by Stacey Lynn
I wave him away to get a seat while I mix myself almost the same drink I made for Tyler. Except mine is full fat with dairy not soy because that’s just gross. I figure if you’re going to consume four hundred and fifty calories in a drink you might as well make them count.
“What are you doing here?” I ask once we’re sitting in a corner table near a small stage that has a few stools and two microphones for their open mic night. It’s nothing special, but I can see how customers could enjoy coming here to listen to music as they relax on some of the overused microfiber sofas and oversized plaid chairs. None of the furniture matches, yet it all fits.
But it doesn’t seem like a place Tyler would spend much time in, if any at all.
His sheepish grin tells me he’s busted. “I saw your car out front so I thought I’d stop in and say hi. See how the other night went when you got home.” He says this last part with a quiet and concerned voice. It’s laced with suspicion, as if he wants to check out my arms hidden under my sleeves and look for bruises.
“I figured today was as good as any at getting back to my life.” I shrug and take a sip of my drink, allowing the coolness of the creamy iced coffee to bring me a second’s pleasure. I think that Tyler’s concern is going overboard. The problem is that I don’t blame him. Adam did break his nose, and I’m not always entirely sure how stable he is either.
But hurt me? Physically? I’m not sure Adam is capable of that by any means. Emotionally? That’s a whole different ball game. The things I’ve seen, the memories I’ve had – even if they were slight glimpses – makes me feel like the beginning of our relationship was some big game to him. Or me, maybe. But it must have calmed down at some point and become real, right? Because if not, what are we still doing together?
The only thing I can’t deny is the way my body reacts to his, even if I wish it didn’t.
I shake the thoughts and questions out of my head. The answers exist; except just like always, they’re out of my reach.
“Adam was fine. Worried, but fine.” He doesn’t look like he believes it fully, but he shrugs. We finish our drinks talking about his boring day as an intern at some small law firm downtown. And when Preston isn’t looking, we laugh about the hassle it must be for her to fly with all that metal she has to remove during security.
Not maliciously, though. And Preston seems used to people gawking and giggling about her. I was surprised at how quickly she welcomed me back into the coffee shop. She spent the first morning talking nonstop. Literally. I’m not sure if she’s simply overly caffeinated from owning the coffee bar, or if it’s her natural personality, but the girl can talk. And talk. Without breathing. It’s the most strangely fascinating thing I’ve ever seen.
She looks like some bad ass punk or goth chick with her piercings, wicked dye job, and skin tight black clothing. She’s almost intimidating, even if she’s the size a puppy. But then she talks and sounds as if she believes fairy tales are the spice of life. It’s a strange combination but equally endearing.
The best part is that she talks to me like she’s seen me every day for the last three months, which is apparently how long I’ve worked at Hooka Joe’s. She doesn’t give me the pitiful look I’m used to seeing. She doesn’t tip-toe around me like I could crumble to my knees at any second. And most importantly, she doesn’t keep asking, ‘do you remember this?’ like so many people, including Adam and Kelsey, have a tendency to do.
She’s completely refreshing.
When our drinks are done I tell Preston that I’m going to walk Tyler outside. There are only a few customers anyway so she waves me away like she’s been doing all day. I can’t decide if she simply trusts me or if she’s this laid back with all of her employees.
“Thanks for stopping to check on me,” I tell him once we’re outside.
“Not a problem. I just want you to know that I’m here if you need anything. I don’t know what you’re going through, but if you need an ear, or a friend …” his voice trails off as his gaze catches something behind me. His friendly smile tightens right before he leans in and brushes his lips against my cheek. I flinch away from him, but if he notices, he doesn’t say anything. “I’ll see you soon.”
And then he turns and walks away, leaving me watching him with a confused look.
“How long have you been seeing him?”
I jump at the cold voice coming from behind me. Each word punctuated precisely, as if he’s not trying to spit something out of his mouth.
My eyes widen and my back straightens as I slowly turn to face Adam. His hands are shoved deeply into his dark blue jeans. He exhales a breath and it takes one second for his teeth to grind together. Amazing how I don’t know this man but can read him so well.
I look back to the spot where Tyler just walked away from, but he’s gone.
I frown. “I’m not seeing him. He showed up here the other night when I was lost in the park and then today he came in for a drink when he saw my car.” I look around the park across the street and scan for the dry cleaners. “He lives over in that building,” I tell him, pointing to the apartment Tyler told me he lived in.
His lips twist into a funny shape, like he’s trying to hold back saying something he might regret. “But you like being with him.” It’s a statement not a question, and I understand his implication. I like being with Tyler and not him.
I look away, not knowing what to say. I can’t even deny it. Tyler and I have a history that isn’t complicated by me not remembering things. By the time I lost my memory, Tyler wasn’t really in my life anymore, so anything that happened in the last two years is as much of a mystery to him as it is to me.
“Being with him doesn’t come with pressure to feel anything.” My words are soft and not meant to hurt, but I can tell they do. It’s not my intent, but I can’t make him feel better about me being around someone either. It’s completely innocent. “You have to remember that I grew up with him. I know him.”
He opens his mouth to say something but quickly closes it, fidgeting back and forth on his heels, flexing his fingers. He’s angry and I want to explain to him that it’s no big deal, but I can’t find the words. I’m not sure I have anything to be sorry for besides talking to a friend over a coffee and slacking at my job.
He blinks slowly. “I stopped by to see if you want to go get some dinner.”
“I told Kelsey I’d have dinner with her at the bar.” I rock back and forth on my feet, nervous under Adam’s searing gaze. I watch his anger at seeing me with Tyler slowly disappear and a sparkle appears in his eyes.
“Great. I’ll go with you.”
I stare at him for a second before nodding. I don’t know what to say or why he wants to be with me so badly, but I’ll let him just so I don’t have to hear his teeth grind together anymore when he’s mad at me.
The Library is the biggest hole in the wall, dirty bar I have ever seen in my entire life, or at least remembering seeing. I hate that I qualify every statement with that these days.
I blow out a heavy breath as soon as I head into the bar. The bar is narrow. Two pool tables in the far back, one row of booths to the left, and the bar on the right. It’s just a few blocks off campus and the name makes me laugh. How many college kids say they’re going to the library but don’t mean the one with actual books? Did I talk about coming to The Library in this way?
“Thank god you’re finally here,” Kelsey says with a huge smile, and wraps her arms around me. “These stupid college kids here for the summer have been driving me insane all night.”
I roll my eyes and slide into the booth. “Didn’t we like, just graduate? They’re not any different are they?”
Kelsey waves her hand dismissively. “These are the kids who have nothing better to do than get wasted all day and all night. Trust me,” she says while pointing to three couples at the end of the bar. The girls are wearing what looks like matching dresses and the guys all have khaki shorts, flips flops, and button down shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Good go
d, did they all plan their outfits?
“They’ve been here since noon. Seven hours of non-stop drinking, and if those girls don’t get out of here soon, I’m liable to kick ‘em out just because they’re blonde and stupid.”
I look at Kelsey, but her eyes are narrowed in their direction. Except the girls aren’t paying attention to their drinks or their dates anymore. They’re leaning so far over the bar in order to get Zander’s attention that their boobs are hanging on the bar.
I blink and think I might actually see a hint of nipple.
These girls … they seem so familiar. The realization hits me as I gasp and look at Kelsey. Those girls are me. Or at least who I tried to go back to being the other week with the preppy little dresses and designer sandals. And the boys? They’re walking mirror images of Tyler.
The girls giggle and flip their hair and I’m reminded of the first frat party Kelsey and I went to our freshman year. We thought just because we were rich, dressed right, and knew we were at least halfway decent looking, we could have anything – anyone – we wanted.
These girls have the same energy to them. And I despise them. Something inside me wants to walk up to them and shake them. Shake the sense into them that they’re better than this, they’re better than the act, and to grow the fuck up.
Except what kind of hypocrite does that make me?
“This is some place,” I say, looking around the small bar and turning away from the trio of perfection at the bar. I can’t handle the way it makes me feel to see them. To know I used to be them but not know how I freed myself from the lure of wealth and entitlement. “How did Zander end up owning it?”
“His grandpa used to own it, but he died a few months back.”
While she’s talking, she doesn’t take her eyes off Zander. He’s almost as good looking as Adam, but in an even rougher way.
Where Adam looks like an Abercrombie model that stepped into darkness or messed around in it for a while, Zander looks like he’s lived the darkness and barely broken through the other side. His left arm has a full sleeve of tattoos, one side of his top lip has a small piercing, and his black hair is cropped short. He looks part military, part bad-ass, with a hint of rockstar in him.
And he’s with Kelsey. My beautiful friend who doesn’t – or didn’t – trust anyone not to hurt her, is currently looking at him like he just reached up and hung the moon in the sky just for her.
“He doesn’t seem like the bartending type.” He looks too rough to tend bar. More like he’d fit in better in the back booth swinging back shots of Jack Daniels and willing to kick anyone’s ass who tried to get him to move.
“He’s not,” Kelsey says softly, admirably. “But his loyalty to his grandpa runs deep and there was no way he’d give this place up to anyone else.”
I feel like we’re all sitting around our table, mesmerized by the rough looking guy behind the bar. He’s so contradictory. His tattoos and piercing give him a rough shape that says he can handle his own, the smile for the ladies say he can take care of them if they ask nice enough, but the coldness in his eyes – the look that doesn’t change when he smiles or growls – says maybe he’s just a little bit lost himself.
“What about his parents?” I ask, taking a sip of my rum and coke.
The only indication Adam heard me over the music blaring from the speakers is a slight twitch by his nose. “They’re worthless fuckers. Worse than mine.”
He doesn’t take his eyes off Zander as he throws his bottle of beer back and then sets it down on the table harder than necessary.
“He doesn’t talk about them.” Kelsey’s voice is as soft as I’ve ever heard it. She’s not a soft and loving person by nature. I think the only other time I’ve heard her sound like this is when I first woke up from my coma.
But as I look at her, she smiles at me sadly and shrugs. “I figure it’s not worth fighting over. Someday if he’s ready, he’ll let me know what happened.”
“You don’t want to know, Kels.” Adam looks at her with a warning in his eyes that I imagine is trying to intimidate her, but it doesn’t bother her in the least.
“So you’ve said,” she snaps rudely.
“I don’t understand,” I say, looking back and forth between the two of them. I can’t understand why Adam feels the need to protect Zander – who looks completely capable of taking care of himself – against Kelsey of all people.
“Zander’s had a tough life, Amy. And one he doesn’t talk about, can we just leave it at that?” By the way Adam’s eyes are narrowed toward me and the edge his voice takes on, I take it as the rhetorical question it’s intended as.
“I can’t believe your parents don’t care that you live above a bar.” I smile, and Kelsey snickers. And this isn’t the five-star dining kind of bar or lounge that would be suitable to the standards of Kelsey’s parents, her dad in particular. This place is maybe a half-star.
She shrugs. “My dad likes that Zander doesn’t give a shit about football, and they’re not like your parents. They just want me to be happy.”
“Where mine …” I begin, but she cuts me off with a smile.
“Want you to do what makes them happy.”
My lips wrap around the straw of my drink and I take a long sip, thinking about it. It doesn’t take me long to figure out she’s completely right. And slowly, the bar doesn’t seem so small and dumpy. It feels a bit more like a home. And the coffee bar, where I’ve been struggling with how I ended up slinging drinks for a living, doesn’t seem like a step down. Everyday I’ve been there it’s begun to feel more like I’m around family.
I ignore the questions I have about Adam, I push aside my lack of memories, and I realize that my life, while it’s different than what I remembered it being, isn’t so bad after all.
Things are changing. Slowly moving at the pace of a snail, and some days it’s incredibly frustrating. When I’m left alone to the quiet of my apartment for too long, I want to have all my memories back, neatly in place exactly where they belong. I want the puzzle completed instead of having to slowly piece it back together bit by bit, not sure if I’m putting them in the right place until the next memory comes along.
Unfortunately, it’s not happening as quickly as I’d like it to.
But things are getting better.
Preston is incredible to be around, and I’m back to working full-time at the coffee shop. Zander came in the other night and played a set during the open mic night. His voice was amazing. Rich and dark and it lured in all the women, but he didn’t notice a single person in the room besides Kelsey. He sang directly to her for the entire hour he was on the small stage with his acoustic guitar.
I served coffee, iced drinks, and smoothies the entire night with a smile on my face. It isn’t a place I ever would have felt like I belonged, and yet somehow, I fit here.
The customers know me even if I don’t remember them, and yet they’re not the type of crowd to care. Almost everyone who comes into Hooka’s looks either stoned or like a tortured artist. Or both.
They don’t ask me questions that I don’t know how to answer.
Adam sat on a wobbly stool the entire night with a smile on his face and a drink in his hand watching me work and making jokes while I re-filled orders.
And sometimes Tyler comes in and we sit and talk.
It’s platonic, completely, and yet I don’t mention it to Adam because I don’t want to start another fight. But it helps to have Tyler to talk to. We can talk about our childhoods and laugh at our parents, and the more I do it, the more I take the time to remember about how I was raised and how I grew up, the more the tiny mismatched apartment doesn’t seem nearly as bad.
It’s beginning to feel more like home every day.
“We’re here.”
I turn to Adam and smile. We’re both dressed in running shorts and tank tops and the early summer weather in Colorado is finally nice enough to do some hiking. Which is what I insisted on today. Although, as I look at the en
trance to the State Park, I frown.
“I thought we were going to the cliffs.”
Adam shakes his head and opens the door to his car. “This place is better.”
“No place is better than the cliffs,” I argue half-heartedly, but I’m already climbing out of the car and waiting for Adam to grab the backpack full of food out of his car.
“Just wait,” he says, and holds out his hand. I take it easily because it’s becoming easier to be around him.
It doesn’t help me understand much of who I am anymore, but slowly I’m beginning to think that it may not matter how I became this girl. Because admittedly, being with Adam and enjoying my job at Hooka’s is a lot less stressful than I ever remember my life before being.
We walk the slow climbing hiking path, holding hands, but speaking very little. It’s the first hike I’ve been on since my casts came off and I’m content to enjoy the walk, the weather, and the company in silence.
The weather is perfect, there isn’t a cloud in the sky, and we follow a path that dances around a small creek where small bright yellow flowers grow along the edges. This is everything I love about Colorado.
Some people love the snow-skiing, which can’t be beat, or the city with its never ending list of concerts and nightlife and sporting events. But give me a creek filled with the cold mountain water, a bright blue sky, and the fresh air that always seems to have a slightly chilled bite as you breathe it in and I’m in heaven.
“Oh my …” My voice trails off as Adam leads me off the path and stops at the top of a small mountain crest. We’re far below the tree line, but my eyes are wide eyed in amazement at the small area of rocky hot springs below us.
A light mist or fog escapes from the water and drifts upward, evaporating into the chilly air. The water is so calm it reflects the bright blue sky, making the water seem as blue as a pool in someone’s back yard.
It’s magnificent.
“Cool, right?” Adam says, and tugs my hand down onto the blanket he packed in his backpack. I snort at his word choice. This is beyond cool. This is an incredible, breathtaking, and heaven all wrapped up in a private party of two.