Pieces Of Us: Missing Pieces Series, Book Three

by Walker, N. R.

“You don’t need to worry about it until you want to. Not anyone else.”

  “Thank you,” he sighed. “It’s just a bit overwhelming, I guess. But you always know what to do.”

  “Not always.”

  “To me you do. You’re like some pillar of strength. When I don’t know what to do, I know you’ll help me.”

  His words got me right in the heart. I lifted his hand to my lips and kissed his knuckles. “Because I love you, Justin Keith. Always have . . .”

  He smiled, tired and cute as hell. “Always will.”

  Chapter Four

  When we got to the health clinic, I asked Justin twice if he was still okay to go inside or if he wanted to leave it for another day, but he was adamant. He was tired, physically, but also mentally—a doctor appointment followed directly by a legal appointment was enough for anyone.

  But Justin was determined.

  He wanted to get this done.

  And it didn’t take long. The whole process was quick and easy.

  “Do they really just send the results to your phone these days?” he asked as we were done and finally heading home. “The same day?”

  “Yep. Some tests take longer, and if anything’s positive, they usually ask you to make an appointment. But with the rapid testing, if you get the all-clear, it’s just a text later that day.”

  “Jesus. It used to take two weeks.”

  I chuckled. “Some still do, but a lot’s changed in five years.”

  He leaned his head on the headrest, looked at me, and smiled. I was pretty sure I’d be carrying him up the stairs. He could barely keep his eyes open. “The guy swabbed my dick,” he mumbled.

  I laughed. “Yep.” It was a full sexual health check. Swabs and bloods.

  “You went before me, so I asked him if he’d ever seen a dick as big as yours.”

  I shot him a look. “You didn’t.”

  He grinned sleepily. “Did. But he didn’t answer me. Did smile though.”

  “Oh God.”

  He chuckled. “Tell me, what was my reaction when I saw your dick the first time?”

  Jesus H Christ. So apparently when I said he could ask me anything, my dick would be a constant topic of conversation . . .

  “Uh, well,” I began. “You were . . . happy.”

  “Bet I was.”

  “You wanted it a lot.”

  His eyes were dreamy, tired; his smile was smug. “Bet I did.”

  I chuckled at the memory. “Actually, after the first time we had sex, we were in bed, up to about round three, I think it was, and you said my dick was better than when you got a Transformer truck for your birthday when you were six.”

  He laughed, a deep rumbling sound. “Oh my God. Optimus Prime. Loved that truck.”

  The sound of his genuine belly laugh made me laugh too. “You said it was just like a normal toy truck, then in bed it transformed, and bam! Optimus Prime.”

  Juss laughed again, but his eyes were closed. “Optimus Prime dick,” he mumbled. Then he chuckled some more, even as he slept.

  God, I’d forgotten about that whole Transformer conversation. When we first got together and he shoved his hands down my pants, he was like a kid in a candy store. And when we’d first fallen into bed together, he’d been insatiable.

  I’d taken for granted all those memories. I never recalled them, never relished them, never thought for one moment I wouldn’t miss them should they be taken away.

  And there was Justin, who would give anything to have any of his memories back.

  It was a sobering realisation.

  I got some drive-thru lunch for all of us, pulled the ute into the workshop, and drove around the back near the stairs. Justin was sound asleep in the passenger seat. “Hey, Jussy. We’re home.”

  He stirred when I opened his door, and when I leaned in to undo his seatbelt, he opened his eyes slowly and smiled. “Hey, you,” he whispered.

  “Hey, handsome,” I said, giving him a quick kiss. “We gotta get you up these stairs. Then you can sleep.”

  He groaned and carefully lifted his right leg to set his feet on the ground. Sparra walked out, grinning. “How’s the man of the moment?”

  “The what?” I asked.

  “Newspaper guy was here earlier. Wants an interview,” he replied. “Said he’d call back tomorrow.”

  “An interview?” Juss asked. “Me? What for?”

  Sparra shrugged. “The crash was pretty big news. He wanted a follow-up.”

  I resisted snarling, but Justin just snorted. “Must be hard up for news,” he mumbled as he made his way to the stairs. “Love to stay and chat, mate, but fuck, I’m tired.”

  Sparra burst out laughing and clapped me on the shoulder. “You heard the man. Get him upstairs.”

  I followed Justin up, one step behind him in case he lost his balance, and grinned the whole way. That was such a Justin thing to say . . .

  He sagged onto the couch and pressed the button to bring his legs up and recline, and by the time I pulled the blanket over him and kissed his forehead, he was already asleep.

  I left his Squish-the-cat-proof lunch beside him and carried the rest back downstairs. Davo and Sparra were grateful for the chicken and chips, and we talked about the jobs they were working on, and inevitably they asked me if we got all the paperwork sorted out that I’d mentioned to them the day before.

  “Yeah. I need to decide if we’ll replace the van or maybe opt for something else,” I said. “I don’t know how I feel about anyone going out again.” I shrugged. “I just don’t know if any financial gain is worth the risk.”

  “Have you spoken to Jusso about it?” Davo asked.

  I shook my head. “Not yet. He’s had enough on his plate, and he can’t even think about driving again for another three and a half months. And that’s just driving. Not working on his own or going out on his own.” I shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  “If he wants to?” Sparra asked.

  I sighed. “Then he can.”

  Davo gave a wry smile. “Yeah. And every time he drives out, you can stay here with your head between your knees in the brace position until he gets back.”

  I conceded a nod. “Probably.” I threw my rubbish into the bin. “Did the newspaper really send someone around?”

  “Yep,” Davo replied. “He seemed nice enough. Didn’t ask for details or nothin’. Like he didn’t try and get the scoop on what Jusso’s been like.” He smiled. “Probably didn’t fancy getting his nose broken.”

  I chuckled. “Smart.”

  “Said he’d be back tomorrow.”

  “Then we’ll see how he fancies getting his nose broken tomorrow.”

  They laughed and tossed their rubbish in the bin before getting back to work. I stuck it out in the office for as long as I could stand it before I went out into the shop to help get some real work done. Well, real work that I enjoyed, anyway.

  Juss came down around four, just as the boys were getting ready to leave. They chatted for a bit, then he helped me clean up and close everything down. I locked the front gate, and when I walked back into the shop, Juss was staring at his phone.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Still haven’t heard,” he said. “About the results. What if it’s bad news? What if there was some medical thing from the accident, like if they gave me bad blood. Dall, I don’t think I could deal with that right now.”

  Oh Christ. I hadn’t even thought of that.

  “Baby, they screen blood for all that stuff.”

  “It happens. I googled it.”

  Well, he was googling stuff now, which meant he was thinking about different things, which was a good sign. But this . . . this wasn’t good. I wrapped my arms around him. “Juss, it’ll be okay.”

  He mumbled against my chest, “What if I had some crazy affair and got some awful STI and I can’t remember him because of the accident but we found out about him from the police and he’s plotting some horrible—”

  I pulled back. “Ju
stin, what did you google?”

  He frowned, his face so sad. “It was something from Florida. There was a crazy lady who lost all of her memory and the police found out who she was and that she’d had an affair for years, and she fed her lover to the alligators so her husband wouldn’t find out.” He looked up at me, mystified. “I clicked on a link. The internet’s a scary place. I mean, it has porn, which is good. But then there is some weird shit out there.”

  I burst out laughing and went back to hugging him. “Baby, you didn’t have any affair and neither did I. There’s no one else in this world but us. I promise.”

  He sighed. “There was a link about a guy in England who had some kind of stroke and he lost his memory, but when he woke up, he spoke French and had a different name, who turned out to be some guy that died in 1882. I don’t know if he had an STI.”

  I snorted. “Juss, baby, it’s okay.” I kissed his forehead and made him look me in the eye. “But if you want to click on some crazy links, how about we do it together so you don’t get freaked out.”

  He nodded just as my phone beeped with a message. It was the clinic, so I opened it. The rapid testing results were negative. I showed him my phone. “See? Too easy. The rest of the results will take a week.”

  Then his phone beeped, and he nervously handed it to me. “You read it.”

  I opened the message, and sure enough, the rapid test results were negative. I faced the screen to him and grinned. “Negative.”

  He almost sagged. “Well, that’s . . . a relief.”

  I realised two things right then. Firstly, that’d he’d been legitimately worried over these test results and I’d downplayed his stress. And secondly, that he didn’t deal with stress too well. At all.

  The Juss before the accident was kinda laid back and didn’t really stress too much over anything. But now he did, and I should have realised it would have affected him differently. I gave him another hug and kissed the side of his head. “You feel a bit better now, baby? I’m sorry if I didn’t seem worried enough.”

  He nodded. “I feel better. We have another week to wait for the others, but this was the big one, right?”

  “Sure. It was just the rapid test, what they pricked your finger for. They’ll run a full diagnostic with the blood they drew out of your arm, and that’ll take a week. But this rapid testing is pretty good.” I gave him a soft kiss. “But baby, even if we got different results just now or next week, I’ll still love you. Promise.”

  He squeezed me and nodded against my chest. “Same, Dallas. I’ll still love you too.” He sighed. “I just worried, and my brain was stuck on it, sorry.”

  “Hey, don’t apologise.” I pulled back and gave him a smile. “How about I make us that meatloaf for dinner?”

  “Sounds great.”

  We finished locking up and went upstairs. Justin stayed with me in the kitchen while I made the meatloaf, so I put him to work peeling potatoes for the mash. “So,” he said, “because we had unprotected blowjobs already, that means we can keep having them until we get the swab results, right?”

  I stopped combining the meat mixture so I could stare at him. “Juss.”

  He shrugged. “I mean, if we’re gonna need treatment anyway . . .”

  I snorted. “Not sure that’s how it works.”

  “But we could.”

  “Or we could wait. Because I should have thought of this before and not pressured you into sex without talking about testing.”

  He frowned. “You didn’t pressure me.”

  “Sorry, wrong word.” I stood behind him and, keeping my messy hands out, gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I still should have offered you some options.”

  “You did the opposite of pressure me.” He put the last peeled potato on the chopping board. “And what options do you mean? Like more blowjobs?”

  I chuckled. “We’ll see.”

  “That’s a yes.”

  It wasn’t a yes, but I doubted how much I’d be able to argue with him over this. Over anything, to be honest. “How did your porn watching go this afternoon?”

  He stopped and stared at me. “My porn watching . . . Oh, shit. I forgot. I was gonna spend hours catching up on Pornhub.”

  I chuckled. “You have a week of no sex where you can watch all the porn you want.”

  He gave me a cheeky smile. “Or we could watch it together. Because you did say something about options.”

  I laughed at that. “I kinda walked right into that, didn’t I?”

  He grinned victoriously, so I went back to making my meatloaf. “Dallas?” he murmured.

  I turned to find him right behind me. He crooked his finger in a come-here motion so I leaned in closer to him thinking he wanted to whisper something in my ear, but he surprised me with a kiss to the cheek.

  He didn’t say anything. Just a kiss to my cheek, and it was somehow the sweetest thing ever. It made my heart bloom with love, and my stomach did that swooping free fall. I turned back to the meatloaf with the dopiest grin, and I’m pretty sure I went to bed much the same way.

  I’d told Justin about how the newspaper guy said he’d be back, but to be honest, I didn’t expect him to turn up at smoko time the next day. As we got busy with work, I kinda forgot about it. But sure enough, when Davo was mastering his barista skills at the new coffee machine, Justin was helping me with a Yamaha and Sparra walked out holding a tray of Arnott’s biscuits. He nodded toward the front of the workshop. “Return visitor.”

  A young guy had parked his car out on the street and was walking in with another guy sporting a fancy camera around his neck. They certainly didn’t look like a couple of guys who rode bikes, and they weren’t here to sell me anything. “Can I help you?” I asked, wiping my hands on a rag as I went to meet them.

  “Samuel Cormie,” the guy without the camera said, holding out his hand. “Newcastle Times.” The other guy didn’t speak.

  “Ah, right,” I said, shaking his hand. His hand was cold and limp, and I didn’t care too much that I smeared some grease on him. “You called in yesterday.”

  He grinned at me, all university shine and preppy attitude. “Yeah, I was hoping to have a chat with a Mr Justin Keith if he’s in today.”

  I normally didn’t dislike anyone straight up, but knowing he was here to question Juss for shits and giggles didn’t sit well with me. And as much as I wanted to tell this kid to piss right off, it wasn’t my place. It was Justin’s decision.

  “He is. Come on through.”

  When he saw us, Justin got off his scooter and walked over. I didn’t even get a chance to introduce them because Mr Smarmy beat me to it. He shook Juss’ hand with a little too much enthusiasm. “Samuel Cormie, Newcastle Times.”

  As soon as his hand was free, Juss wiped it on his work pants like he had to get rid of the gross feeling. It made me smile. “Justin Keith.”

  “I covered the accident when it happened,” Cormie said. “And I was hoping I could ask you some follow-up questions on your recovery. I’m sure our readers would love to know how you’re getting on.”

  “Uh, sure.” Justin shrugged. “I guess. Not much to tell.” He looked back to his scooter. “I’ll just grab my wheels.”

  He limped back to his scooter and I went with him. “Sure you want to do this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Want me to stick around?”

  “Nah, I got this.”

  “Okay, but if he asks anything about the money or compo, just say you can’t speak about it.”

  Juss gave a nod and I left them to it, but not before giving Mr Sleazebag a look of fair warning. They walked—well, Juss scooted—out to the end of the workshop where the sun was coming through. I walked into the breakroom where I could stand and still see Justin, and Davo was chuckling.

  “So you didn’t like the bloke?” he asked with a laugh. He nodded to my coffee mug, which was filled with a fresh brew.

  “Thanks. And no, not much.” I kept an eye out the door at where I could
see Justin talking. “Do you reckon I should’ve stayed with him?”

  “He’ll be fine,” Sparra said. “Let him do this.”

  I resisted sighing and sipped my coffee instead. I watched Juss talk for a bit. He nodded and smiled, but he kept looking my way every so often. I wanted to go to him, to see if he was okay, but Sparra was right. Juss needed to do this, to do something on his own. And by the time I’d rage-dunked several bikkies into my coffee, Mr Douche gave me a wave and hollered goodbye—I didn’t care that he could see me watching the whole time—and he and his silent cameraman walked back out to their car.

  Davo made Juss a decaf and had it ready for him by the time he scooted to the breakroom.

  “How was it?” I asked. There was no point in trying to deny my concern. “Was he rude? Pushy?”

  “Overprotective?” Davo asked with a grin.

  I gave him the bird and he laughed as he walked back to the bike he was working on.

  “Nah, he was okay,” Juss said. “Just asked me a bunch of stuff. About my memory, of course. Apparently amnesia is interesting. And my leg and my recovery in general. Shit like that.”

  “We saw your photoshoot,” Sparra joked.

  “I told him to get the shop sign in the photo,” Juss said. “Figured a promo shot couldn’t hurt.”

  That made me smile. “As long as he wasn’t a dick to you.”

  Sparra pushed my arm. “Dallas here watched him like a blue heeler from the shadows. Thought he was gonna start growlin’ there for a minute.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I just didn’t want him asking anything he had no right knowing.”

  Sparra just laughed. “Jusso, when you’re done on break, I could use a hand. Got a fuel line to replace. And Dallas ate all the Kingston biscuits.”

  “I did not,” I shot back. “I had three.”

  “Sure thing,” Juss replied with a laugh.

  I handed him the tray of biscuits, knowing damn well he loved the plain milk bikkies and no one else would dare touch them. “You okay?”

  He dunked his first biscuit. “Yeah. I know you were worried about me.”

  “I couldn’t help it. I tried not to be.”