Page 18 of Unlocking Melodies

My office was exactly what you'd expect from someone who had their life together. Everything labeled, color-coded, indexed within an inch of its life. Past Jimmy was apparently some kind of organizational savant.

“Your filing system is legendary,” Nina said, proudly showing me perfectly arranged contracts. “You can find any document in under thirty seconds.”

It took me five minutes just to locate the desk chair.

The whiteboard calendar on the wall mocked me with its neat rows of upcoming events, all written in what was apparently my handwriting. Several were marked “URGENT” in aggressive red ink. Past Jimmy had been very concerned about something happening next Thursday at a place called The Sound Factory.

“Don't worry about any of this,” Nina said quickly, catching my expression. “We've got it handled.”

“Boss?” A young bartender appeared in the doorway. “We've got a situation with the supplier. They sent those weird pickle-flavored vodka shots you banned last summer after The Incident.”

He looked at me expectantly. I looked helplessly at Nina.

“I'll handle it,” she jumped in smoothly. “Jimmy's still getting his bearings.”

The bartender's face did the thing - that minute shift from normal to careful. “Right, sorry. Good to have you back, boss.”

I waited until he left to slump in my chair. “I banned pickle-flavored vodka?”

“After The Incident,” Nina confirmed. “Which we don't talk about. Ever.”

“That's reassuring.”

She patted my shoulder. “Baby steps. No one expects you to jump right back in.”

Except they did. They couldn't help it. Every interaction came with the weight of expectations I couldn't meet, memories I couldn't access, inside jokes I didn't get.

The ledger I found in my desk drawer was the final straw - pages of contacts, each one representing someone whose career apparently depended on me remembering who the hell I was.

“I need a minute,” I managed, heading for the bathroom before Nina could respond.

The hallway was lined with framed photos, a timeline of moments I should have remembered. Me with various artists on stage. Me at industry events. Me and Liam after what must have been a big show, both of us grinning like we owned the world.

That Jimmy looked so sure of himself. So confident. So completely unlike the stranger I saw in the mirror this morning.

I was so busy having an existential crisis over my own face that I didn't notice someone coming around the corner. The collision was brief but effective - hot coffee splashed across my chest, and I looked up to apologize.

Green eyes. Startlingly green, set in a face that belonged on magazine covers. For a fraction of a second, something flickered in the back of my mind - expensive coffee, piano music late at night, a laugh that felt like coming home.

Then it was gone, leaving nothing but the ghost of a memory and a very real coffee stain.

“I'm so sorry,” the stranger said, but he was staring at me like I was the one who'd appeared out of nowhere. Like he'd seen a ghost. Which was funny, because I was the one who felt haunted.

“No worries,” I managed. “I wasn't watching where I was going.”

He was still staring. I couldn't blame him - I probably looked like a mess, standing there with coffee dripping down my shirt, having some kind of breakdown in a hallway full of photos of my own face.

“You're here,” he said finally, so quietly I almost missed it.

“I... work here?” It came out like a question, because everything about my life was a question mark these days.

Time did this weird stretchy thing, like in movies when everything goes slow-motion except your heartbeat. The stranger's suit probably cost more than my hospital bill - the kind of bespoke perfection that usually only existed in magazine ads. Now it had a growing coffee stain that somehow made him look more human, less like a GQ cover come to life.

His face was doing complicated things - hope blooming and dying in the space of a heartbeat, something raw and painful flashing through those green eyes before disappearing behind careful neutrality. I knew that look. I'd been seeing it all day from people who knew me when I didn't know them. But this felt different. Bigger. Like I was missing not just a memory but an entire story.

“Mr. Cole.” Nina's voice could have frozen hell. Gone was the warm, caring woman who'd been helping me navigate my own office. In her place stood someone who wielded politeness like a weapon. “I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow.”

Cole. The name should have meant something. The way my pulse picked up suggested it did mean something, somewhere in the locked rooms of my mind. But all I had was this moment.

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