Page 43 of Forget Me Not

“Let’s forget about me for the moment. I want to talk about you. Your adventures. Ceramics. Is that something you did before the accident. Was opening your own shop always a dream you had?” he asks quietly.

I close my eyes and clear my mind. I can’t follow my current trail of thoughts even when it does lead to the answers he wants. Or maybe because they do. I want to tell him. I just wish I could leave out the most crucial parts.

“No. Ceramics just sort of happened.” I glance down at my wrist and the faded scar marking a poignant twist of fate along my lifeline. “I nearly lost my hand in the accident. Took a couple surgeries and a lot of rehab to save it. And, for a long while, I didn’t really care if they did or not, so I wasn’t exactly helping the healing process much.” I hold out my arm to show him. He runs his thumb back and forth over the seam of skin, that one small strip that held on even when I didn’t. “Gun was constantly coming up with new ways to try and trick me into doing my exercises. I had everything from stress balls to Rubik’s cubes thrust in my direction, the whole apartment was littered with anything and everything that might land at my fingertips during an absentminded moment of boredom. And there were plenty of those.” Didn’t matter how many people came to visit me, or how much chocolate Mags tried to cram down my throat, inside my head I was the only one, struggling to understand the wicked ways of fate and how I could have every dream coming true one minute just to have them lost to me forever the next. I didn’t want to be happy. Or entertained. Stewing in misery seemed like the only appropriate thing to be doing.

“So, what happened? Someone signed you up for pottery classes?” Reed asks. There’s more to his question.Someone.Someone other than Gun. He’s not going to like my answer, but I won’t lie about this.

“Play-Doh.” I squeeze my hand into a fist, remembering how hard it used to be and reveling in the strength it’s regained over the years. Play-Doh. “One day, I just started playing with it. Purple. I liked the color. I remember it was the reason I reached for it, fussed with the lid long enough to actually get it open.” My eyes travel to the book case along the back wall. I saved it. One little jar of purple Play-Doh is still sitting up on the top shelf between my Harry Potter books and every Sidney Sheldon Novel ever written. It’s a special shelf.

“I guess I can see how one led to the other,” Reed says with a small smile. He’s trying to appreciate the story, but I know it’s hard.

“Happened faster than you might imagine. Wanting to create, it was like this buried passion I had no idea even lived inside of me. The better I got, the more I wanted to do and the more I wanted to do, the better my hand had to get.”

“All thanks to good ol’ Gun.” As soon as he says it I know he wants to take it back. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Of course, I’m grateful he was there, that he helped you get better. It’s just...”

“Hard.”

“Yeah.”

My mind starts racing, trying to think of something else to say, some other way to spin the outcome to help him feel better about it, about where I am now and what I’m doing with my life. Gun may have helped set me on this path, but as soon as I was on it, I knew it was always meant for me. My choices have led me here more than anything else.

“Tell you what. Why don’t you get ready for the day while I run down to the bakery on the corner to grab us breakfast and then we can both head downstairs to the shop and you can kind of explore for yourself.”

His head lifts and he smiles. God I love that smile. My heart feels lighter already.

“Sounds perfect. Just give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be ready for the day.” He kisses my cheek as he releases me. “And ready for our new adventure.” He winks sending a flutter through the pit of my stomach and up into my throat. It’s like being seventeen all over again.

I watch until he disappears in the small hall leading to the master bath before I get a grip and get back to my morning routine. I shake out my hair. It’s still wet, but in the summer heat and sunshine it’ll be dry by the time I walk back here from the bakery.

Not wanting to disturb Reed in the bathroom, I drape my damp towel over a chair in the corner which usually serves as a halfway stop between my closet and hamper, and make my way toward the front door. One quick swipe over my lips with the rose-tinted lip balm I keep in the bowl officially designated for keys, but actually serving as a catch all for everything pocket size, and I can grab my phone and debit card on my way out the door.

I’m skipping my way down the steps, basking in the warmth Reed has left tingling at my core when I hear the door to Cammie’s place open and stop on her floor.

“Good God, woman, I thought a herd of kangaroos was coming down the stairs,” she teases, walking out onto the landing to meet me. “Where you bouncing off to this morning?” She stretches to the left to look over my shoulder. “And why are you alone?”

“Getting breakfast. Reed’s just jumping in the shower.” I start back on the steps heading down and Cammie follows.

“Um, you don’t find naked Reed in a steamy shower more appealing than pastries?” She’s got her brow cocked high and one side of her mouth is hitched up to match it.

My cheeks instantly feel the burn of a blush. “Cammie!”

“What?” Now her other brow comes up to meet the rogue one and she moves from disbelief to innocence. “Don’t tell you haven’t...ya know.”

“No. We haven’t.” We’ve engaged in some piping hot make-out sessions though.

Her hand lands on my arm to stop me just before we reach ground level. “What? Why not?”

I shrug her off, releasing an audibly exasperated breath. “Cammie! He’s been back in my life for all of twenty-four hours. Don’t you think we’ve had more important things to worry about than sex?”

“No,” she deadpans. “I’ve seen the man. Trust me, climbing on top of him would be the only thing on my mind right now if I were you.”

“Well, I’m not you.” My words are clipped and frustrated. Is she right? Should my mind be more occupied with images of his naked body covered in pearls of hot water right now? Should my own body be dragging me up the stairs and into the shower to be tangled up with his? Is that what he wants? What he’s hoping?

“Coop?” Cammie’s stern voice scrapes my streaming mind back into focus.

“Yeah?”

“What’s really going on? Is this still about feeling guilty over Gun? Because if you can’t be happy and move forward with this amazing twist of fate, then you hurt him for nothing and then you really do have something to feel guilty about.”

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