by Stacey Lynn
“Amy …”
“Oh my …” I feel myself hit the top of the rollercoaster. My insides squeeze him further into me, and I know that any second the rollercoaster is going to drop and it’s going to be the most exquisite and powerful moment of my life.
“Amy …”
He rocks me into the wall harder, and then opens his eyes as I shatter into a thousand pieces as he calls my name again.
“Amy.”
I can’t stop from trembling at the sound of my name, the way he feels inside me and pressing against me. His hands feel like molten lava all over my skin, melting me and taking away every worry I’ve ever had. Every thought.
“Amy.” The word and the name is the same, but the tone is different than it was a second ago. It’s clearer, but softer, and … oh, no …
“Amy.”
Oh, my God.
“Wake up, Amy. Tell me you’re okay.”
My eyes snap open and I’m looking directly into Adam’s eyes. His hand is on my shoulder, warming my already sweating skin, and there’s a frown line deeply ingrained in between his eyes.
In a split second, I’m curled into the far corner of my bed. Skittering away from him with my knees tucked up to my chest and my arms wrapped around my knees. I don’t take my eyes off Adam as he stands up, frowning at me, and my completely insane reaction to him.
“Another dream?” he asks drily, and then he turns to leave with his shoulders slightly hunched forward.
I open and close my mouth half a dozen times before he reaches my door to say something – anything - that will end his pain but nothing comes. All I can think about is the way he felt when he screwed me against the wall at The Lux Hotel just like he told me about yesterday.
And now, all I’m looking at are the muscles on his back, the back of his arms, and his legs that are so perfectly defined, that for a split second I think I might still be dreaming.
“Wait!” I think I sound panicky, as if the thought of him walking out the door could be the worst thing in the world. Awake, it doesn’t make any sense, but as I recall the now blurring images of my dream, this is how I would feel. I know it. The thought of Adam walking out the door and away from me, not understanding what I just saw, would gut me.
At least the me who I was in my dream.
And this morning, regardless of the arguing we did yesterday, I don’t want him walking out the door.
Adam is facing me with a resigned expression. As if he knows the next words out of my mouth will once again hurt him, even if I don’t mean to. “What is it?”
How do I explain to him how confused I feel? I blink, wanting to answer him, but then I see him. Truly see him for the first time. He’s even better looking than he was in my dream. His chest is rippled and defined. He has a tattoo in scrolling print that’s written sideways down the ribs on his right side, and he’s only wearing a pair of boxer briefs. Tightly fitted boxer briefs.
I swallow, my cheeks heating, and turn from him, suddenly nervous as the images of my dream replay through my mind. With my fingers, I pick at the comforter that used to be mine in the apartment I shared with Kelsey.
“Amy?” I don’t have to look up to know he’s walking back toward me. I can hear the soft padding of his feet against the carpet. I can feel him coming closer, cautiously.
Not even sure what I’m doing, my slightly trembling hand presses into the side of the bed. My voice is just as shaky as my hand. “Sit with me?”
It comes out as a question even though that wasn’t my intention. Why do I want him in my bed? I don’t. He scares me. I should be getting out of my bed, not inviting him into it. Although this morning, with my head groggy and un-caffeinated, I wonder if Adam does scare me – has always scared me – but maybe for a different reason than I’ve been thinking.
He sits down at the opposite corner of the bed. I can’t seem to bring my eyes up from the tattered edges of the comforter as I feel the bed shift under his weight. I wonder what I would see in his eyes if I were brave enough to look at him.
I gather my courage and look, and then laugh, because he’s sitting with one leg tucked under him on the bed and the other foot tapping nervously against the floor. He’s looking everywhere in the room except at me.
Adam’s head snaps to mine and I meet his gaze dead on. With what I assume is a nervous gesture, he bites one side of his bottom lip and cocks his head to the left.
“I don’t bite,” I tell him, shifting so there’s room for both of us.
He releases a small sigh, and this time, I know it’s not out of frustration. It’s contentment and I can see it written all over his face as his body climbs into the bed next to me and the stress around his eyes disappear.
Heat hits my cheeks when I realize what I’ve just done and my fingers tighten along the edges of the sheets. Adam’s arms are crossed against his bare chest and his legs are stretched out, crossed at the ankles. There is not an ounce of fat on this man. Not a single inch of this man has anything on it that doesn’t belong. I let my eyes drift down his legs, trying to remember how they felt when they spread my knees and carried the weight of my body as he pressed me against the wall.
He’s just so … strong. If possible, my dream didn’t do him justice.
“So, do you wanna talk about it?” he finally asks. The question breaks the heavy silence and my perusal of his body. His head is resting against my headboard, eyes lightly closed. If what I felt in the dream is true, then Adam hasn’t missed a single second of the way I’ve just admired his body. He’s simply let me have it.
I mirror his look, with my head resting on the headboard, and face him. The edges of the wooden board press against the space behind my ear, slightly uncomfortably, but I don’t move.
“Nope.” But my breath hitches on the word. I know he caught it when his lips fight against a smile. A knowing grin.
He turns to face me with a curious look on his face and I focus not on his eyes that still seem able to read me, but the way his hair falls back against his forehead and his unshaven cheeks and chin. It all looks a bit messy and wild and somehow seems so perfectly him.
He raises an eyebrow, and I can see the humor in his eyes. “But it wasn’t bad.”
I laugh softly, refusing to take my eyes from his, because in this moment – whatever it is going on – I want him to know. That I’m sorry I don’t remember. I’m sorry I can’t feel everything the way he wants me to, but hell if I don’t want to try as hard as I possibly can to be the girl who feels him.
Without taking my eyes off him, I move my left hand closer to him until it’s resting on his thigh. We’re barely touching and there’s no pressure on my hand to press down into him, but his muscles tense and something flares in his eyes.
“No. It wasn’t bad.”
His thigh tenses under my hand and then relaxes when I don’t remove it from his skin. My pinky finger is just barely touching the edges of his boxer briefs and the soft cotton is a different texture than the roughness of his hard skin mixed with his prickly hair. But yet together, they both feel perfect against my soft skin.
Slowly, as if he’s afraid I’ll bolt or kick him out of my bed, he smiles at me and his hand covers mine on his thigh. He presses down firmly on the back of my skin so my fingers dig into his leg a little bit. The warmth and change in pressure sends shock waves up my arm and into my chest. I close my eyes, afraid of what he’ll see in them if I keep them open.
“Good.” I can’t tell if he’s smiling or not, but his tone sounds serious. And deeper – more gravelly – than before.
Willing myself to be brave, to take this moment in and just let it be, I open my eyes and watch his hand move against mine. His fingers press against my hand, massaging it softly, and then they slide into the space between my fingers.
The tips of his fingers lightly rub against my skin, all the way down to the tips of my fingers, and my breath hitches just watching the way his fingers can move against me.
Some of m
y dreams make me question whether they’re real or not. If they’re memories or fantasies, but with the way his slight touch lights up my skin and my nerves like the Fourth of July fireworks, one thing is certain.
That dream was real. One hundred percent.
“I’m sorry about yesterday.” His voice cuts through the silence we’ve been having while we eat our breakfast. I haven’t been able to say a word to him since he climbed out of bed, held out his hand, and pulled me to the kitchen where he sat me down and began making me French toast.
“I didn’t mean to push you, I just miss you.” I nod once and offer him the briefest smile. “And I love you, so much. Just give this some time, okay? It’s only been a month since you woke up. Everything will be okay soon.”
“What happens if it’s not? What happens if once I remember everything, I decide this isn’t where I want to be?”
He drizzles unnecessary amounts of syrup over this breakfast. When he’s done, he wipes a few drips off the bottle and licks it off his thumb with his tongue.
“You will.” It’s spoken with such a quiet confidence, but yet an underlying darkness that I have to fight the urge to squirm in my chair.
I choke down my bite and close my eyes, refocusing on the part of yesterday that upset me more than the way I felt when his hands and lips were all over me.
“I met Preston last night.” His head snaps up and he looks at me with wide eyes. I take a deep breath, willing myself to calm down. I don’t want to fight with him again. Not today. Not this morning when I feel like maybe we’ve taken three steps forward instead of our occasional one. “Why didn’t you tell me when I asked if I had a job?”
I asked Adam weeks ago, while I was still in the hospital, if I had a job to get back to. All he told me was, ‘no.’ Adam’s head drops down and I can see his deep exhale through the movement in his shoulders.
“I should have been told.” My voice is firm, not angry, but filled with hurt. “How am I supposed to remember anything when no one tells me the truth?”
I don’t wait for his answer as I clear our empty plates and rinse them off in the sink.
“I’m sorry.” He stands from the chair and takes a step forward before stopping. My spine prickles. Not because I’m afraid of him hurting me, but because I’m in the same place I found myself yesterday before he pushed me up against the wall.
I walk around him, out of the kitchen, and into the living room while he starts talking, defending his actions.
“I know you’re mad, and you have every right to be. We – Kelsey and I – didn’t want to push you. Your neurologist told us you’d remember things on your own but that putting too much pressure on you, or throwing too much at you, could make it take longer.” He puffs out his cheeks, resting his hands against the back of the chair that sits opposite me in the living room, and blows out a breath. “I just … you have to understand, Amy. When you woke up, you had no idea about anything in your life.”
He shakes his head. I can see his pain. I can feel it radiating from across the room, but I hope he equally feels how upset I am. How am I supposed to remember anything when no one tells me anything?
“I thought it’d be easier, Kelsey and I both did, to listen to the doctors and let you remember everything gradually. Hell, Amy, I was going to let you move back home to be with your parents even though I know it’s the last place you’d ever want to be again.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because your mom thought it’d be best for you to go back to your real life.”
“So my real life is slinging coffee at a Hooka bar in some dumpy part of town and I live in a dump with a boyfriend that lies to me. I gotta tell ya’, it doesn’t seem like much of a life we have right now.”
I see the pain slice right through him as he flinches at my words. I regret them instantly. Something feels wrong as I sit on the couch acting like a cold-hearted bitch, directing all my anger and frustration at him.
“I’m not trying to be a bitch, Adam,” I sigh, falling back into the chair and press the heels of my palms into my eyes.
“Listen,” he finally says, “I’m trying to do what’s best for you, and I’m sorry I screwed up. I’m sorry, truly, that I didn’t tell you about your job. I want you to remember. I want you to remember why you love this little dump; which you chose, by the way.”
One side of my nose twitches as I take in all four hundred square feet of our apartment. It’s not a dump, not really. Just small.
“Yes, you chose this place. And someday you’ll know why, but I don’t want to force you into anything. I just want you to come back to me.”
“What if I don’t?”
“You will.” Those two words are filled with the same confidence from earlier but this time it’s matched by his heated stare. It pins me to the couch, not allowing me to look away.
“You sound so sure.”
He shrugs, not one of nonchalance, but confidence. It almost makes me smile. Almost. “I’ve seen our story. I’ve lived it, and I know how it ends.”
I take the bait, I can’t help it. I need to know. I need to know why it is that he scares the hell out of me – awake and now in my dreams, and yet, I can’t just pack up and walk away. Go start a life that’s one of my own making instead of stories I don’t understand. “How’s that?”
“Together.”
I wrinkle my nose, but I can’t argue; mostly because I still don’t know if he’s right or not.
“You said something in my dream about not working at my dad’s firm.”
He licks his lips and then presses them together. I know the move by now. He’s stalling or debating how much truth to give me. “Your dad lined up a job for you when you graduated at his old tax firm and you turned it down.”
“Why, though?” That had always been the plan. I was always supposed to go to college, major in finance, and work where my dad did. That plan was set in stone before I ever stepped foot into high school. Turning it down is not only surprising, but I bet my parents flipped their shit.
He raises one eyebrow and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and watches me intently. “Do you really see yourself working at a tax firm, stuck in a cubicle farm, every day for the rest of your life?” He pauses, waiting for my reaction. As soon as I open my mouth to answer, he stops me. “Don’t answer based on the plan, Amy. Think about it. Think about who you are and what you’ve always wanted for yourself, even before I came into the picture.”
I breathe out a puff of air, frustrated that he can’t just answer the question for once. Then I close my eyes and rest my head on the back of my chair. I want to tell him, “yes, of course I wanted that,” but as I open my mouth to speak the words, I can’t. Even as I think the words, something doesn’t feel right about them.
The thought of working in that office makes me feel as uncomfortable as the dresses and shoes I bought that look like they belong to me but don’t fit the way I want them to.
And I know, without even having to answer him, that he’s right. Something has changed within me. Somehow I broke away from the life my parents predetermined I should live.
“That’s why my parents drained my bank account,” I finally say, quietly. Adam doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. Without opening my eyes, I can feel him smiling at me from across the room. “And that’s why I work at Hooka Joe’s. I couldn’t afford the apartment anymore.”
When I finally do open my eyes, startled by this revelation but somehow unsurprised by it at the same time, Adam shrugs his shoulders.
“You wanted to be free.”
I want to open my mouth to say something, but I can’t. The memory of sitting at Martino’s and crying on Adam’s shoulder while I watched the butterflies dance from the ceiling flashes through my mind.
Now I know why I was so upset that day.
I don’t always understand how I know things I do without having an actual memory attached to them, but every once in a while it happens. Or it’s
beginning to.
Yesterday, when I walked into the kitchen, I stared at the black and white photo mural on our wall and knew – just knew - that I was the one who created that gorgeous masterpiece. I don’t remember the hours I must have spent finding the perfect photos, editing them so they were all black and white, finding the perfect frames, or spray painting others black. But that’s what I did.
It must have taken me days, if not weeks, to complete the project and hang it all so perfectly on the wall that you can’t help but get lost in the smiles and the memories that I’ve preserved.
A labor of love. And it’s mine.
And before last week, I also couldn’t tell you the difference between a latte, macchiato, or cappuccino, except for maybe the flavoring if it was required. But when I showed up to work the other day, after calling Preston to see if I could come back, it only took minutes of training for me to know how to do everything.
It’s like it’s instinct, so deeply ingrained in me I could prepare the perfect coffee drink in my sleep. And there’s been something oddly thrilling, if not comforting, at the fact that for the first time in a month, there’s finally a place that I fit.
Even if it is just knowing how to make a medium, skinny, soy, Caramel Mocha, iced with an extra shot of whip cream, to perfection.
“This isn’t the drink I pegged you for,” I say with a genuine smile, and slide the cup across the counter to the customer.
He flashes me a smile and tucks his wallet into the back of his perfectly pressed pants.
“What can I say, Amy? I’m a new man.” Tyler looks around the small coffee bar and takes his first sip of his drink. “Do you have a break coming up?”
“I don’t think Preston will mind. I’m not on the clock today anyway.”