My Almost Ex

by Piper Rayne

  “Do you ever think about what it will be like if you never remember everything?” I stare blankly and he holds up his hands. “Just asking.”

  I shrug. “It’s fine. My doctor is bringing it up to me too. That’s more of a probability than me remembering everything.”

  “So what do you remember?” He looks at me with keen interest.

  “Well, I remember people, but not the memories associated with them. Like I know Adam is my husband, but I can’t tell you much else. But there have been these moments when I remember things from when we were younger.”

  He smirks. “You look like you enjoy those memories.”

  I try to bite down my smile before giving up. “I do. I love him and I’m terrified I’m never going to get him back. What if my memory doesn’t return and…” My throat closes up and tears pool in my eyes. “What if I can’t tell him why I left him, and he never forgives me, and he just carries on with his life?” A tear slips and I swipe it away with the back of my hand. “I can’t bear to live without him. And then there’s this girl, Alicia. Do you know her?”

  Jed nods, his face showing no emotion.

  “How long have they been dating?” I wave it off. “Never mind. You’re his brother. I shouldn’t be asking you.”

  “Technically, I’m only his stepbrother,” he says, a grin tipping his lips.

  I wipe the tears. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t unload all this on you.”

  “It’s okay. It’s the most you’ve ever talked to me.”

  “Really?”

  He nods. “We were friendly and all, but…”

  “Then you must really think I’m crazy.”

  “I think you’re confused, and I think you need someone to talk all this out with.” He pours another shot. “In my experience, alcohol cures all.”

  I laugh and he clinks his shot glass with mine, but just as I have the shot glass to my lips, a pounding sound rattles the front door. We both turn toward the noise. Adam is pointing at Jed and swearing.

  Jed laughs. “I wouldn’t worry about Alicia if I were you.” He rounds the bar and unlocks the door.

  Adam comes in, takes the shot glass from my lips, and tugs on my hand. “Let’s go.”

  “What? Why? I’m talking with Jed.”

  Jed leans against the wall by the door with his arms crossed and a smug smile.

  “Getting drunk at ten in the morning isn’t going to bring back your damn memory,” Adam grumbles.

  “No, but it was helping her forget the present. Sometimes people need that too,” Jed says, waving at me as Adam leads me down the hallway and out the back door.

  “So now you want to talk to me?” Lucy asks when we’re standing outside my truck.

  Seeing her in the brewery with Jed pissed me off. It could be she doesn’t remember that he’s my stepbrother or—what am I saying, she probably does, but what if… I can’t even allow myself to think about her with anyone else, let alone someone from my family.

  “Drinking isn’t going to solve this.”

  Her eyes are rimmed with red and it’s clear to me she was crying to Jed. Which makes me angry for a whole other reason. “He suggested it, and last I checked, you just asked me to sign divorce papers.”

  I roll my eyes, but she holds my gaze. I swear she could scare away a lion.

  “Come on. You want to try to remember something, I’m taking you somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  She doesn’t get in the truck, so I go around and open the door, waving my hand for her to climb on up. “You’ll see.”

  “How do I know you aren’t going to throw me off a cliff?”

  “What are you talking about?” I scowl at her.

  “Well, you’re angry and you want to divorce me. Maybe you’ve decided to get rid of me. I’m sure I come with some life insurance money.”

  “You’ve been with your mom for too damn long. Get in the truck.”

  She crosses her arms and juts out her hip. I groan. Clearly she didn’t lose her stubbornness.

  “Please get in the damn truck.”

  Her eyebrows raise up to her hairline.

  “Luce…y!”

  “Why do you keep doing that?” Her arms drop to her sides.

  “Do what?”

  “Put the y after my name. If you used to call me Luce, then just call me that.”

  I shake my head. “Please just get in the truck.”

  “Tell me and I will.” She walks toward the truck, stopping right in front of me.

  She looks so good in her workout gear. The way the leggings hug her ass and show off how strong her thighs are. She used to be able to hold herself up when I’d urge her to wrap them around my waist so I could fuck her against the wall. After we got married, we couldn’t keep our hands off one another. Every time I came home, she’d be wearing some lingerie thing or another, and one time she was cooking naked with a see-through plastic apron on. I shift my weight to accommodate for the half chub in my pants now. Great.

  “Because I called you that when we were together.”

  “So now I’m just Lucy to you?”

  I nod, unable to tell her that if I allow myself to call her Luce, then I’m admitting to myself that she still has the power to hurt me. It’s stupid but necessary.

  “Okay,” she says and climbs into the truck.

  I shut the door behind her and round the back, once again second-guessing agreeing to this stupid plan. Now I have to sit in the cab of my truck and trust myself not to cross the line I desperately want to cross. Especially after my brief stroll down memory lane about how we used to fuck like bunnies in what now feels like another lifetime.

  She puts on her seat belt and looks at me with expectancy.

  I made a list of places I’d take her, but unfortunately only a few of them are options at this moment. So I bite the bullet and decide to do the one that’s the absolute hardest—with the exception of going to the cabin we called home.

  “I’m taking you to where I proposed,” I say.

  “Oh… okay.”

  She grows silent and the stubborn, sassy side of her disappears while I pull out of the parking lot and drive through downtown Sunrise Bay toward the mountains. God help me.

  My stomach feels like a pit of anxiety the entire drive up the mountains. I don’t want to relive this moment even if it already haunts me in my head. But maybe this will get me one step closer to the goal of Lucy signing the papers so I can move on with my life.

  I park in the lot and glance at her. “Put this on.” I reach back and pull a park ranger sweatshirt from the back seat. “It’s colder up here.”

  She does as I ask and my jaw clenches when I see her in my sweatshirt again.

  “Here.” I roll up her sleeves while she stares at me through her long dark lashes.

  “Thanks.”

  I swallow past the dryness in my throat and ignore the pull that tells me to kiss her, show her physically how right we are for one another.

  “Let’s go.” I climb out of my truck and grab the backpack I always have with me in case I get stranded anywhere.

  She looks around the entrance of the woods. I wait for a flicker of recognition to light her blue irises but see none. She smiles at me. “I’m ready.”

  “You go first, and I’ll follow.” I motion for her to walk ahead of me.

  She heads up the path, over the broken tree limbs and dead leaves after a long winter. Her fingers brush a few buds on the plants lining the path. “It’s already turning green again.”

  “Summer will be here soon.” I try not to look at her too much, but it proves difficult. At least my sweatshirt covers up her amazing ass.

  “Are you excited? You always enjoyed summer in the park, right?”

  I stop for a moment, but she continues walking, so I start back up.

  “I remember you telling me how these kids got themselves in trouble climbing once and you were the big hero who had to save them off the side of a cliff.” She looks at me o
ver her shoulder and smiles. “I always found your job so hot.”

  I refrain from asking her about anything else she might remember. Maybe this is normal—her recalling certain things about me and her feelings.

  We hike for another fifteen minutes. Once we get to the last part, she looks at the rock wall that’s a little taller than her, then back at me.

  “It’s a dead end,” she says.

  I shake my head and step forward, linking my hands and holding them out for her to step up on.

  “Oh, this is fun.” She jumps to try to see over the ledge, but you can’t until you climb up. Using my weaved fingers to push herself up, she ends up bent over with her belly on the ledge, her ass literally in my face.

  “I guess some things don’t change,” I mumble.

  “Really? I always look like an octopus trying to put on shoes getting up here?”

  I chuckle.

  She looks at me over her shoulder. “Let’s try again.”

  “The day I proposed, I bit you on the ass,” I admit, more for my own sake than hers.

  “I wouldn’t have any objections now.”

  I use both my hands and push her up over the ledge. “Maybe another time.”

  She tries to hold out her hand to help me up, but I use a tree branch and scale the wall. “I see why you being a park ranger is so hot. That move right there must’ve gotten you into my pants a lot.”

  I shake my head, not wanting to think about the two of us together like that, especially with her right here in front of me. But she’s right. She always did love any show of physical strength when I was rescuing people or helping her while we hiked.

  “It’s just past that tree line.” I point for her to go in front of me again, wanting this torture to end.

  She walks through the trees, looking around as though it’s the first time she’s been here when in reality we came here tons of times throughout our relationship.

  I hear her gasp. “Oh my God.”

  I’ve yet to break the perimeter of the trees to see the blue lake surrounded by mountains. I don’t have to see it though. I can visualize it. All of it.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she coos.

  I walk out of the forest to the view that took my breath away the first time we discovered it. It’s still mindboggling that Mother Nature could gift this world such a beautiful sight to discover.

  I’d had us climb the wall on a whim that day, not expecting us to find such a special place. I’ve only been here once over the past year, but I didn’t stay long because it was too damn depressing.

  I sit down on the rock beach, watching her walk up to the water’s edge.

  She turns around and stares at me. “Will you tell me about it?”

  I push back the disappointment that just seeing the place wasn’t enough for her to remember. “Sure.”

  She sits next to me, stretching my sweatshirt over her legs. I could make a fire, but I think we’ll be leaving right after I tell her this story.

  “I took you up here, proposed, and you said yes.”

  She sighs, knocking her knee to mine. “C’mon.”

  “I just told you what happened.”

  “Adam, please.”

  I sigh and look out over the water. “I tried to make it seem like it was any other time we hiked up here, although I did suspect you knew it was coming. We’d graduated and most of our friends were going to college. Your parents were preparing to move to Idaho. It was summer, so the hiking trails were more crowded, but I brought you here at dusk, right when the park was supposed to close. I’d been helping out at the park ranger office before going to college, so they were doing me a solid.”

  She smiles and her head is tilted as though she’s enjoying the story.

  “Like always, you said we should swim. That day was unseasonably warm, but I didn’t want you to swim because I wanted to propose first and not when you were wet, but you tore all your clothes off and jumped in.”

  “I did not!” She laughs.

  “You did.”

  “I ruined your plans.”

  I glance over and she’s frowning. I shake my head. “No, you would’ve only ruined them if you said no.”

  “Did you think there was a chance I would say no?”

  I look at her again. “No. I was more worried about making it special than I was that you would turn me down.”

  She puts her hand over her heart. “Go on.”

  “I set up a tent while you were swimming, and when you were done, I wrapped you in a towel and started a small fire. You nestled between my legs. When the sun was dipping down behind the mountains, I reached into my bag and brought the ring around to you. I like to think I surprised you then. Like you’d expected me to get down on bended knee and stuff, but I guess we’ll never know now.”

  “And I said yes?”

  I chuckle. “You said yes.”

  “And we made good use of the tent?”

  I chuckle again. “Yes, very good use. One of the poles ended up breaking and it collapsed on us in the morning.”

  “I like that,” she says.

  “We were quite a couple.” I stare at the crystal blue water and the mountains surrounding it, thinking about how much has changed in my life since that day but how this scene looks exactly the same.

  “I feel it,” she says in a soft voice.

  My gaze shoots to her and I find her rubbing her chest.

  “I feel the love.” A tear trickles down her cheek. “I want you to know that. If all of this is for naught, I do love you. It’s one thing I’m certain I do know.”

  I nod and swallow the painful lump in my throat.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I wish I could give you the answer you need.”

  “Me too.”

  For the first time since she arrived in town, I realize that because of her lack of memory, we’re on the same path of discovery—both of us wanting the exact same thing. The problem is achieving it will most likely put a fork on the path—for her to go one way and me the other.

  Saturday morning, I finish packing my bag and bring it downstairs to the reception area of the inn.

  Mandi’s behind the desk and she smiles at me. “Ready to go home?”

  “I am, but don’t let Adam hear you say home.”

  She frowns. “He’s running late. Got called in last minute to assist with something at work. How about breakfast?” She steps away from the welcome stand.

  Mandi still has red hair and curves, exactly as I remember. Though I haven’t caught a glimpse of her mischievous smile yet, I’m sure that probably hasn’t changed either.

  “Oh, he didn’t call me.”

  She tilts her head. “He didn’t? Does he not have your number?”

  “He does.”

  Her hand runs down my back. “You know Adam. He probably wanted to make sure I took care of you.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” We both know that’s not the case.

  Two days ago when he took me to where he proposed, or what I gather was more or less our spot, I felt how much it hurt him to do so. He could barely look at me while he told me the story of how he proposed. How I ruined it by running into the water. Between that and what Amy from Twisted Stem said, I’m not sure I like my old self a whole lot. It sounds as though I had a habit of railroading Adam and doing what I wanted, then expecting him to go along with it.

  “Come on. Francois made a delicious breakfast this morning. Little soufflés with whatever you want in them.” Mandi picks a table by the window that overlooks the bay and sits across from me. “I can join you for a little bit before duty calls.”

  A waiter comes by and I give him my order for a soufflé.

  “So Francois, huh? You have a French chef?”

  “His name is Frank, and he’s middle-aged and born and bred here in Alaska, but he’s just as bossy as a French chef. Or as bossy as I can imagine one being.” She laughs. “He’s also brilliant in the kitchen. I’ve had him for three years and I get so many
customers who come back every season for him alone.”

  I love that she talks to me as though I shouldn’t already know what she’s telling me. Mandi was only a grade ahead of us, so from what I’ve gathered from the few new memories that have popped up, we were close. I can remember hanging out with her and Chevelle at the Greene’s house.

  “Be on the lookout for my mom, because she’s on a mission to talk to you.” She sips the coffee the waiter brought over.

  “Really? Why?”

  “Because my mom loves you, but she doesn’t want to bombard you.”

  “I’d like to see her again.” I always felt very close to Adam’s family. I remember that much. “I’m still trying to remember everything. It’s weird how I can remember that Adam is my husband, but not how he proposed or our wedding.”

  “You’ll get there. I’m sure of it.”

  I nod as the waiter brings over my soufflé. It smells and looks delicious. “I see why you keep him.”

  “Wait until you taste it, then you’ll really know.” She slides her hand into her pocket. “Hey, let’s trade numbers.” She pulls out her phone and her thumbs hover over the screen. “What’s your number?”

  I tell her and she types it in. I hear my phone buzz in my purse a few seconds later.

  “There, now you have mine. Nikki really wants to apologize to you by having a girls’ night.”

  “Apologize?” I ask, the soufflé melting in my mouth. I point my fork at the soufflé. “You weren’t kidding.”

  “Heaven, right? For telling the townspeople to stop you and tell you stories. Jed said Fran and her gang were trying to ambush you the other day.” She cringes.

  I nod. “Yeah. But I don’t blame her. She’s just trying to help.”

  “Oh, you should make her pay for it.” She laughs.

  “Spoken like a true sister,” I say, cutting more soufflé and eating it.

  Adam steps into the restaurant and I swear you can hear a pin drop. He’s in his park ranger uniform, without the hat. His hair is unruly but stylish in that way that I know he’s run his hands through it. He shakes a few hands and greets some other guests before making it to our table.

  “Here, take my seat. Want some breakfast?” Mandi asks Adam as he slides into her chair.