“No, it’s not...it’s...” He turned to face me, his eyes pleading. “Have I... Did I... Christ. Okay, I’m just going to say it.” He took a breath and held it, eyes closed. With an emphatic whoosh he exhaled, looked at me and said, “Have I ever hurt you?”
“Hurt me? I mean, we’ve argued a few times...”
“I mean really hurt you. Verbally, or...physically?” He winced. “Did I ever lay a hand on you? Have I ever hit you?”
“God, no. Absolutely not. Why would you think that?”
“Because...because I’ve been so angry all the time, and I don’t know what to do with it, how to handle it. Maya says it’s probably because of the amnesia, the stress of the situation.”
“That seems like a fair observation,” I offered gently, but when I looked at him I realized he didn’t quite believe it. He seemed terrified. Frightened of himself and what he was capable of. Scared he might hurt someone, and...
“Hold on,” I said. “Does this have something to do with Kate and Celine?”
“Yes,” he whispered. “Why didn’t I tell you about them when we met? Why not mention it, unless... What if...what if I hurt them somehow? What if that’s why I abandoned everyone here?”
“I don’t believe that for one second.” The certainty in my voice surprised me until I realized it was exactly how I felt. Deep down, I knew he’d never do such a thing. “Were you in contact with Maya when you lived in Maryland?” I asked, and when he shook his head, I led him to the chair by the desk, where I made him sit down before I took a spot on the edge of the bed, our knees almost touching. “What if you left Newdale because you were overcome with grief? Maybe you needed to get away to stay sane.”
“That doesn’t explain cutting ties with Maya or my fake name.”
I hesitated, trying to decide if I should tell him the theory I’d dismissed about his stepsister’s jealousy, but what was there to tell? I risked alienating him from her, and from me—and I wanted neither. “I don’t know what to make of that, Ash. I wish I could help, but for what it’s worth, I can’t imagine you ever hurting anyone.”
A beat passed, and another. I thought he might get up and leave again, but he gently reached for my hand, and said, “Tell me what I was like when we met.”
Despite everything, I couldn’t help but smile. “Very clumsy.”
His shoulders dropped away from his ears as he pulled a bemused face. “Clumsy, huh? In that case, maybe it’s a good thing I have zero recollection of making a total arse of myself.”
“You didn’t,” I said, grinning some more as I thought about the moment I’d first set eyes on him. “In fact, you were extremely gentlemanly.”
It had been a Thursday evening, the week after Thanksgiving. Monica, one of my colleagues from Beach Body, had insisted on dragging me out for a drink when I’d let slip I hadn’t set foot in a bar since the summer, and it had been twice as long since I’d been on a date.
“That’s it, sweets,” she’d scoffed in her thick, Texan drawl. “I’m takin’ y’all out tonight.”
I’d laughed when we’d arrived at what she described as her favorite place on earth. The Charlie Horse was an old, dusty shack, a relic plucked straight from a Spaghetti Western. As we sat down, I half expected a young Clint Eastwood to stride across the beer-stained, wooden floors and demand a shot of whiskey from the waistcoat-clad barman. Instead, Monica, who’d been named salesperson of the month every month for the past year, flashed me a smile as she pushed a pint of beer toward me.
“Drink up, now. There’s plenty more where that came from.” We clinked glasses and she leaned in. “Cute guy at the bar’s been checking you out.”
I’d noticed him, too. Tall, dark hair, a smile that made me want to get up, walk over and ask him for his number. If I had the guts. As I sneaked a glance at the stranger, he looked at me and grinned. Not long after, I made my excuses and went to the bathroom, and when I got back, Monica was surrounded by three guys, arguing the merits of standard transmission vs. paddle shift, and which was better for street racing, all of them googly-eyed at her expertise.
“She’s quite the gearhead, isn’t she?” It was the guy who’d been standing at the bar, his eyes twinkling as his lips curved into another smile that drew me in, his English accent charming and sexy as hell.
“Would you believe it if I told you she was born in a car?” I said with a laugh.
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“It’s true, I swear.”
He smiled again, a lock of hair falling over his left eye, making me want to reach out and brush it away, but he held out a hand. “I’m Jack,” he said.
“Lily,” I answered, and before I could say anything else, someone bumped Jack from behind and half a pint of cold beer sloshed straight down my shirt.
“Oh, fuck it,” he said, which made me burst out laughing because with his accent, he made the word sound so formal and posh, it was downright delightful. “I’m so sorry,” he continued as he reached for a few napkins and pressed them into my hand. “Here, take these.”
I dabbed at my sopping shirt as he offered his apologies again and I waved him off with an it’s fine gesture. “I never liked this shirt much anyway.”
His turn to laugh, and, amid another thousand apologies, he offered to buy me a drink. I decided on a Diet Coke, and when he returned, we squeezed into the space at Monica’s table, where she was still deep in conversation about her near-death experience with nitrous oxide. As Jack and I chatted, I barely noticed the first hour go by, didn’t pay attention to the second one, either.
