Pinch Me

Chapter Twenty-One

Late Tuesday afternoon, after spending the day at the shop, Bill took Laura home. She fished her phone from her purse and realized she’d missed several texts from Shayla. Once she’d closed herself in her bedroom she opted to call her friend rather than text her.

“I’m sorry,” Laura said. “I’m still getting used to technology.”

“That’s okay. So how are you feeling?”

“I’m…here.”

“Rob told us you were wiped out Saturday. But can we come by tonight? We’ll bring dinner.”

She wanted to see her friend again. “Okay. Rob won’t be here. My brother’s here, though.”

“Oh, good. We’re looking forward to meeting him.”

After a few more minutes, Laura felt exhaustion take over. She got off the phone and went back out to the living room to lie down on the sofa. “Shayla and Tony are coming over tonight.”

Her eyes felt ready to cross from all the reading she’d done at the shop, and her shoulders hurt.

Maybe Rob can give me one of his neck rubs.

She froze. He’d never mentioned that to her. Was this a returning memory?

“Laur?” Bill asked. “You all right?”

Frozen, she concentrated, willing more to come. None did.

It was frustrating being teased and tortured by her own brain. Maybe she was a closet masochist and no one had ever caught on before.

She burst out laughing but wasn’t sure why.

Bill stared at her with an odd look on his face. “You’re starting to worry me.”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Then what’s so funny?”

She rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m not sure.”

It felt good to sit down with Shayla and Tony in her own home. She knew, even though she couldn’t remember, that they’d spent a lot of time together doing just this, talking, enjoying each other’s company.

Only the other times it wasn’t Tony and Shayla trying to help fill in the blanks of Laura’s missing memories.

She watched the way Shayla looked at Tony, the love in her eyes as she glanced at him. The way she stood, without being asked, to refill his glass.

The way she obviously doted on him.

The way she leaned into him, his arm around her shoulders, as they sat and talked.

She wanted that with Rob. Maybe she’d already had it with him.

She wanted it back, if she had.

Bill stepped out of the room for a few minutes. Laura found herself saying, “You guys look like you’ve been in love forever.”

Tony smiled down at Shayla. “I’m a lucky man.”

“I’m a lucky p—girl.” Shayla blushed and quickly smiled. “Girl. I’m a very lucky girl.”

Laura wasn’t sure, but it seemed like Shayla had started to say something else. Like she should know what it was Shayla had almost said.

Then Bill returned and Tony asked him about Montana and his job as a bush pilot, and Laura forgot what she was going to ask.

Sully drove down Wednesday to take her to the gun range again. She’d passed the background check and was able to take possession of the 9mm.

He made her use it to practice. Practice included learning how to draw it, unloaded, from the holsters and the purse.

“I really recommend you carry in a holster, not in a purse. You want it on you at all times.”

She nodded, not liking the idea but accepting it as a fact of life now.

After he was happy with her being able to draw it, he made her load and shoot it by herself.

Her aim was moderately better than it had been the last time. Sully’s praise warmed her as he ran the target back to swap it out with a fresh one.

“Good job. Do it again.” He smiled as he ran the target out.

“How do I know I can use this if I need to?”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “You know what he did to you the last time.”

She nodded.

“Next time, he’ll finish the job. You either shoot him, or he’ll kill you. If you need to pull that gun, you don’t hesitate, and you don’t second-guess yourself. You pull it to shoot it. And you shoot it to save your life. And you figure that out by listening to your gut and staying vigilant.”

“For how long?”

His hard expression softened. “Until either they catch the guy or he tries again. Think about it this way. If he does try again, if you don’t kill him, he’s liable to kill someone else later. So you shoot to kill. You don’t shoot to wound, or shoot to warn. You shoot to kill. Understand me?”

“Yes, sir.” She clamped her lips together as he smiled. “What?”

He shook his head, but he looked amused. “Nothing.”

“I don’t know why I said that.”

His smile broadened. “It’s okay, sweetie. Go ahead and shoot again.”

Thursday morning, Laura nervously fidgeted with her phone while Bill drove them to Sarasota to meet with her friends. Shayla had texted her a picture taken a few months earlier of all of them together during one of their girls’ days.

It felt like a whole school of fish darting around in her stomach instead of butterflies.

This is going to be fine. At least, that’s what Rob told her several times the night before when she worried.

She had Bill with her. She’d be seeing Shayla again.

It still didn’t quell her nerves.

“It’ll be okay, sis,” he said.

“What if they don’t like me?”

He let out a snort. “They’re your friends. Of course they’re going to love you. They already love you. Stop that.”

“Sorry.”

“Oh my god, Laur, stop that, too.”

“Sor—” She clamped her lips shut on the word.

He glanced over at her and the wry look on his face made her smile.

“I’m that bad, huh?” she asked.

He reached across the seat and patted her leg. “You’re just…different. You’re coping the only way you can until you get your memories back.”

“If.”

“When,” he firmly insisted.

Bill sat at an adjoining table during breakfast, close enough to keep an eye on them, but giving Laura privacy with her friends. They took up a large corner booth, and Shayla and Leah had sandwiched her between them.

Clarisse wasn’t able to make it down that morning because the baby kept her awake half the night. But Tilly and Loren had joined them and were just as warm and welcoming as Leah and Shayla had been.

And yet…

There was still that underlying current running below everything, like she was missing some key thing that tied everything together. Something that might even give her an avalanche of answers if she could just figure it out.

She also knew on an instinctive level that it wasn’t a bad thing. It just…

Was.

Like they constantly censored themselves around her.

When a stray thought crossed her brain, she spit it out, hoping it would trigger something. “Tilly, I know you’re married to Landry, but who’s Cris?”

She didn’t imagine that all of the women paused, everyone looking to Shayla.

Shayla seemed to silently bounce the volley squarely back into Tilly’s lap.

Laura had also noticed that while Leah, Shayla, and Loren all wore beautiful necklaces, Tilly wore a simple gold chain with a plain fluorite crystal pendant.

Tilly took a deep breath. “Rob didn’t tell you about Cris?”

“I’ve heard his name mentioned before.” She frowned. “I think. I’m not sure now. So much is muddied up, I don’t know what is a memory or what I’ve heard.”

“Well, it’s complicated,” Tilly said. “Landry, Cris, and I are poly.”

As one, the other women’s heads swiveled to watch Laura.

She would have found it amusing had Tilly’s answer not confused her so much. “What? What does that mean?”

The other women looked to Tilly.

“Well, it means that I have a relationship with Landry and a relationship with Cris and they have a relationship with each other.” She took a sip of her iced tea and watched Laura’s reaction while the heads once again swiveled to focus on her.

I should know this. Something in her fractured memory pounded on a hidden door somewhere deep inside her brain and demanded release, but she couldn’t locate it.

“And they’re okay with it?” Laura asked.

Another swiveling of the heads back to Tilly.

Tilly kindly smiled. “Yeah. They were together before I met them. I got two for the price of one. And I wouldn’t trade either of the big lugs for anything.”

Laura sat back in her seat and considered things for a moment. The memories she thought she’d had when at the house with Bill returned to the forefront of her mind. “Landry and Cris came to help us work on the house, didn’t they?”

“Yep.”

She thought about it some more, then looked around. “So who’s Mac?”

This time, everyone focused on Shayla. Shayla apparently realized no one was going to do the dirty work for her. She cleared her throat before smiling at Laura. “Mac is Clarisse and Sully’s third. Sully and Mac were together before they met Clarisse.”

Laura blinked. “Is this common?”

“Among our group it is,” Tilly lightly snarked as she picked up her glass of water and took a sip.

Laura had a thought. “Am I and Rob…?” She couldn’t finish it.

Shayla shook her head. “No. Rob doesn’t share well with others. Neither do Tony or Ross.”

Laura didn’t miss what, or rather who, she’d left out. She looked at Leah.

Leah apparently knew it was her turn on the hot seat. “Kaden,” she softly said, “my husband, was best friends with Seth. Since they were babies. When he found out about his cancer, he went to Seth and…” She shrugged. “I got to live my dream for a little while,” she sadly said.

Suddenly, Laura didn’t want to be talking about this anymore. Not if it made her friend look so sad. “I’m sorry.” She took a deep breath and desperately wanted to change the subject. “So who wants to tell me what I’d planned for my wedding?”

After brunch the plan was to get their nails done, but Laura begged out. Her ribs were aching as she toughed out yet another day without the prescription pain pills, and her energy level had tanked.

She also wanted time alone to digest the poly relationship stuff. Was that the big secret Rob and everyone else had hidden from her so carefully? That they’d been worried she’d react badly?

After a round of hugs with all the women, Bill helped her into the truck.

“Are you all right, Laura?”

He hadn’t been able to hear what they talked about from his table. “Yeah. I’m just…thinking.”

“Any new memories?”

“No. Just a couple of answers.”

Rob arrived home from work early Friday morning. Apparently he normally had more days off in a row, but he wanted to play catch-up covering for everyone who’d covered for him while Bill was still in town to help keep an eye on her.

She rolled over and draped her arm around him after he’d gotten a shower and climbed into bed with her.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Mac and Cris?”

She felt his body go rigid. “Who told you about Mac and Cris?”

“I had brunch with the girls yesterday morning. I had extra names running around in my head that I couldn’t reconcile.”

His body relaxed a little as he let out a breath he’d been holding. “They’re our friends. We love them. We don’t care what they do in their bedrooms.”

She sat up and snapped on a bedside lamp. “Exactly. So why didn’t you tell me about them?”

He looked exhausted. For a moment she felt guilty about slamming him with that right then, but she didn’t want to let it wait and fester inside her.

“Sweetheart, I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t know how you’d react.”

“Did I react badly when I knew them before?”

“No, of course not. You love them.”

“Then why did you think I’d react badly now? Am I really that different?”

His hesitation in answering was all she needed. She threw the sheet aside and started to get up but he caught her hand. “Laur, please. I’m sorry. I just was so happy to have you awake, and then when you didn’t have any memories, I was afraid to overwhelm you.”

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe if you’d told me about them sooner, maybe it would have triggered more memories?”

From the look on his face, it was obvious he hadn’t.

“When Bill took me by the house, I had some vague memories about people coming to help us. Maybe if I’d known who all those people were, maybe it might have triggered something.”

She yanked her hand free and started for the bathroom.

He got up and rounded the bed faster than she could move and stopped her.

“Honey, I’m sorry.”

“What else haven’t you told me, huh?” She reached up to shove him out of her way but it was like trying to push granite. “What else are you hiding from me? How the hell am I supposed to trust you if I think you’re hiding stuff?”

His eyes widened in shock. She suspected she couldn’t have slapped him and elicited that kind of reaction.

He took a step back. “You don’t trust me?”

Part of her screamed yes, that she trusted him with her life and her heart.

But she was mad. Mad and frustrated at life, and at her stubborn memory, and the guy who’d done this to her, and that Rob hadn’t told her everything up front.

And he was, unfortunately, her target.

“How am I supposed to trust you when I have to find out something like that from people who are my friends? Something that the man I was supposed to marry should have told me!” She stepped around him and went into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and locking it before she let the tears fall, hot and heavy.

He stood on the other side of the door, knocking. “Laur, please, sweetheart, you have to understand—”

“Go away, Rob. I’m too angry to talk to you right now.” All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry.

He tried a few more times to talk to her until she finally screamed at him to go away.

Silence.

She didn’t know how long she stayed in there, but she went ahead and took her shower once she got the tears out of her system. When she finally unlocked the door and came out, Rob wasn’t in the bedroom.

She walked out into the living room and found Bill sitting, bleary-eyed, at the table with a cup of coffee.

“Where’s Rob?”

“I don’t know, but I’m guessing since he asked me to make sure I didn’t let you go anywhere by yourself, and that he had his bag with him, and that he looked like shit warmed over, and that you were screaming at him loud enough to wake me up that he probably went to the house.”

She stared at him. “He…left?”

“Yeah. He left.” He looked up at her. “Want to tell me what the hell?”

She slumped down into a chair across from him and told him.

He let out a sound that clued her in before he even spoke that he wasn’t on her side on this one. “I can understand you being aggravated at him, but he didn’t deserve for you to treat him the way you did.”

“He lied to me!”

“No, he didn’t. He just didn’t tell you. Just like I didn’t tell you about all the times you flew off the handle about stupid shit when you were a teenager and acted like an idiot.” He arched an eyebrow at her.

Heat filled her face, but she didn’t answer.

“He didn’t tell you the same way I didn’t tell you that you and Dad used to have lots and lots of conversations about your temper over the years when you were growing up, and even past college. He didn’t tell you the same way I didn’t tell you that, up until you met Rob, you were a pretty miserable person. Like you had a huge chip on your shoulder.”

She slumped farther down in her chair. “I did?”

“Yeah. Like you were trying to prove yourself all the time.”

She studied her hands. “If I was so bad,” she muttered, “why do people even want to be friends with me?”

“Because people love you, Laura. As aggravating as you can be at times, you are ten times as generous and loving and fun to be around. You have your moments. We all do. In other words, you’re as human as the rest of us.”

She didn’t have a reply.

He eventually spoke again. “The reason I love Rob is because I could see how good he is for you. How for the first time in your life you seemed to be relaxed and able to actually enjoy all of life and not drive-drive-drive yourself off a friggin’ cliff. He’s good for you. He gives you a sense of stability, a calm I’ve never seen you have in your life. Before…this, you looked like you’d finally found peace with him.”

“I did?”

“Yeah. So I can forgive him for trying to not overwhelm you with stuff you might not be able to process. Especially a fact like that. I think you should, too.”

“What if there’s more he hasn’t told me?”

“Guess what? There’s probably a lot he hasn’t told you. We can’t regurgitate everything that’s happened in your life or between us and you.”

“I meant holding back deliberately.”

“Like how you can be a pushy, judgmental bitch when your feelings get hurt?”

She glared at him.

He let out a snort. “Oh, don’t give me that look, sis.” He picked up his empty mug and headed back to the kitchen. “If looks could kill, believe me, you would have put me in my grave before you were ten.”