Page 7 of Lost Touch

I gawked at it like an alien from another planet seeing its first Earthling.

But something about it made me feel uneasy, wrong. Partly that came from not having seen anything that wasn’t gray and hard and awful in so long, but partly…yeah, that was it. This didn’t look like what I’d expected.

Boise was a city, right? I mean, cities had things like buildings, cars, streetlights, people. And now I had that fucking Journey song going through my head, which pissed me off even more: of all the things to remember, those lyrics had to be what had stuck, and not, you know, my freaking hometown or my family, or…?

And shit.Shit.

I staggered away from the window and its view of lots and lots of trees and made it to Drew’s chair, dropping down and putting my head in my hands.

So much for no more panic or hysteria.

I might have afamily. I mean, strike that, surely I hadn’t hatched out of an egg, although I shouldn’t rule it out entirely given everything else that’d happened to me—but in all likelihood, I had to at least have biological parents if nothing else.

But I might have…a wife and kids felt wrong, especially since the face I’d seen in the mirror didn’t look like it belonged to someone old enough to have gotten that far in life, even with the lines of strain and pain and exhaustion etched around my mouth and eyes. You never knew, though. A husband? A girlfriend, boyfriend, siblings, a very large sentient evil tomato pining away for me and calling the police every day for an update?

Human, fruit, or other, there might be someone out there waiting to find out what had happened to me.

Maybe there’d been a funeral. I shivered.

And then I scrubbed my hands over my face and sat up.

No. I was better than this. Or if I hadn’t been better than this before, at least one upside of my situation was that I could turn over a new leaf andbecomebetter.

No wallowing, no freaking out.

Drew had to be somewhere around here cooking, and I needed to eat. I needed to face the reality in front of me.

If that reality included whatever smelled so enticingly delicious, so much the better.

Chapter 3

So I Bit You

Pushing the bedroom door open revealed a hallway and a couple of other open doors, through which I caught glimpses of another bedroom and bathroom. When I peered curiously into the second bedroom, it looked like a guest room, lacking much by way of personality or clutter except for the pile of clothes on a chair. The room I’d been living in, by contrast, had the touches that suggested constant occupancy: a few bits and bobs on top of the dresser, an open closet door revealing hung-up shirts and suits, toiletries in the en suite bathroom.

Drew had given me his own bed, then.

I found myself smiling as I headed down the stairs at the end of the hallway. Something about his thoughtful, devoted care felt important to me, and more than simply because of the contrast to what had come before. Like I might not remember my former life, but the emotional impressions of it had lingered somehow…and those impressions didn’t include anything quite as wonderfully kind as Drew.

If no one had done anything this nice for me before, maybe I ought to table the notion of having a family, or even a killer tomato, pining away for me at home.

That wiped the smile off my face again.

By the time I got downstairs I’d nearly tapped out what little strength I had. My knees wobbled like jelly, and I had to use the banister to hold myself up like an old man. I barely had the energy to notice my surroundings, although I caught an impression of a high ceiling, exposed beams, comfortable-looking furniture, a giant flatscreen. A fireplace. I weaved my way across another plush rug over a shiny hardwood floor and staggered across the room, following my nose.

The giant living room opened into an equally luxurious kitchen, with all kinds of gleaming granite countertops and metal appliances.

And a table and chairs, thank God. Drew turned around from the stove as I collapsed into one of the chairs, panting like I’d been at the gym for hours.

“Hey,” he said, tone neutral, smile a little too pleasantly casual to be natural. He’d changed out of his wet clothes, wearing jeans again with another T-shirt, this one pale gray. It stretched across his broad chest and around bulging biceps. He looked like someone who actually did spend hours at a gym, and the wooden spoon in his hand hit a note of bizarre incongruity. The way he held it, it should’ve been a machete or something. “I thought about coming upstairs to find you, but you seemed like you…wanted some time alone.”

That came out completely neutral, too, but I squirmed in my chair, guilt nagging at me. He had every right to be hurt or offended after the way I’d lost it on him and then acted likehe’dbeen the one imposing onme.

“Sorry,” I mumbled to the table’s polished-wood surface. Shit, even his kitchen furniture looked expensive and nice and new. I felt like such a grubby little interloper. “I didn’t mean to be an asshole.”

“I said you were mine and then got in the shower with you.” His voice had gone rough, abrupt, and when I dared to glance up he’d turned around again to face the stove, his shoulders rigid. “You had every reason to want me to get the fuck out.”

That urge to soothe and comfort him rose up again, nearly irresistible. I could press myself against his back, lay my head between his shoulder blades, stroke my hands down over the muscles of his arms. Feel him relax under my touch.

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