Page 185 of Mangled Memory
Until I walk into the kitchen from the garage to find a sour looking Christian, standing, hip against the island, arms crossed, waiting. “Good day?”
His gruff question is enough for my keys to tumble from my hand. I manage to keep the phone in a white-knuckled death grip. I calm my racing heart and force myself to swallow back the fear. “Great day, actually.”
I set my purse on the island, feeling my mellow day drain from me.
“Ayla?”
“Sorry.” I shake my head, but it doesn’t hurt like it did yesterday. That’s progress or I’m too distracted to notice. “I met Mom for lunch today. It was a beautiful day, and I needed it.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you need it?” He sets his coffee mug down on the thick marble island that separates us.
“Oh, you know.” I put my keys in the back pocket of my handbag
“But I don’t, Princess. Enlighten me.”
I don’t owe him shit, but seeing as how I live here, for now anyway, and I need it to be as stress free as possible, I oblige. “I’ve lived here one day. One day that was full to overflowing. You, Corinne, Halley. The dark room. The reading room. Until I fell into a crazy sleep in a bed I’ve never seen with a man…” I look up and meet his eyes. “I know you’re mad I can’t remember?—”
“I’m not mad. I’m hurt. And it’s not even that.”
“You said last night you didn’t care if I had memory issues… That you had expectations.” I stiffen my spine and stand up as straight as I can, holding his eyes, but allowing the fingernails on my right hand to make crescent moons in my palm.
He rounds the island in a hurry, but halts before making it to me. I’m afraid my relief is audible when he doesn’t crowd me.
“Baby, I said I expected us to keep the vows we took, whether you remembered them or not. That’s not me not giving a fuck about your injury.” He comes closer and reaches up to trail a finger over the scar that slices through my hairline just above my temple. “That’s me honoring the ‘in sickness and health’ part.”
He places a light kiss right where the scar ends at my temple, and I fight not to go stock still.
“Was yesterday not good?”
I pull back and look him in the eye. “Yesterday was beautiful and scary. It was a surprise and a relief. It was overwhelming and terrifying. And”—in a moment of weakness, I drop my forehead to his chest—“none of it should be anything of the sort. My brain won’t cooperate.”
“Yet.”
“What if it never does?”
“Then I’ll recreate the best of our time together, avoid all the parts where we missed the mark on being kind to each other, and woo my wife into falling in love withme all over again.”
His answer is too perfect.
“So what did you do today?”
“I drove around a while. I dig the Audi. It was the perfect day to have the top down. I met Mom for lunch and asked her to clue me in on some things.”
He stiffens and steps back to study me. “And did she?”
“A little. About little things. Nothing the doctors would fuss over. Just life things that make me feel caught up.”
“Anything I need to know?”
It’s my turn to study him. “Nothing I’m sure you don’t already know.”
“I’m listening to my wife tell me about her day, not fishing…”
“Have we met Eleanor, Ci’s puppy?”
