The Romance Revival(58)

Emery’s eyes fall to my mouth, and I wonder what she’s thinking. My wife has the benefit of remembering what it feels like when we undress each other, when we’re naked together, when I’m inside her, and I’m so overcome with a wave of envy it makes the room spin.

“What can I say? I’m a killer,” she says, before climbing off me and back to her seat. “Anyway, couple that with the fact that if Betty thinks something is off about you, she will dig to the bottom of this like an obsessed private eye, and the fact that the BioNEX team knows that the dogs put in the BioVIVE had some memory loss, and the fact that if anyone ever got wind of your amnesia, they could dig hard enough to find out we were in the lab that night… we can’t risk anyone knowing anything.”

“I thought you said you got rid of the footage or whatever?”

“I did. But according to Robert Pattinson there’s a backup log that lasts for thirty days.”

I blink, sure I’ve heard her wrong. “I’m sorry, did you say Robert Pattinson?”

“He’s a robot,” she explains, then adds, “named after an actor.” Waving this off, she continues, “Whatever. It means that the data is gone from the main system, but if someone knew what days to pull footage from to look deeper, they would find everything.”

“Right,” I say, and I know what we’re discussing is important—an understatement, really—but it’s hard to focus when she’s this close to me. I can imagine another world where I would have kept her on my lap and fucked her right here on the couch.

“And they won’t have a reason if we don’t give them one, which is why we need to keep working on your memory,” she says.

“Okay, wait, speaking of memory,” I say, remembering my earlier question. “Did I go to college?”

“College? No. You and Crash had so many regular clients by the time you graduated high school, you already had a thriving business. Neither of you particularly wanted to go, so it didn’t make any sense. Why?”

“You said something today about cramming for a test like college. I had a thought that I hadn’t gone to college, but didn’t know if it was an actual memory, or my brain just connecting the dots.

“Oh!” she says, eyes going wide. “I don’t know if there’s a way to know the answer, but either way it’s a step in the right direction. Let’s say you did just connect the dots, that kind of cognitive function requires several interconnected regions of the brain to work together. That’s the work of a very active brain.”

“Really?”

“Really. Your body still needs rest, but I think getting out today did you some good. Annie’s going to flip when she hears this.”

Thrilled, I reach for her hand next to my hip and carefully stroke her fingers. My pulse hasn’t fully stabilized since I watched the police cruiser pull into the driveway. Anything could happen to one of us at any time; I’m proof enough of that.

We have so much to figure out, but fear has a way of making some things clear. I saw that police car and I knew… I want to love Emery again. Whatever mistakes she made, life’s too short to hold on to them.

Exhaling, she leans her head back against the sofa. “I think the adrenaline from seeing the police on the porch is finally leaving me.”

“Em,” I begin, wanting to tell her all of this. She gazes up at me, brown eyes turned down at the corners, dark circles lining beneath. “You need to get some rest,” I say instead. “We’re both in for the night. You should go to bed.”

“Not yet,” she argues. “I want to hang out with you some more.”

“Aren’t you exhausted?”

She shakes her head but then nods, murmuring a resigned “Fine. Let me get my pillow.”

I want to protest, to tell her to come with me into the bedroom, but everything is so perfect, I don’t want to rush it. Rushing is what we did before.

So I muster all of the restraint I can find and lean forward, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Good night, Em.”

She smiles at me, her eyes shining. “Good night, Lukey.”





28 LUCA




My leg feels mostly back to normal, so I insist on running errands with Em the next day. Groceries, car wash, bank—a series of normally banal stops that suddenly feel like miracles.

I’m registering more and more that I nearly lost this. That I died. That each of these tiny, insignificant moments is a gift.

After we’re done, groceries unloaded, Honey walked, house clean, neither of us feels like sitting around. Restless, we hop back in the car and drive a short way inland for a night out together.

I’m pretty sure that my memory of scents is coming back, because the second we step foot in Bluefoot Bar and Lounge, I’m positive I’ve been here before.

“Yeah,” Emery confirms when I ask. “You and Crash used to come here a lot in your early twenties. You shared a tiny apartment nearby, with four other guys.”

I look around. It’s not a big place, and on this random afternoon, it’s perhaps predictably not very crowded, but I can imagine on a weekend or game night, it would be packed. The well-stocked bar lines one long wall, while the wall opposite has two wide doors that open to a patio facing Thirtieth Street. In between are two blue-topped pool tables. A door at the end of the bar leads to another room with high-top tables, booths, and a DJ stand in the corner.