My Almost Ex

by Piper Rayne

  “You remembered?” Marla’s voice drags me out of the memory.

  I close my eyes to make sure I wasn’t daydreaming. “The necklace.” I cover my neck with my hand. “What did I do with it?”

  Marla shrugs. “I don’t know, sweetie. Just be happy you remembered. I hope you forgive me for being pushy. I just felt like if you saw the dress or the room, it might help. If not today, another day.”

  I wrap my arms around her and squeeze tightly. “Thank you, Marla. Thank you so much.”

  This is the most precious memory to come back to me. The only problem with the memory is that I could feel in my bones how happy I was, and it doesn’t make sense that five years later I walked out on him.

  I really hope I didn’t lose that necklace or get rid of it in anger. I hope it’s in one of the boxes at the house. I couldn’t have been that careless with something that meant so much to him. I know I never would be now, but would the old Lucy?

  Friday morning, I’ve decided on a trail for us to go four-wheeling and gotten the trailer and the four-wheeler out of the garage.

  Lucy’s been a little off since Monday when we went to Marla and Dad’s. She was so happy she remembered our wedding day, but still… something about her demeanor seems different since then. I thanked Marla even if at the time I thought she was being pushy.

  I love Marla. She’s never tried to replace my mom, but still finds a way to guide me like a mom. I should’ve trusted her instincts.

  When I walk into the house, Lucy’s dressed and sitting at the table, spinning her phone.

  “What’s up?”

  She looks up and grabs her phone, standing. “Nothing, just waiting on you.”

  “You were thinking pretty hard there.”

  “My mom,” she says. That gives me all the answer I need.

  Susan texts or calls daily. Sometimes Lucy talks to her and other times, if I’m in the room, she always ignores her, which I hate. I can’t help but think Lucy’s trying to hide the fact that we’re living under the same roof again.

  Although nothing has happened—my blue balls are proof of that. I might beat off every night thinking of the woman in bed downstairs, but I haven’t laid a finger on her. When we were at Marla and Dad’s, I thought about it for a moment in the laundry room. But if I kiss her, I know she’ll have expectations, and I don’t know if I can promise her what she wants.

  “What did she say?” I ask.

  “I was asking her about that last journal that’s missing. I really want to find it.”

  “And she doesn’t have it?”

  “She says no, but if I kept every one from my entire life, why would I not keep the one from right before I left?”

  “True.” I grab a water and open the bottle, then down a quarter of it in one gulp.

  “Hey, Adam?” she says.

  “Yeah?” I get the cooler ready with the sandwiches and snacks I made for us to eat midday when we take a break.

  “Can we do something today?”

  I turn around and place the drinks in the cooler. “Something else, you mean?”

  She shakes her head. “No. I mean, can I have one day where we don’t talk about my memory or what happened or who I was then and who I am now?”

  The toll from the past couple of weeks shows in her body. I wish I’d noticed it sooner. She looks exhausted and stressed. I desert the cooler and walk over to her, placing my hands on her shoulders. Against my better judgment, I pull her to my chest and wrap my arms around her.

  Damn it, her body still fits perfectly with mine. Her head’s right under my chin and her arms slide around my waist, squeezing me tightly.

  “I think it sounds like a great idea,” I say softly, running my hand up and down her back, not nearly ready to let her go now that I’ve given in to temptation.

  “God, I needed this.” She lays her cheek on my chest. “You always were a great hugger.”

  I hold her longer than is appropriate, but she’s right, this feels so good. By the time we separate, all I want to do is tell her we should spend the day on the couch, holding one another.

  “We should go if we’re going to make it back by sundown,” I say while I finish packing the cooler.

  “I’m so excited. Where are we going?”

  “Do you…” I stop myself. “You’ll see. It’s a surprise.”

  She smiles like she knows I almost slipped and grabs her jacket. “I can’t wait to feel that motor between my legs.”

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “If you like motors between your legs so much.” I eye her up and down her body, and she shakes her head.

  Her cheeks flush and she disappears into the bedroom.

  Fuck. Things are changing between us and I’m pretty sure my willpower is gonna say mercy and do what my body and mind both want to do. But where the hell will that leave us?

  She comes back out, and we leave the house and climb into the truck. On the road, she hooks up her phone and puts on some grunge music. I side-eye her.

  She says, “What? It’s my new favorite music.”

  I nod and laugh. “You don’t wanna know what I’ve been listening to.”

  “What?” She turns toward me as much as her seat belt lets her.

  “Motown.” I don’t go into the story of why because of our promise not to discuss anything about her leaving or her memory.

  “That surprises me. You were always more of a garage band kind of guy. You’d always find these bands I’d never heard of.”

  “I guess things change.” I look at her for a moment and she sighs, relaxing in the seat.

  “How about grunge on the way there and Motown on the way back?” she asks.

  “I’d say that’s a good compromise.”

  She smiles at me, and again that familiar feeling of what it’s like to find happiness around Lucy overwhelms me.

  We’re halfway down the trail when we stop for lunch on the shore of one of the lakes. The water looks inviting, like glass on top and surrounded by trees, but it’ll still be freezing this time of year. Lucy lays out the blanket and I place the cooler between us just to get some space. Having her at my back with her arms around my stomach for the entire ride made it feel as though no time has passed. Except the old Lucy never wanted to go in the mud and the new Lucy pointed for me to go through it. Not that I’m telling her that though. I keep biting my tongue on so many things that have changed about her. It’s not good or bad—just different.

  “Having fun?” I ask, lying on my side, grabbing a few chips from the bag.

  “Yeah. Do you think I might be able to drive a little on the second half?”

  I want to put my hand on the back of her neck, pull her to me, and kiss her senseless, but instead I answer. “Sure.”

  “I’m guessing I never—”

  I put my finger to her lips. “We’re not talking about that, remember?”

  She smiles and picks up a sandwich I made. “Tell me what you’ve been doing?”

  How do I tell her what I’ve been doing is pining away over her? That my family was worried about me? “Just working really.”

  “No town gossip?”

  I sit up and take my sandwich out of the bag. “Cade and Presley were the biggest town gossip for a while.”

  “Tell me about her.” She sits with her legs crossed.

  “She’s perfect for him. You know how he was.”

  She nods. “I remember you two being very different about your mother’s death.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You always wanted the family. The happily ever after.”

  I’m surprised. “You remember that?”

  She smiles. “Yeah, you were like that from the first time you kissed me. Like you were searching for your future wife.”

  “And look at what happened.” I ball up the plastic bag from the sandwich and stand to get some distance, but she follows me to the water’s edge.

  We’re both quiet
for a minute before she speaks. “Do you think you’ll ever forgive me?” Her voice is quiet, as if she’s scared of how I’ll answer.

  “I thought we weren’t going to talk about this today?” I head back over to the blanket. “We should get going.”

  “Answer me, please.” She stays in place.

  “You wanted one day and I’m giving that to you. Let’s put that question aside until tomorrow.” I pack up the stuff in the cooler.

  “So you can think of how to let me down easy?”

  I stop what I’m doing and look at her. “You really want to know?”

  She nods slowly.

  I blow out a breath and tilt my head back as though I need support from above to get through this. And maybe I do. “I can’t be mad at you because you don’t even remember making the decision to leave. At least I tell myself that every time I’m with you. And I can feel my anger starting to disappear.”

  A smile slowly lifts the edges of her lips.

  “But that scares the crap outta me because one day you’ll either remember or the reason you left will return and I’ll be left like fucking roadkill on the side of the road again.”

  She steadies her gaze on the pebbles under her boots. “I wish we had some closure.”

  I sit on the blanket. “I do too, but even though you’ve made great progress, we both need to accept the fact you might never remember the reason why you left.”

  She approaches slowly as though I’m a wild animal she might startle. Then she lowers herself to the blanket. “Are we fooling ourselves?”

  I wrap my arms around my propped up knees. “How so?”

  “If this accident has proved anything, it’s that playing games and ignoring the problem is a waste of time. Time is so precious.”

  “Okay, so say it then. Are we fooling ourselves about what?”

  “That we can get back to who we were. I know I’m the one who only remembers the good between us. But I can’t lie, I want us to get to where we were. I want us to move forward. As a married couple.” She places her hand on my arm and her eyes glisten. “But if you don’t think you can get there, then maybe it’s better for both of us if we step away from one another.”

  My chest tightens at the idea of her leaving again. “I told you I’d help you.”

  “But it’s killing you. You think I don’t see that? The tortured look on your face, the pain in your eyes. One minute we’ll be having fun and it’s like no time has passed, and the next you turn cold because you remember what I did.”

  “It’s not because of what you did.” I stand, unable to sit if she wants to have this conversation.

  “Then what is it?” She stands but doesn’t follow me.

  I turn back to her. “You killed me! You crushed me! You wanna know what I did while you were away? I sat depressed by myself unless I was at work. I was miserable, a shell of my former self. I was stuck in the what-ifs and what-did-I-dos, trying to figure out how you could just leave me like that. I almost fell off the fucking mountain I was climbing because I was distracted and had no sleep. That was my wake-up call that I had to do something to get you out of my head. And just when I was getting there, you come strolling back into town with no memory of destroying us.”

  “I’m sorry.” She sniffles and I can tell she’s trying her best not to cry.

  I clench my fists at my sides. “Stop saying you’re fucking sorry!”

  “Well I am!” she yells back. “I want to find out so maybe we can move on from it. I want to scream at the old me and say ‘how could you have done this to the man you love.’ I’m angry too, but do you know how hard it is for me to live with knowing I was the one who ruined us? Knowing that if we can’t move forward, I’m the one to blame for my entire life imploding?”

  We stare at each other, silent for a few moments. It feels good to have spoken the words out loud, but at the same time, it feels as though we’ve thrown a grenade and a crater is the only thing left between us.

  “I’m not sure where that leaves us.” I rub the back of my neck.

  “I think we part. Maybe I should just go back to the inn and you can rent out the house. I’ll sign the divorce papers like you wanted.”

  My heart aches with the thought of those damn papers.

  “What?” she asks, stepping forward, all too familiar with my nonverbal expressions. “Talk to me, Adam. We were always good at talking. At least from what I remember.”

  “I feel like I’m stuck on a tightrope a hundred feet up in the air with a lion on one end and an alligator on the other. There’s no escaping the pain, I just have to decide if I want to die by being shredded alive or swallowed whole. Because the thought of putting my heart out there again is just as excruciating as letting you slip out of my grasp again.”

  She places her hand on my chest and steps closer until I smell the scent of her shampoo. “I’m scared too. What if I’m not the girl you fell in love with? I know I’m different. I see it in people’s expressions when I don’t do what they expect me to. Maybe I’m not the Lucy you love anymore.”

  “What if your memory comes back and you decide I’m not what you want? That we did marry too young and you want to leave and go live your life?”

  “Or what if you can’t stand my annoying new traits or are unable to deal with the fact I won’t ever remember everything? There’re a million what-ifs. I wish there wasn’t, but we can’t ignore them.”

  I cover her hand with mine. “It was so easy the first time around.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem.” She looks at me, searching my face with her big blue eyes. “I’m all in if you are. I’ll put my fears aside because you’re that important to me. But I understand if you can’t. There’ll be no hard feelings and I’ll sign the papers. But I’m struggling with this middle road we’ve found ourselves on. I just need to know.”

  She rises up on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek, pausing with her lips there for a moment, then turns back toward the blanket. I grab her wrist before her hand slips off my chest.

  She stops but doesn’t turn around. “Please, only if you honestly mean it.” The hiccup in her voice tells me she’s about to cry.

  I tug her toward me, and my hand cradles her cheek, my thumb brushing a tear away. “I want to fight for us.”

  “What are you saying?” she asks, her eyes heavy with love and lust.

  “I’m in. You’ve always been mine, Lucy Greene. I’ve fought for you my entire life and I’m not giving up on us yet.”

  Her hand covers mine and she squeezes. Then I get to do what I’ve wanted to since she returned. I bend my neck and place my lips on hers.

  Home at fucking last.

  I’ve kissed Adam in many stages of his life. I’ve had his lips as a tentative adolescent, a horny teenage boy, a hesitant virgin, then a sexy man. But this kiss feels new. The slow lick of his tongue along the seam of my lips ignites a shiver down my spine. The groan that rumbles from his throat when I open my mouth strums a beat of thirst between my legs. His tongue strokes mine and I’m lost, feeling as if I’m his favorite dessert and he’s savoring me moment by moment.

  I wrap an arm around his neck and press my other hand against his chest. I can’t tell whose heartbeat is faster, his or mine. This kiss is everything I’ve dreamed about since I returned, and my fingers fist his shirt so he doesn’t try to pull away. We’ve been through too much, it’s taken us too long to get here to stop now.

  He tears his lips from mine and I groan, but his head falls into the crook of my neck, kissing every inch of my skin as if he’s afraid he’ll miss a spot. “God, you’re fucking delicious.”

  “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop,” I beg. My eyes close and my head tilts in whatever direction he dictates. I’m a slave to his touch and his kisses.

  “Never. I can’t believe I’ve lasted this long.” He pulls back, his hazel eyes smoldering. Please tell me he isn’t having second thoughts. “Only we would choose the middle of nowhere to start this.”

&n
bsp; I jump up and he catches me. “I don’t care, just take me.”

  “Here?” He looks around.

  There isn’t anyone around for miles, which is the great thing about Alaska. “Yes.”

  He grabs my ass and walks me over to the four-wheeler to grab another blanket, then he walks us over to the one already set on the ground. “You’ve always had me tied around your finger.”

  “Don’t act like you wanted to go back on that four-wheeler and wait until we get home.”

  “I never said that. It’s just you were never a—”

  I wrap my hand around the back of his neck and pull him down to me. I don’t want to talk about what the old Lucy liked and didn’t. I want to discover what I like with him now.

  We lie down and our hands fiddle with each other’s clothing. I go for the button and zipper on his jeans. He opens my vest and pushes my shirt up and over my head, leaving me in a pale blue bra.

  He stares at me for a moment. “Fucking hell, you ruin me every damn time. I’m going to feast on your tits.” His body falls over mine on the blanket, his lips grazing my neck right below my ear. His breath grows heavier in my ear as he grinds his bulge into my core. “We have way too many barriers on.”

  He gets up on his knees, unbuttoning my pants and tugging them down my body, but then we realize my boots need to come off first.

  “Worst fucking clothes for this,” he mumbles.

  He’s cute when he’s flustered and even sexier because he can’t wait to get me naked. I help him by standing, taking off my boots, and shimmying out of my jeans.

  “Wait.” He puts up his hand to stop me before I sit back down. “I wish I could snap a picture.”

  He reaches behind his head and pulls off his T-shirt, and I’m rewarded with the sight of his hard, muscular chest. Dropping to my knees, I slide my hand down the ridges of his abs, dipping under the elastic waistband of his boxer briefs. His hard, long length weighs heavy in my hands, and he inhales a deep breath and closes his eyes.