Page 76 of Unforgettable

“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry!” I threw my hands out to steady myself against the railing and apologized immediately, preparing to come face-to-face with a disgruntled resident.

“No worries, Mandy.” And I looked up to find CJ smiling down at me, helping steady me with his large hands on my shoulders.

“Hey, man.” CJ peered behind me. “I’m CJ, maintenance guy.”

“Josh. Nice to meet you.” They shook hands in the way men do—puffing out their chests and standing a little taller. I refrained from rolling my eyes and went to continue up the stairs.

We slipped past each other, Josh following close behind me, but before I got to the top, a thought stopped me in my tracks.

“Hey,” I said to CJ. “Did you ever watchTwister?”

His lack of immediate response told me he hadn’t watched it.

“We’re going on a month now, CJ. Watch it or give me my DVD back!” I shouted over my shoulder while climbing the stairs and heading to my apartment door.

“I’ll watch it tonight, Mandy!” he yelled back.

I swung the door open to my apartment and tossed my keys and bag down on the catchall table in the small entry.

“Best friends with your maintenance guy, huh?” Josh questioned.

Warily, I eyed him, noting a hint of jealousy in his tone.

“I wouldn’t say‘best friends.’ He just saw my DVD collection and took an interest in my taste in movies.”

Kicking off my boots, I beelined for the fridge and pulled out two of my favorite ciders. Josh eagerly took the one I offered him and used our proximity as an excuse to tug me closer. I stumbled closer to him, our chests nearly touching, and he smoothed a free hand down one of my arms.

The light touch of his fingertips, even over the fabric of my sweater, along with the heat of his body so temptingly close, was enough to send a shiver through me.

All day it had been lingering looks and stolen touches as we wandered through the aquarium.

I’d even turned around a few times to find not one but both of their phones trained on me. Their attention excited me but was also a tease—and hopefully, a promise of what was to come. And after a day full of it, I was feeling the effects. I was needy and even the slightest touch from Josh was more than I could bear.

“You won’t even let me borrow a DVD,” Josh muttered, his eyes dropping to my mouth, which curved around the cider bottle.

I threw my head back and laughed. He couldn’t have forgotten the one and only reason why he didn’t get access to my collection.

“There’s no way you forgot one of the biggest fights we got into in college; it was the whole reason I don’t let you borrow DVDs or literally anything anymore.”

Without an ounce of recognition on his face, I continued, “I let you borrow three DVDs, and after nearly four months, I had to convince Reed to let me into your dorm when you weren’t there. Then I went through all of your shit to finally find the damn DVDs. I vowed to never let you borrow one again.”

He frowned down at me. “That’s not the way I remember it.”

“Of course it’s not, but that’s what happened.”

“Can I see the collection?” Josh asked, knowing full well it was mostly stored in the three drawers of the living room entertainment center.

I waved my hand in front of me, inviting him to see for himself.

Methodically, he opened one drawer after the other, scanning the titles that were packed side by side for optimal browsing and storage.

“Still impressive.” He smiled up at me from where he was crouched on the floor, leaning over the last and bottom drawer, which held the action and horror movies.

Unlike most people who witnessed or heard about the insanity of my collection, Josh didn’t say a word about the irrelevance of DVDs. He didn’t mention that DVDs were defunct and mostly useless with the number of streaming services available. And he didn’t comment on the absurd amount of space they took up.

If he did think any of those things, he kept them to himself and his facial expression neutral because he knew what they meant to me. He knew, along with the rest of my friends and Adam, that inside those drawers and within the worn, loved plastic cases was the entirety of my childhood.

They were gifts from my parents for every occasion—birthdays, holidays, celebrations—because they were the most likely to be used.

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