by Lane Hart
Sage
The doctor keeps asking me questions, ones that should be easy, but I don’t feel like answering because my head is beginning to throb so goddamn hard.
“Look, can we take a break and finish this tomorrow?” I finally ask him. “I’m tired and just want some sleep.”
“I believe Sage may be experiencing a post-traumatic amnesia,” the doctor advises all of us still gathered in the room.
“Will it improve?” my mom asks him.
“It should, yes,” he replies. “In a few hours or days. We have no way of knowing just how long it will take. At this time, I wouldn’t be concerned. If it goes on for more than a week; however, I will want to rerun some of our tests to look for any permanent damage. For now, he needs to rest; but with the concussion, he needs to be woken up every hour tonight,” the doctor tells my parents. “Is someone going to stay with him?”
“My girlfriend Eden is staying,” I speak up to inform him. “You’ll wake me up, won’t you?”
“Ah…” Eden starts before my mom chimes in.
“I’ll stay tonight, honey,” she offers.
“No, mom. You’re a mess, and I’m not a child, remember? Legally eighteen now,” I remark, which for some reason makes her start to cry again.
“Dad, please…” I beg him to do something with her. I hate seeing her so upset.
“Ah, we’re in Fairfax, several hours away from Raleigh,” Dad says, making me feel like an idiot.
“Oh. Right. Well, then get a hotel. Just let me have some peace!” I exclaim. Everyone is telling me so much shit, I can’t keep it all straight. For some reason, I’m also feeling crankier than usual.
“Fine, we’ll go,” Dad says, putting his arm around Mom to steer her toward the door. “Call us if anything changes,” he says to Eden, who nods.
“You’re seriously going to stay with him?” Tal asks, sounding…annoyed for some reason. “I can stay.”
“No, go get some sleep. There’s nowhere for you to sleep in here except the chair, but Eden can climb in bed with me,” I explain.
Tal’s face brightens to the shade of a tomato while his fists clench by his side. He looks like he’s about to explode, which, when he fights, means he doesn’t stop until he knocks his opponent out.
Eden turns to him and throws her arm around his neck, whispering something to him that has him leaving.
Finally, the doctor and nurse finish their shit and leave us alone together, turning off all the lights except for the soft one over the bed.
“Come on up here. You must be exhausted too,” I say, sliding over and patting the space on the mattress next to me for Eden.
Her chocolate brown eyes look so eager while at the same time she’s biting down on her bottom lip.
“Are you sure?” she asks.
“Hell yes. Get up here, baby.”
She nods and toes off her shoes before slowly climbing into the bed, like she’s being careful not to touch me.
“Closer,” I tell her. Rolling to my side, I reach over to grab her waist and pull the front of her body to mine. Burying my nose in her dark brown hair, sucking in her familiar sweet citrus scent, I tell her, “You know I love to cuddle.”
“Uh-huh. I remember,” she replies softly.
My palm rubs up and down her back before moving lower to squeeze the plump part of her amazing ass, making her gasp. That’s all it takes to make me get hard as a rock.
Grabbing Eden’s thigh, I lift it over mine to line up our lower bodies so she can feel how much I want her.
“God, I need you,” I tell her as an urgent desperation comes over me. My lips in her hair move lower, kissing her forehead and then her cheek and nose before devouring her mouth. It takes some prodding and urging to get Eden to participate, probably because she’s worried someone will come in and catch us, but finally she gives in. Her tongue brushes against mine over and over as my hips start to rock into hers.
Slipping my hand up the bottom of her shirt, I cup her right tit and give it a squeeze. “Lock the door and ride me,” I whisper against her lips.
Eden breaks the kiss entirely and scoots her body away before she says, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” I ask, reaching to pull her back to me again and kiss her cheek. “Afraid someone will catch us? My parents are gone, even though they have to know by now what we do when we’re alone. They don’t care as long as we’re careful.”
“Ah, no, it’s not that,” she replies, and then she’s kissing me again with tongue, hard. “Shit!” she says when she abruptly stops again. “We can’t. You’re hurt. Strenuous activity is probably not a good idea right now.”
“Sure, it is,” I say. Reaching for her hand, I shove it under the hospital gown that I’m naked under and put it on my cock. “I’m already hurting, baby.”
“Then…then let me just take care of you tonight,” Eden says as her fingers tighten around my shaft and she begins stroking me faster.
My eyelids drift closed as a groan of pleasure leaves my lips before my fingers fumble for the button and zipper on her pants.
“You know that’s…not how…this works,” I tell her as I cover her mouth with mine to smother her loud moan when my fingers dip into her panties and find her swollen clit.
After that we’re just two frantic bodies attacking each other’s mouths while trying to get each other off with our hands as fast as possible.
Like usual, I win. My lips curl into a smile against hers when my circling fingertips make Eden’s body tremble all over. She whimpers with her release, causing my dick to swell and throb, erupting in a hot mess in her hand.
Our kiss eventually slows down with our heart rates, until I’m too spent to move.
“Fuck, I needed that,” I tell Eden as I roll to my back. “Thanks, baby.”
“Um, yeah. That was…fun,” she says, somewhat awkwardly, making us both laugh out loud from all the endorphins.
When I have a little bit of energy back, I tug the back tie of my hospital gown loose and yank it off since my lower body is still covered with the bedsheet. I offer the fabric to Eden for her to wipe up.
“Thanks,” she says when she takes it to clean up her fingers, then lays the balled-up gown on the table beside the bed. When she turns back to me, her eyes lower to my chest and then her fingers are trailing down my pecs and abs then back up again.
“Your body is so beautiful and perfect, still flawless after all your fights. Tal’s is so much different…” she trails off.
“Well, yeah. Tal’s got a million tats and piercings and I hate needles,” I remark before my brow furrows. “Wait. Since when have you been up close and personal with my brother’s body?”
“Just a random observation I guess,” Eden replies softly before she rests her head on my chest. I run my fingers over her dark brown hair. It seems longer than it was a few days ago. When was the last time we were in bed together like this? It could only have been a day or two, but for some reason it feels like…forever.
“I’ve missed you,” I tell her. “Even when I see you every day, I miss you when you’re gone.”
“I-I miss you too,” Eden replies sadly.
“Try and get some sleep,” I say, placing my lips to the crown of her head. “I love you, baby.”
Eden is so quiet for so long, I’m not sure if she’s going to say the phrase back, when she’s always said it without fail. In fact, she was the first to say those three words to me because I was a pussy and didn’t know if she felt the same.
Finally, after what seems like an hour when I’m starting to drift off to sleep, I hear her whisper, “I love you too, Sage.”
Chapter Six
Eden
I wake up for the final time in the morning equally elated and ashamed of myself. I’m also exhausted after setting the alarm on my phone and waking up Sage every hour. Still, I can’t blame sleep deprivation on what we did together…
What was I thinking when I kissed
Sage and touched him so intimately last night? And why didn’t I stop him when his fingers dove into my jeans? Because it felt amazing, that’s why.
I was enjoying his memory loss way too much, which is so wrong.
If Tal finds out, he would be pissed.
Not because we’re monogamous or anything, because we’re definitely not. Tal would just be worried about me getting my heart broken again by his brother.
And he would be right.
Sage’s memories will come back eventually. At least that’s what the doctor hopes. I’m pretty sure I heard him mention to the nurse that the longer Sage couldn’t remember, the worse a brain injury it could be. With that in mind, it’s incredibly selfish of me to want to keep him this way forever.
Before the morning nurse comes in, I’m awake, fastening my pants as I recall the insanely hot orgasm Sage gave me, and then I’m up and searching the room for a clean gown for him. I can’t have his parents and brother come in here and find him naked under the sheets.
I’m searching through the small wooden wardrobe in the room when the door opens and then the overhead lights are flipped on, making me jump.
“You’re sleeping in late this morning,” Sage’s mom Claire says when she comes in first with his dad Linc right behind her, followed by Tal.
“Jesus! Turn the fucking light off,” Sage snaps without opening his eyes, sounding grumpier than his usual sweet self.
“Watch it now,” Linc warns his son. “You might have a concussion, but that doesn’t mean you can talk like that in front of your mother.”
“Sorry,” Sage grumbles. “It’s just…fuck, my head hurts,” he says, covering his face with his pillow.
Everyone looks to me as if I’m a medical doctor who can tell them what’s going on with Sage.
Closing the wardrobe doors, I lean against them and say, “He didn’t get much sleep last night since I had to wake him every hour.”
“Since he’s also naked, I’m guessing there’s another reason he didn’t get much sleep,” Tal grumbles as he eyes me with his jaw clenched.
“Tal!” Claire chides. “Give Eden some credit. She wouldn’t take advantage of your brother in this condition.”
Linc, who is obviously siding with Tal, clears his throat and says, “Has the doctor been by this morning?”
“No, not yet. I was just looking for another gown for Sage. He…got hot last night.”
“I bet he did,” Tal mutters when he goes over and picks up the soiled one and holds it up by two fingers before dropping it on the floor. “How about Eden and I go look for another one?”
I nod since I would give anything to escape the awkwardness in the room, not to mention that I’m pretty sure the smell of sex still hangs in the air thanks to Sage’s mess I wiped on his gown.
As soon as we step out into the hallway and I shut the door, Tal spins around. “What did you do?” he asks.
“It all happened so fast,” I say defensively. “You don’t know how…persuasive he can be. I swear I tried to talk him out of it, but he was insistent…”
“You know this is only temporary, right?” he snaps at me. “Any second now, he’ll remember everything that happened. Nothing has changed. He threw you away, Eden.”
“I-I know that, Tal!”
“You’re going to get hurt, and then I’m going to be the one picking up all the fucking pieces of your heart he shatters. I don’t know if I can glue them back together again.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I assure him, even though I’m less confident than I would ever admit.
“Did you fuck him?” Tal asks me pointblank.
“No.”
He raises one blond eyebrow that clashes with his dyed black hair.
“I didn’t!” I tell him. “We just…fooled around.”
“You got each other off?”
“Yes.”
Tal’s shaking his head. “It’s been years, and you’re still not over him.”
“If you had ever loved someone, then maybe you would understand.”
His jaw clenches tighter, and I immediately regret the words. “That’s a low blow and you know it.”
“I’m sorry. It was wrong to point that out,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. When you love someone, it doesn’t just go away because one person ends the relationship. At least, not for me it didn’t.”
“Well, it did for him,” Tal says, pointing his finger at Sage’s room. “If he loved you, he wouldn’t have let me have you without putting up a fight.”
I shrug and cross my arms over my chest since there’s nothing to say to that. He’s right. When Tal told Sage he had come to see me at school and slept with me, he didn’t even bat an eye. He just wanted to know if Tal and I had hooked up while Sage and I were together. Of course we hadn’t. It wasn’t like we meant to that night.
I had just moved into my dorm after Sage said he needed to end things with me to focus on his training. I was crying and eating my weight in ice cream every night that first week of school when Tal suddenly showed up at my door with a bottle of tequila, telling me he was sorry his brother was being a dick and that he would regret losing me.
We got drunk together (I was a lightweight at nineteen), I cried some more, Tal confessed his big secret to me that he had never told another soul, and we felt so close that we kissed.
When he went home and told Sage we slept together, it was a lie. We hadn’t. Well, we did sleep in the same bed, but we didn’t have sex. At least not until a few weeks after Sage said we had his blessing. Then, I think I slept with Tal the first time just for spite.
Everyone thinks Tal and I have been fucking like bunnies over the years, but really, we have hardly ever had penis and vagina intercourse. I mostly just give Tal blowjobs; and in exchange, he licks my clit while shoving a vibrator inside of me. Once in a blue moon, when I’m feeling incredibly generous and have succumbed to several amazing orgasms, I’m so relaxed and high on endorphins that I give him the green light for anal.
“Eden,” Tal says, finally ending our silent standoff. “You know I’m not jealous and that I’m just worried about you, right?”
“Yes,” I agree.
“And I’m worried about Sage. His head is really fucked up right now,” he adds as he runs his fingers through the front of his jet-black hair. “Cyrus is going to pay for this.”
“You should fight him,” I tell him. “Get him in the cage and beat his ass.”
“I’m not sure if I would stop before I kill him,” Tal says, and I don’t think he’s exaggerating. He loves his twin more than anything, even me. Especially me. I may be his friend with benefits, but Sage has always been his best friend, even if he can’t open up to him…
For the first time, I notice something different about Tal.
I lean in to sniff him closer, but all I smell is clean soap and laundry detergent. “You’re sober,” I say in surprise. “You must be really worried.”
“I am!” he exclaims just as a CNA pushing a cart gives us the side-eye before slipping into Sage’s room. “I haven’t had a drop of alcohol or a hit since last night before the fight. What if after all the shit I’ve done, I’m the one who turns out okay and Sage ends up with his brains scrambled?”
“Don’t say that! Sage will be fine! His memories will come back soon. He sounded…good last night,” I assure him.
“Yeah, I bet he did,” Tal mutters before he stomps back into Sage’s room.
Chapter Seven
Sage
“What’s your problem?” I ask Tal when he stomps into my room with a sneer on his face while the nurse is taking my blood pressure and vitals. My brother looks…different. Not in a good way. He looks…unhealthy. “And when did you dye your hair black?”
“A long time ago,” he says. “I was getting sick of everyone thinking I was you.”
“Oh,” I mutter, stung by his admission. I didn’t know that being mistaken for me was a negative thing. I mean, I get it,
that shit has happened since we were babies. Only our parents and close friends could tell us apart. And even then, if we worked hard on it, we could sometimes fool them for shits and giggles. Teachers were the most fun when we switched classes without them knowing, then laughed about it that night.
I can’t remember the last time my brother and I laughed together.
“Vitals are good,” the nurse says when she puts the blood pressure cuff back in her cart. “The doctor is on the floor. He’ll probably be in to see you,” she adds.
“Thank you,” my dad replies. “Hopefully you can go home this morning.”
“God, I hope so,” I agree. Looking to the door, I ask, “Where’s Eden?”
“She probably just went to get some breakfast,” Mom says when she comes up and pats my leg through the blankets. “I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”
“Why are you playing along with this?” Tal snaps at our mother. “We should tell him the truth to help him remember.”
“What are you talking about? Play along with what? What truth?” I ask in confusion.
“Tal, don’t,” Dad warns. “He needs time.” But my twin plows right on.
“Are you really going to hurt her again? Eden still hasn’t recovered from the first time you dumped her!”
“Huh? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I mutter.
Before he can explain, the same doctor from last night comes in.
“I remember you. That’s a good sign, right? Can I go home now, doc?” I ask him.
“Your short-term memory, or at least your memories after the fight, do seem intact, which is a great sign. I’m cautiously optimistic that the long-term ones will return any moment now.”
“Any moment, huh?” Tal asks. “Any way to speed that process up? Like maybe being honest with him?”
“It’s best to be honest with your brother, but you shouldn’t overwhelm him with all the information from the years he’s forgotten. Give his brain time to heal, to play catch-up slowly at its own pace.”
