asked.
“Extra jalapeños?” A distinctively not-Quentin voice responded—a voice I hadn’t heard since prom. I sat up with a gasp and spun around on the blanket. I blinked several times to ensure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. “Kim?”
He stood silently, wearing jeans and a tig
ht black T-shirt. His hands were shoved into his pockets.
I cautiously climbed to my feet. A fluttering sensation like thousands of flying cherry blossom petals blew through my stomach. As much as I wanted to hope and believe it to be true, I knew the guy standing before me wasn’t my Kim—the samurai who shared a lifetime of memories with me, the samurai who held my heart.
This Kim—well, I loved him just as much, but because I knew my love was one-sided—his presence filled me with a hollow ache. “W-what are you doing here?”
The muscles along his jaw tightened before he spoke. “You never returned my calls after prom.”
“Yeah … ” I dropped my eyes to the toes of the ballet flats I wore because Debbie didn’t think sneakers were appropriate party attire. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you back. It’s not that I didn’t have a great time and all, but—”
“But what?” He moved closer. The smell of his sandalwood cologne enveloped me, threatening to pull me into a pit of memories I wasn’t sure I’d be able to dig out of.
I stepped back. “But … I lost someone really important to me recently and … I guess I’m just not ready for a relationship. I’m not over him.”
“That’s good.” He pulled his hands from his pockets and grabbed my arms, his touch electrifying my skin. “Because I’m not over you.”
My pulse thrummed inside my head. This couldn’t be real. Maybe I’d fallen asleep on the blanket and was dreaming. “What are you talking about?”
He placed his hands on either side of my face and drew me forward so that only a breath separated his lips from mine. “I remember, Rileigh. I remember everything.”
Before I could respond, his lips were on mine, kissing me in such a way that I knew—without a doubt—my Kim was back.
5
I pulled away from his kiss with a gasp and brought my hands to his face, wanting to feel with my fingers what my eyes refused to believe. “Is it really you?”
“Yes.” He placed his hand over mine and drew them toward his lips, kissing the inside of my wrists.
Delicious shivers ran down my arms and along my spine. I blinked rapidly, trying to sort through the mess of emotions tumbling inside me. “How? Your memories—Q erased them and—”
His lips met mine again and swallowed my words. He could have them. When he’d lost his memory of the past—of me—I thought I’d lost a piece of my heart. But now I realized it hadn’t been lost, only missing. And now that it was back, words no longer mattered.
“When I went to bed last night, my dreams were filled with past-life memories,” he said. “And when I woke up, it all clicked into place. I remembered everything.”
“That’s incredible.” I slid my hands to his neck and pressed myself against him, wanting to feel the thrum of his pulse as proof that I wasn’t dreaming. He responded by snaking his arms around my waist and pulling tight, as if by sheer force we could fuse ourselves together to prevent ever being torn apart again. His head was low so his breath tickled along my neck. “I warned you I would never let go.”
A strange sort of hiccup escaped my lips, a cross between a laugh and sob as I remembered when he spoke those words to me nearly a year ago when I was the one who didn’t remember him. So many things had transpired since that meeting—so many attempts by others to keep us apart and yet, finally, here we were.
Behind us, the metal door leading into the building screeched open, and Kim and I jerked apart. Still, he slipped his fingers through mine as if unable to fully let go.
“What the—?” Q stood in the doorway with his mouth open, balancing a plate of nachos in one hand and holding the door open with his other. Braden and Michelle peered over his shoulders, their lips parting in unison.
“What’s the hold-up?” Drew called from behind them. He appeared a second later but jerked to a halt the moment he stepped around Q. His eyes traveled from me to Kim to our interlacing fingers. “I don’t understand … ”
Kim smiled. “Brother. It’s so good to see you again.”
Drew staggered back a step, nearly colliding with the nachos teetering in Q’s grip. Michelle darted forward and placed her hands under the nachos, preparing to catch them.
“Please tell me this is you—really you.” Drew spoke slowly, as if choosing his words carefully. “This last month, thinking that I’d lost you forever—”
“You’ve lost nothing,” Kim said. “I remember everything—from this life and the last.”
Without warning, Drew launched himself at Kim. I released his hand and darted out of the way before I became the mustard in one very beefy sandwich. Michelle squealed, and Braden laughed out loud as they rushed to join the group hug. Someone snagged me by the arm and pulled me into the mass of laughter and tangled limbs.
Warmth radiated throughout my body as I clung to my friends. It was crazy to think that only moments ago I wasn’t sure if this day would ever come. And now, everything was perfect, or at least thought so until I noticed a distinct absence from our group.
“Q?” Carefully, I untangled myself from the knot of arms and backed away from the samurai. Q hadn’t moved from his spot at the door, only now the nachos were scattered at his feet. Lines of worry etched across his brow.
“What’s wrong?” I took a step toward him. “Isn’t it great that Kim’s back?”
Q blinked several times before answering. “Of course it’s great.” He gave a weak smile.
“Really?” I crossed my arms. “Because you’re wearing the same expression that I have right before I get a cavity filled.”
“I know. It’s just—” He looked to the sky, as if searching for the words. “It’s just—if Kim remembers … ” He sighed and ran his hands through his hair.
“If Kim remembers … ” I prompted.
“There’s something wrong with my memories?” Kim asked.
Startled, I looked to my right to find Kim beside me. I’d forgotten how supernaturally quick he could be. Michelle, Braden, and Drew stood behind him, the smiles gone from their faces.
“No!” Quentin shook his head rapidly. “There’s nothing wrong with your memories. I wasn’t sure you’d ever get them back. Rileigh’s missed you so much—everyone has.”
I hugged arms across my chest to ward off the chill creeping down my spine. Something wasn’t right. Kim glanced at me and, given his tightly pressed lips, I knew he felt it too. “I sense there’s a big but coming, Q.”
“You’re right.” He nodded. “And I’m not saying that something is wrong, but I was thinking—and this is just a theory because I’m pretty new to this healer stuff.” He licked his lips. “You guys know I don’t fully understand the extent of my powers. And the night I’d erased Kim’s memory by mistake, I’d only known about my powers a couple of days. I had no idea if my attempt to wipe Sumi’s memory would even work, and if it did, how long it would last. Now that Kim has his memories back … ” He shrugged helplessly.
The meaning of his words hit me like an axe-kick to the gut and I grabbed onto Kim’s arm to steady myself. “Son of hibachi.”
Kim’s head jerked back as if he’d also been struck. “You mean—”
Q nodded. “Exactly.”
Michelle brought a hand to her mouth, and Drew went rigid beside her.
Braden looked at everyone and frowned. “I’m sorry, am I missing something? Kim’s memory is back. I fail to see the problem.”
Michelle dropped her hand, her skin visibly paler. “Quentin is worried because he erased two sets of memories that night. If one person got their memory back, it’s only logical that the other person would have too.”
Braden’s eyes widened. “No. Oh, God. You mean … her?”
“Sumi.” Kim spit her name through clenched teeth. Afterward he grimaced, as if the word alone left a foul taste on his tongue.
My fingers reflexively curled int
o fists. “If she has her memories back, she’s going to be pretty pissed we took them away in the first place.”
“Agreed.” Kim nodded. “She’ll want revenge. And the first ones she’ll come after will be you two.” He motioned to Q and me.
Q and I exchanged uneasy glances.
Drew folded his arms across his chest. “This is serious.”
Angry heat flushed beneath my skin. It wasn’t fair. I’d only just gotten Kim back and five seconds later we had to deal with Sumi. For the millionth time, I wished I could have a normal relationship—one where I didn’t have to worry about my boyfriend’s psycho ex-fiancée trying to kill me. “It is serious,” I agreed. “Sumi’s tough, conniving, and let’s not forget how annoying it was that she kept sending ninja to kill me. But Q and I handled her once. We can handle her again.”
Q shot me a skeptical look.
“Rileigh.” Kim shook his head. “I’m afraid you got lucky last time. She was able to alter our minds, to make us all think we hated you, with only a fraction of her powers. Now she’ll be coming at you with her full powers—”
“Which means she’ll be close to unstoppable,” Q added.
Kim nodded, his lips forming a grim line.
I gave a frustrated laugh. “So what are you saying? We’re dead no matter what, so we shouldn’t even bother to fight back?”
“No.” He raised his hands. “That’s not what I’m saying at all—the opposite, in fact. If we have any hope of taking down Sumi once and for all, we’re going to need backup.”
My stomach dropped. “Oh no. Isn’t there another option? Some other solution we haven’t explored? I hear honey badgers are pretty good fighters. Maybe we can have one shipped to us and—”
“I’m sorry, Rileigh.” He shook his head. “But desperate times call for desperate measures. Your safety is something I won’t risk.”
“Son of hibachi,” I grumbled.
“Do you want me to get him?” Michelle pointed to the door.
Before Kim could answer, I raised my hand to stop him. “Don’t bother. I’ll do it.” With a sigh, I began a slow march to the stairs. The man was like a wart, annoyingly embedded into my life. When I alerted him to the new situation, it certainly wasn’t going to help get him out of my business. But there was no denying we needed his help.
