Page 20 of Remember Me

She looked at me in shock for a second before dusting the cheese dust from her fingers. “No. Aside from the fact that he never taught you, you are far too much of a goody-goody to do something so risqué.”

‘Oh, thank God. And a goody-goody?” I made a face.

Remi shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Anyway. Back to Hayes. One part of me is saying, this man is so amazing, and I’m so lucky, while the other part has this niggling feeling that I can’t trust him. I can’t figure it out. I asked him the other day if he’d ever slept with any of his students and he got a little upset with me.”

Remi made herself more comfortable on the bed. “Well, duh. He’s crazy about you, Bird. Once you got past that stick up your butt where jocks were concerned, you two were disgusting. You made everyone sick.” She stuck her finger just inside her mouth and made a gagging face. “You couldn’t be in the same room for ten minutes without some level of inappropriate touching or goo-goo eyes.”

“That’s so weird to think about. I don’t feel like a goo-goo eye kinda girl.”

“That’s just it, Birdie. You aren’t. We met in freshman year and shared a dorm room up until this last year when you moved in with Hayes. I’ve always known you to be level-headed and very particular when it comes to guys. You’ve never gotten suckered by a pretty face, and you’ve always had zero tolerance for bullshit. Hayes swooped in and refused to give up, even after you rejected him time after time.”

“He told me about how we met.”

“Ah, yes. The infamous cream puff incident.”

“How did he figure out my name?”

“He told you about snapping the photo of you, right?” She waited for my nod. “He printed lost girlfriend signs with your face and plastered them all over campus.”

“He did what now?”

“It was hilarious, Birdie. Lost Girlfriend. If seen, please do not attempt capture, but notify Hayes Ellison. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you snap on someone the way you did him. You saw one in the window of Smokey’s and ripped it off. Then you marched onto the field during his baseball practice, flung it at him, and told him off. Very loudly. There may also have been some finger stabbing in his chest.”

I arched a brow. “I sound kind of like a badass.”

“The baddest ass of them all.”

“What did Hayes do?” This story was fascinating to me. Hayes and I sounded completely different from how I knew us, now. He seemed very serious, ever concerned with how or what I was doing.

“He followed you off the field and serenaded you.You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling. His friends on the team sang back-up.”

“And I walked away?”

“After showering him with a cup of ice water, yes.”

“Sheesh. I might have been a badass, but I was also kind of a shrew.”

“No. Just private. You didn’t want everyone pointing you out, whispering about you, looking your way. And once Hayes figured that out, he apologized beautifully and started making some headway.”

Private. That was a piece that felt like it fit.

“We were good together,” I mused, reclining on the mountain of pillows at my headboard. It was more a realization than a question for Remi.

“You were that couple, Birdie. The one that was going to make it.”

She sounded so certain.I swallowed, a lump in my throat. We lapsed into quiet, punctuated by the crunching of chips as we watched the movie, something about a girl hating ten things about a guy. My mind was busy, though, and I could only half-way focus. Did I want that, still — to bethatcouple? Did I want us to be the one who was going to be around years from now, surrounded by kids and stacks of bills and laundry to take care of?

The kid was an inevitability at this point. I didn’t have much choice in that matter, and I was okay with that. Even with significant chunks in my memory, a baby felt right, if perhaps a bit early. But everything else? The jury was undecided. I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. Ostensibly I had already made that decision. Mom had told me I had been working an internship for a small marketing firm when I had the accident. I had no real desire to go back there, though.

And Hayes…Hayes was another decision I wasn’t certain I wanted to make all over again. I was attracted to him, but the more time I spent with him, the more I realized there was something…some wall between us that was completely my creation. Maybe it was simply an echo of my initial ambivalence playing itself out again. Maybe I needed Hayes to prove himself to me once again, break down whatever this barrier was so I could trust him once again.

Because whatever this was between us…I didn’t trust it. Not yet. Regardless of Remi’s assurances, nothing and nobody was that perfect. And until I got to that point, Hayes would have to be content with being a father but not a lover.

I shifted, and Remi clicked pause on the remote. “All right, hit me with it. This is one of your favorite all-time movies and you’ve barely heard a word.”

“Just sorting through stuff in my head.”

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