Everyone had cleared out of the space, and there was just the comforting clatter of dishes being done in the kitchen, glasses being put away behind the bar, the restocking of beer and liquor and supplies for the next shift. Cheyenne plopped down suddenly across from me with a sigh, obviously worn out from working.
“So, what. Are you just back in town for a couple days? Do you live here? I haven’t seen you in years, you know.”
How did she feel so right? Was that a good thing, or was I just reacting to the feeling of having the full attention of a beautiful woman?
“I was just passing through,” I said, but that was wrong. “I mean, visiting.”
“Visiting?”
“My father.”
Cheyenne gave me a sharp look. “Your father’s been dead for almost as long as you’ve been gone, Jack.”
“His grave, I mean.” God, that sounded morose. “It’s the anniversary of his death.”
“Oh my God. It is, isn’t it?” She huffed a breath. “Time just does that, doesn’t it? Flies if you don’t pay attention to it. I can’t believe I didn’t realize it had been three years without him.”
“Were the two of you close?”
An incredulous look. “Are you kidding me?”
I pointed to my temple, my eyebrows raised. “Amnesia.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Jack. You look exactly how you used to. I have to keep reminding myself that things aren’t the same. That you aren’t the same.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry.”
“What in the world do you have to be sorry about? You’re a war hero.”
“I’m sorry I’m not the person I used to be.”
“That’s a stupid thing to be sorry for.”
“Can I…” I trailed off, not sure how to broach this subject.
“Can you what?”
I cleared my throat. “You look like you need a hug. Can I give you one?”
“That’s not something you have to ask me.”
I could’ve argued that point, but I opened my arms instead. Cheyenne all but fell into them, and I tightened them around her.
“This…this feels almost normal,” she said, and I stroked her soft hair. “It’s not, but a girl can pretend, can’t she?”
“You can do whatever you feel like you need to.”
“Can we go somewhere?”
I cautiously loosened my arms – maybe it had been a mistake to offer her a hug – and she leaned back and looked at me.
“Is there anywhere open right now?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. Just somewhere to talk. If you want. I’d invite you over to my place, but I live with a roommate.”
“I got a hotel room.”
“Can we go there?”
“Sure thing, if you want. Need a ride?”
“I should be asking you that. You were drinking.”
“I didn’t overdo it.”
“Okay. I trust you.” She didn’t have any reason to, but there it was. I was going to have to take it and run with it. Show her that she could actually trust me.
It was snowing a lot when we walked out of the bar, but none of it was sticking to the pavement.
“Where are you parked?” she asked, wrapping her arms around herself.
“Just down there, on the next block,” I said, pointing. I wanted to wrap an arm around her to keep her warm, but I didn’t want to be too forward. “It was packed when I got here. Your bar does pretty good business.”
“It’s not my bar,” she said. “I just work there.”
“Well, I liked it. It had a good atmosphere.”
“I guess it does.”
“I have a bar,” I said, feeling like I was rambling, filling any silence I sensed with sounds. “That’s why atmosphere is something I notice. It’s maybe the most important part about a bar.”
“I thought the alcohol was the most important part of a bar.”
“You’re probably right about that. Here we are.”
Cheyenne stared. “A motorcycle? Really?”
“That’s me,” I said. “It’s not too late to turn back.”
“I mean that it’s awfully cold for a motorcycle,” she said, biting her lip. “Are you sure I can’t give you a ride instead? That’s my car, right over there.”
“I’d prefer to take the bike,” I said. “I didn’t think about how cold it would be for you, though. I’m sorry. I’d block some of the wind, but if you feel strongly about it, we can meet at the hotel. Or you can follow me.”
“I’m sorry – I don’t want to seem like I’m chicken.”
“Not at all. I’ll see you there.”
Part of me was afraid Cheyenne would have second thoughts on the way to the hotel, but there she was, parking in a vacant spot beside my motorcycle, prepared to join a person she’d only just met in my hotel room. Of course, that wasn’t quite true. She knew me better than I knew her. She probably even knew me better than I knew myself.
“Fair warning,” I said, unlocking the door to my room and flicking on the light. “The room’s not much. I didn’t count on having any guests over.”
“How long are you in town for?” If the room bothered her, she didn’t show it, sauntering across the bare carpet to sit on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t know. I just came to see my father’s grave.”
“You remember him?”
“No.”
“That’s too bad. He was a good man. A father figure to more than just you. He treated me as his own daughter. But he was just like that. He’d have given you the shirt off his back, the shoes off his feet.”
Cheyenne had my full and complete attention. “Why was he like that?”
“Just how he was, I suppose. Never questioned him on it. Even up until his last days he was calling people in to the house and giving things away. He knew he was on his way out, and he knew he couldn’t take any of that stuff with him.”
Everything that had remained in the house had been moved into storage – into the unit that housed my belongings. I couldn’t tell any of it apart, logically, but what belonged to him couldn’t have been much. Not if he’d had an entire house full of things. It made sense, what Cheyenne revealed to me, that he’d given things away.
“I didn’t know that about him,” I said. “I don’t know anything about him.”
“He was a really good man. That’s what you should know.”
“Thank you. Thank you for sharing that with me.”
Cheyenne had a funny look on her face. “You’re welcome. I could…what else do you want to know?”
I shook my head. “I don’t… That’s a really long conversation, I think.”
“I have all night. All the time in the world, really.”
“It’s late already.”
“You kicking me out?”
“No. You can stay, if you’d like. I mean, for as long as you want. I’m sure you have questions, too.”
“I do. I just don’t want to offend you with them.”
“You’re not going to offend me.”
She whooshed out a sigh. “I can’t really wrap my mind around you not being able to remember anything.”
“It’s called retrograde amnesia.”
“I know that.” She rubbed her eyes. “I mean that I know what it’s called. I just don’t understand it.”
“I woke up in a hospital following an ambush and explosion that killed everyone in my unit, including my cousin, James,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “Your cousin’s dead?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t sure why I’d included that little factoid, but it had felt important.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “So sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” I said. “But I don’t remember him. Or the ambush and explosion. I only remember waking up in the hospital, and going on from there.”
“But what about your name?”
“The doctors told me my name. Told me what was wrong. The extent
of the injuries. What I could expect.”
“Don’t you feel…never mind.”
“Ask me.”
“Don’t you feel incomplete?”
Literally, no. Figuratively, yes. “I am aware that there is something missing. That I am different from other people. It’s upsetting. But I haven’t been very lucky in accessing those memories.”
“But you’re here now.”
“I am here.” Even if it was the luckiest thing that had happened to me thus far. I was here, in Colorado, having reunited with someone this important from my past.
“I really, really missed you, Jack.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come any sooner. That we never crossed paths before tonight. That I didn’t remember you.” That I still didn’t.
“You being here now makes up for everything.”
“Are you sure? It doesn’t have to. I know this is difficult.”
“Will you sit down next to me?” She patted the comforter beside her and I obeyed, a little wary. “I want to be close to you. If that’s all right.”
“Of course it is.” She radiated warmth. I could tell she was upset, though, and I didn’t blame her. This entire thing was upsetting, and confusing, and then we kissed.
All of a sudden.
Apropos of nothing. Just two people sitting a little too closely on the bed together. Falling together like that.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly.
“I’m not sorry.”
“Okay. If you’re not sorry, I’m not sorry.” I kissed her again, drawn in like some kind of a magnet, unwilling and unable to resist the deep attraction I had for her. That had to mean something, didn’t it? That I had been with her before I lost my memories and found her intoxicating now? That had to be my brain unraveling a little bit, right?
Things moved quickly, irrevocably forward, and I threw my whole self into them, mouth on Cheyenne’s, both of us undressing each other piece by piece, arousal a rich progression.
“Let me see you,” she murmured, hand wrapped around my erection, pumping it slowly. “God, Jack, I just want to drink you all in. Remember every inch of you.”
All I wanted to do was remember her. Remember this. Remember what it felt like to belong to someone so sexy I had to gently back away from her grip because I was afraid of coming too soon.
“I was in an explosion,” I said, my voice hoarse. “There are some bad scars.”
“I don’t care about scars.”
“I do. I don’t want to frighten you. I’ll keep my shirt on for this, please.” It was something I felt firmly about because I didn’t want to scare her away. Not when I had a chance to get close to someone from my past for the first time in this new existence.
“Whatever you want. I don’t care. Just as long as you don’t leave me again.”
Cheyenne’s eyes flew open as those words left her mouth, like they surprised her, but I kissed those trembling lips, eager to offer her some kind of reassurance.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here.”
And we were together, having somehow found each other after all these years, Cheyenne breathing out, me breathing in, her body pulling, my body pushing, both of us working with and against each other, two parts of the same machine, miraculously reunited after spending time apart.
I thought kissing her, touching her, being inside of her would elicit something from my broken mind, but when that didn’t come to fruition, I immersed myself in Cheyenne. The smell of her perfume. The way her eyes fluttered when I thrust at the right angle inside of her. The feel of her nipples pebbled beneath the palms of my hands. Everything about my body locked in hers.
I came quicker than I intended to, pulling out in an apologetic panic. I usually had better control than that, but there was something about being intimate with someone who used to know me intimately opened me up, made me that much more vulnerable.
“Please,” Cheyenne said, squirming a little. “I’m close.”
“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” It felt like those words bore repeating, if only to reassure her.
I knelt down between her legs, lapped cautiously around her clit, slick with her arousal, cognizant of the fact that she might be too sensitive for this level of contact. She bucked at the feeling of my tongue and cried out, and I didn’t hesitate to fill her with a couple of my fingers, seeking out the right rhythm and pressure to make her–
“Jack, I’m–”
She sobbed out a moan, and I watched her face carefully, gauging what she needed to ride out the wave of pleasure. It wasn’t lost on me that before the explosion, before losing all my memories, I probably knew her body like the back of my hand, knew exactly what it took to make her writhe and mewl with pleasure without second guessing anything.
Right now, though, it seemed like I was doing all right.
“Good?” I asked her, and when all she could do was nod, her eyes closed, I crawled back up beside her, spooned her, kissed her on her temple, and lost myself to the world.
Chapter 4
An explosion. A corpse with my face. A reflection in a mirror that twisted and sneered and wouldn’t stay still, wouldn’t behave, wouldn’t match the motions my own face was making as I tried to scream at it and it laughed and laughed and–
“Jack. Jack, wake up.”
I sucked in a gasp as I struggled to a sitting position, trying to figure out where I was, who was with me.
Who I was, for a long, uncomfortable moment.
Cheyenne blinked at me from her side of the bed, dressed in my hoodie, which hung large on her smaller frame. “Hey. You were having a nightmare. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, more embarrassed than anything. More disturbing images, no new memories. Part of me had hoped that reconnecting with Cheyenne would dredge something up, but maybe that was a selfish way to look at things. “It happens sometimes. The dreams.”
“I’m sure it does,” she said. “I bet you’ve seen a lot.”
“Probably. Not like I remember much, but you’re probably right.”
“What are the dreams about?”
“I don’t think you want to know.”
She looked hurt. “I’d listen, if you wanted to talk to me about them.”
“I’m sorry. What I meant was that they’re mostly graphically violent. I don’t know why I’m having them, or what they mean. I don’t want to shock you.”
A half-shrug. “The most shocking thing was you walking back into my life again after being gone for so long. I’m pretty sure all subsequent shocks will be secondary to that.”
I studied Cheyenne, her hair staticky and tangled from sleep. Even rumpled and a little confused, she was beautiful. She’d turned on the lamp beside the bed to wake me up from my nightmares, and the clock told me it was too early in the morning to get up. Why was she still here? I’d had women sleep over with me in Rio Seco. If I woke them up with one of my nightmares, they’d use it as an excuse to go ahead and leave, no matter what time it was. The sex never got any complaints. It was the sticking around. I just figured that they didn’t want anything broken in their lives in the way I was broken.
But Cheyenne was still here.
“Were you waiting for me to come back to you?” I asked her. “From the Army?”
She looked away. “Would you think I was pathetic if I said yes?”
“No. I wouldn’t.”
She shrugged. “Then yes. I thought you would come back for me.”
“I didn’t remember you,” I said. “And I still don’t. I’m sorry. I really, really wish I could. If I had remembered, I would’ve come back. You…are special.”
“It’s okay, Jack,” she said, smiling, though her eyes were overly bright in the lamplight. “You don’t have to pretend anything. I understand. You just don’t remember.”
“I don’t remember anything,” I said. “But the doctors said I could someday regain my memories. They said there was a small chance. And I feel like maybe
I have had some memories. Fleeting ones. Things that don’t make sense to me right now. Nothing of you, I’m afraid.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not!”
My outburst made us both jump. Having to deal with the amnesia had been tough, at first. Not knowing where I belonged, or what I was supposed to do, or having really anyone to help me had been a true struggle. Now, though, besides the vague feeling of not being complete in some way, I had been doing okay. Besides the strange, disturbing dreams, I had a good support system in Rio Seco. A good life, even.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to shout. I’m trying to tell you that I really, really want to remember you.”
“Well, I really, really wish you did.” She smiled at me, wiped her cheek quickly, even though the tear gleamed on her skin.
Because I thought Cheyenne was attractive. Because, through the shock of running in to her so randomly at the bar I’d visited for dinner and something to do in my hometown, I was impressed with the man I’d been before, able to net someone as beautiful as her. Sure, it was shallow. I didn’t even really know her, even if I had before. Most of all, though, I could learn about who I used to be through her. She’d known me well enough to be in a relationship with me. Maybe she could help me figure out the person I was, when my mind had been whole.
For a brief, strange moment, I felt almost shy. “Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask me whatever you want to ask me.”
“Did I make you happy?”
I felt probably about as surprised as Cheyenne looked. That question was absolutely not what I thought I’d ask her. I’d wanted to see if I could ask her some questions about the Jack she used to know, the Jack I used to be. Whether that would be acceptable or if she’d think that was a little weird. Why had it come out like that?
“You did make me happy, before,” she said. “And you made me happy again, just seeing you. Even if it was a surprise, you just turning up here.”
“Do you mind…”
“Jack. It’s okay.” She took my hand in hers, turned it over, traced her fingers over my palm. “Ask away.” Her gestures were so easy that I believed she and I used to do this. It wasn’t a memory, though. Just a feeling.
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