Wanting to Remember, Trying to Forget (Meet the Shepards #1)

by Jacqueline Francis

  She smiled again. “Oh, God…yes!”

  He bit her lip, plunging harder and faster. She dug her nails into his back.

  “Harder,” she whispered urgently. “I’m coming.”

  He never got tired of hearing those words. That mixed with the feeling of her walls clenching around him, brought on his own release.

  A nerd and a virgin. Who would have thought?

  He waited for his breathing to slow before he withdrew from her and set her down on the floor. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and shook his head. His shirt and trousers were wrinkled now. His hair was pointing in all directions. He had to start all over again. Every morning. It was the same thing every fucking morning. He sighed, knowing he was going to be late…again.

  “Just one morning,” he said as she sighed with satisfaction and threw herself on the bed. “Can we just behave like a normal couple for one morning?” He walked to his cupboard and pulled out a different shirt and trousers. “You could walk me to the front door, hand me my bag and kiss me goodbye. That’s what normal couples do.”

  “Are you complaining?” She shifted her legs on the bed and his eyes were drawn to the top of her thighs, her nighty barely covering that firm ass.

  “Definitely not complaining!” he said with a smile.

  He re-dressed, re-combed his hair and walked to the front door with Danny following behind him. Stopping outside, he turned around and kissed her, ensuring it didn’t linger too long or he would be pulled right back in.

  “Have a great day, Sugarpie,” she said.

  His face scrunched with distaste. “Sugarpie? Really?”

  “What?” She shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. “You said you wanted us to behave like a normal couple. That’s what normal couples say.”

  “Maybe in the fifties.”

  “Well, I like it.”

  He nodded but still couldn’t bring himself to leave just yet. “You’re meeting a new client today, right?”

  “Yeah. They’re coming over at nine.”

  This conversation was starting to sound exactly like a normal couple, so much so that he had to remind himself that the basis of their relationship was the furthest thing from normal.

  “I need to learn how to drive again,” she said. “I need to be able to go to clients instead of them coming to me.”

  “I’ll teach you. I taught you the first time, too.” He leaned forward and gave her another quick kiss. “I’ll see you later, Honeybun.”

  “That’s even worse than Sugarpie.”

  She giggled and he felt his chest tighten. “God, I lo—”

  He stopped himself once again from uttering the words that could expose him. Every time she smiled or laughed or looked at him in a certain way, he had to catch it before it slipped out. If she regained her memory or he told her truth, there was a chance that all this could end and he just wanted to hold onto those words, keep it to himself. It was a form of protection, a way to save his pride if it all blew up in his face. She knew his body. She knew his strengths and his weaknesses. And he was fine with her knowing that. But if she found out the truth and she left; at least she wouldn’t take those words with her. It was better not to reveal it because at least that way she wouldn’t know…she wouldn’t know how desperately in love with her he was.

  * * *

  Max switched on the air-conditioner in his office then loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. It was the fourth day of August and the heat was unbearable for eight o’ clock in the morning. Or maybe it was just him. Every time his mind hopped back to Danny wearing nothing but that tiny nighty and her lips encircled around his cock, his heart began to race. He had to remind Penis several times that she wasn’t in the room so he would go back to sleep.

  He had a wide smile on his face when Charlie walked into his office and sat down on the opposite side of his desk.

  “Why, don’t you look happy this morning,” he said. “Did you get lucky?”

  “Charlie!”

  “You can’t blame a guy for asking. At least one of us is getting some action. Until Dorothy wakes up and realizes what’s good for her, I’m stuck in a dry spell.”

  “Well, you still have Lili. CGI but still smoking hot.”

  Charlie chuckled. “I’m glad you finally got what you wanted, Max. I actually like her better this way. There’s a part of me that’s wishing she doesn’t regain her—”

  Max’s ringing phone silenced him. “Hang on, Charlie. It’s my mom.” The fact that his mother was calling him during working hours was strange, but he began to worry when he answered it and heard her tremulous breathing on the other end.

  “Ma? You there?”

  “Max…oh, Max…it’s bad. Kevin…and Perry…when we picked him up from the hospital…he was covered in blood…and…and they couldn’t…they couldn’t save him.”

  Max felt a cold sweat trickle down his spine. “Mom, slow down. I don’t understand what you’re saying. Who got hurt?”

  “Not hurt,” she choked out. “Perry died last night.”

  His blood ran cold. His throat closed. It took a few seconds for it to sink in and when it did, his hands began to tremble. The happiness he had felt just moments ago evaporated into thin air.

  “Your brother needs you, Max.”

  “I’m on my way, Ma.”

  Max hung up the phone and it dropped from his weak hands. His body shuddered as he shut down his computer.

  “Max, you’re as white as a ghost,” Charlie said worriedly. “What happened?”

  “Perry…Perry died last night.” And as he muttered the words, it was more real, final.

  “I’m so sorry, Max. I know he was like a brother to you.”

  Max only nodded, unable to speak from the shock. He stood up and pushed his phone into his pocket. “I have to go,” he said after a few moments. “Charlie, I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Anything.”

  “Tell the boss that I’m taking a few days off and get me on the next flight to Montana.”

  Charlie nodded and Max left the room, racing to the elevators with heavy legs. His phone buzzed in his pocket.

  Jordan: Did you hear?

  Max: Just got off the phone with mom

  Max: Leaving ASAP

  Jordan: I could only get a flight on Thursday night

  Max: It doesn’t matter when you get there. Just get there

  * * *

  “I don’t know why I can’t come with you,” Danny said.

  Max released a loaded breath and continued packing his bag. He couldn’t deal with this right now.

  “Max, I know how much Perry meant to you. You’ve always been there for me, now I wanna be there for you.”

  And he wanted her there too, but that meant he would have to ask his family to play along with the façade. He couldn’t do that, not now, not in this time of crisis. They were all grieving and asking them to lie just to keep up this pathetic act was not something he would ever ask them to do.

  “Danny, please. Just try to understand. You don’t know any of them…and this is the worst possible time for you to meet them. It’s just for a couple of days. I really need to be with my family right now.”

  Her lips pouted a bit and she tried to smile despite her disappointment. “Okay.”

  He pulled her into his arms, hugging her tight, stealing as much comfort as he could because he was going to have to face the next few days alone.

  * * *

  It was early the next morning when the taxi drove down the tree-lined street and dropped him off. Charlie had managed to secure him a late night flight and Max felt exhausted as he lugged his bags out of the car. He walked up the stairs to the large wooden porch of his parents’ massive country-style house and inhaled deeply, taking in the smell of home. This house held so many happy memories yet as his feet dragged lethargically across the floor, all he felt was sadness. Perry was gone and all the cheeky comments and witty remarks were gone, too. Perry had grown up in th
is house right alongside Kevin.

  They were five years old when they’d first met and it didn’t take long before Perry started sleeping over and spending Christmas with them. His parents, Beatrice and Patrick, lived four houses down the road so their homes and their families were easily interchangeable. Their lives were intertwined from a young age, the bond of their friendship so deep that they even shared their moms. Momma J and Momma B, and neither mother ever complained about having an extra son.

  Kevin was a difficult person to deal with, and that was putting it mildly, yet somehow Perry had done it with ease. His little brother was intense, a ticking bomb, a landmine. Step in the wrong place and he exploded with awful words and rude remarks. That’s how he dealt with things. He lashed out at anyone who tried to get too close. He put up walls and stopped everyone from entering his personal space, everyone except Perry. And now the only person who knew how to comfort him was the reason he needed comfort in the first place.

  Max stepped inside and went past the dining room, straight to the large kitchen to find his mother. He found her sitting sadly at the table, holding a cup of tea in her hand but it didn’t look like she had even taken a sip yet. Her shoulders were hunched over and her eyes were red and puffy. Although her dark hair was graying and there were wrinkles at the corner of her eyes, Max had never thought she looked old until now. Perry’s death had aged her overnight.

  “Mom?”

  She gave a tired smile when she saw him. “Hey, baby. How was your flight?”

  “Too long.” He walked up to her and hugged her tight. He didn’t ask how she was doing. The answer was apparent. Completely distraught, as if she had lost her own child. She held him for a long while before she finally pulled away.

  “Dad’s at Momma B’s house,” she said, “helping with the funeral arrangements. It’s on Saturday.” Her voice grew shakier. “She’s a wreck, Max. Completely shattered. She was frantic at the morgue. They had to sedate her. Our Perry is gone. He was a good boy…such a big heart.”

  He watched the stream of tears roll down her face. Standing there silently, he offered no words of comfort because there was nothing he could say to make the situation better. Instead, he listened to his mother as she poured her heart out, small smiles tugging at her dimples as she reminisced about the last fifteen years they had spent with Perry. But then she started talking about the night he died and the depression returned.

  “There were four of them in the car,” she explained, pressing a tissue against her nose. “Kevin, Perry…Perry’s girlfriend, Shandre’…and Clayton. You remember Clayton? He lives in the next street.” Max nodded and after wiping her eyes, she continued. “The car spun out of control. Perry flew through the windscreen. They found…they found Shandre’s body in a ditch and Clayton is still in ICU.”

  “What about Kevin, Ma?” Worry escalated inside him. His mother had only told him about Perry. She had said nothing about the other passengers and he had automatically assumed that Kevin was okay.

  “He has a deep gash down his forearm.”

  Max exhaled a breath of relief, but thinking about the way Perry died brought more sorrow to the forefront.

  “He was the only one that came out unharmed,” she said, “and I think the guilt is killing him. He refuses to talk to me. And every time I try to talk to him, he snaps. He’s traumatized…I understand that. I just wish he wouldn’t shut me out.”

  Max only nodded. A different reaction from Kevin would have surprised him. The only thing he did naturally was shut people out. His mother had always tried to get him to open up and all she ever received in return was venomous retorts. She pushed too hard and Kevin pushed right back.

  Max understood then the depth of her grieving. Perry was gone and that was devastating, but losing Perry meant that they had lost Kevin, too. He was never going to recover. His best friend had been taken away from him and although Max did not understand completely, he could relate. After all, it had not been too long ago that he had sat in the hospital, praying at the bedside of his best friend.

  Although he knew it was a bad idea, he looked at his mother and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go talk to him.”

  She smiled her gratitude and he walked down the corridor to Kevin’s bedroom. He didn’t knock because he knew he would be asked to go away. He walked in and found Kevin sitting on the bed. It could not really be called a bedroom.

  When Max had left home to study in LA, his parents had knocked down the wall between his bedroom and Kevin’s and converted it into a full-on man-cave, complete with pool table, fooze ball table and a flat screen TV. Large posters of Beyonce’ and Jennifer Lopez covered one wall while his swimming medals were neatly displayed in a cabinet against another. Even though Kevin was the last of his siblings left at home, there was two of everything in there. Two beds, two bean bag chairs, two gaming controls. Another testament of how often Perry came over.

  Kevin did not look at him when he entered the room. Instead, he ran a quick hand over his wet face and turned his head in the other direction, not wanting Max to see his reddened cheeks and puffy eyes.

  Kevin never showed weakness by crying. Actually, he never showed any kind of emotion, but Max knew all the tell-tale signs. Balled fists, tight jaw and then he clasped his hands at the back of his head. He recognized it because these were things they both did, their natural reaction to anxiety, anger or hurt. Kevin’s body language told him that he was feeling all of those emotions at once.

  Max didn’t say anything because his brother needed to be dealt with delicately and he wanted to avoid the landmines.

  Kevin was different from the rest of them in every way. All his siblings – Jordan included – were tall and somewhat skinny. Kevin was much shorter and attributed his muscular frame to the fact that he was the only one who had any hand-eye co-ordination. While all of them excelled in academics, he excelled in sports. But the defining difference was his personality. Although Kevin had a light-hearted sense of humor, he wasn’t open like the rest of them. He used his sharp tongue as protection to keep everyone at a distance and this was why Max decided to proceed with caution.

  Remaining silent, he switched on the TV and gaming console, then reached for the controls. He sat down, choosing to sit on the floor instead of the bean bag chair that used to belong to Perry.

  Long, drawn out minutes passed before Kevin moved off the bed. No eye contact. No exchange of greetings. Just simple wordlessness as he sat down on the floor beside Max. As he reached for the other control, Max noticed the thick, white bandage on his forearm and was reminded yet again of how quickly life can take an unexpected turn and how grateful he needed to be for second chances.

  They continued playing for hours, moving between games once they became boring. Their mom came in at lunch time and left sandwiches and chips on the floor in front of them.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Max muttered, not wanting to disturb the quietness too much.

  His brother ignored her and continued thumbing the controls. Max nibbled a bit but Kevin refused to eat anything.

  It was late evening when Max finally thought it was safe to speak. “You wanna talk, Kev?”

  Kevin’s jaw immediately clenched and his nostrils flared slightly with annoyance. He didn’t respond, though, and Max could hear him grinding his teeth. It was an irritating habit from early childhood, but he didn’t complain because he knew what that ugly sound meant. It was a mechanism Kevin used to stop himself from crying.

  “I know this is hard for you. Perry was—”

  His hands tightened around the controller. “Max.”

  It was a sharp whisper to reinstate the silence and Max did not know what kind of acerbic retort waited on the other side of his stilted pause. Kevin had never snapped at him before, but there was a part of him that thought it would happen today.

  His brother turned to face him, his deep blue eyes lined with tears and burning with anguish. “You’re my brother,” he said, his voice low
and unsteady. “You already know how I feel…and I know how you feel…so there’s no need to talk about this. And if you mention his name again, I’m gonna ask you leave.”

  Max nodded. That wasn’t the verbal lashing he was expecting but it made him understand his role in the situation. Kevin hadn’t played video games all day for the entertainment. He had done it for the distraction. And he hadn’t allowed Max to sit in his room for so long because he intended to open up. He had kept Max there because he wanted the silent comfort, the pillar of strength only a brother could provide.

  * * *

  Max awoke the next morning, his body stiff from having slept on the floor. Kevin was already up. Actually, his red, tired eyes suggested that he hadn’t slept at all. He had returned to his spot on the bed; staring out the window, and Max took that as his cue to leave. He closed the door of the man-cave, quickly brushed his teeth and washed his face before pulling out his cellphone.

  He called Danny, spoke to her for a few minutes then walked to the living room. His three nieces and two nephews were in there, running around like they were high on sugar, cartoons blaring on the TV. The noise pinched his tired brain.

  If the kids were here, Dominic and Shane had to be around somewhere but as his eyes searched the room, the only adult he spotted was a man he had never seen before. He was neatly dressed in a gray suit and tie, arguing with his niece, Makayla, about how many lady birds she had on her dress. Makayla was becoming more irritated and Max thought it best to not get involved in their squabble.

  He walked into the kitchen and his mood lifted instantly. Running from the door, he leaped up and caught Jordan in a choke hold as he landed.

  “Max,” she yelled. An annoyed snort burst from her mouth as her small fists jabbed into his ribs. All that got her was a series of noogies.

  “Mom!”

  “Max, let go of your sister.”

  He let her out of the choke hold but kept his arm around her shoulder. “Hey, Jo-jo,” he said, slapping a quick kiss on her cheek before turning to his mother. “Momma, how come you always take her side?”

  “Because I’m her favorite,” Jordan stuck out her tongue and adjusted her glasses, which had shifted on impact.