I’d long since written off the possibility of ever getting my memory back.
But what if…
What if Sally was still in there?
We were the same person who came from two completely different worlds. But what if this time I could save her?
There was only one man who knew the truth. The whole story, beginning to end. But we couldn’t talk about it through text or over a phone call where doubt could linger—or history could repeat itself, should he feel the need to protect me with lies.
It was just my luck. He had a pair of my thongs I needed to pick up anyway.
That long nap was about to seriously come in handy.
Bowen
I woke up standing beside my bed. I hadn’t fallen asleep there nor had I been sleepwalking, but Clyde’s thunderous bark in the middle of the night was enough to have me on my feet, ready to brawl, before I’d even roused to consciousness.
“What the fuck,” I hissed, willing my heart back to a pace that hopefully wouldn’t end with me having a stroke. I scrubbed my jaw and then froze when a knock at my front door preceded another round of Clyde’s audible torture in the living room.
After snatching my phone off my nightstand, I checked the time. It was two thirty in the morning, but that wasn’t why my heart stopped.
Five missed calls from Remi.
Jesus, I must have been comatose not to have heard that.
No fucks given about who was knocking on my door, I immediately dialed her back.
“There you are,” she greeted.
“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
She tsked her tongue. “Will there ever be a day when you don’t ask me that?”
“At two thirty in the morning? Probably not.”
“Fair enough. Can you come let us in? I’ve been knocking on your door for the past ten minutes.”
My whole body roared to life. “You’re here?” I asked, long strides already carrying me to the door—to her.
“Yeah. I know it’s late.”
I snatched the front door open and found her standing outside, Sugar tucked under her arm. Then I listened to her finish in person.
“We need to talk.”
We need to talk was rarely what you wanted to hear from a woman.
But she was there, and honestly, I’d survived pretty much everything the universe could throw at me when it came to Remi Grey. Besides, she’d come to me. It wasn’t like she could tell me to leave again.
I stepped out of the way and swept a hand through the air beside me. “Come in.”
She wasn’t all the way in the door before I went in for a hug. Just the night before, I’d been exploring her body with my tongue, yet she was rigid, keeping her arms at her sides.
Ohhhh-kay. So we were back there. At two thirty in the morning. After she’d driven all the way from Savannah. This did not bode well for me with the we need to talk.
Dropping the hug, I stepped away from her and attempted to shove my hands into the pockets of my sleep pants only to remember they didn’t have said pockets. So yeah. That was fun and not awkward at all.
She set Sugar on the floor and he took off with a case of the zoomies around the house, bouncing off my leg like I was part of a parkour course before dive-bombing Clyde. The old guy’s hackles were still raised from the early morning wake-up call, but it didn’t take but a second for him to collapse on to the floor and roll around with his long-lost brother.
Remi smiled as she watched them play. It was strained, and I fucking hated it.
Completely ignoring the stifling blanket weighing on the room, I gripped the back of my neck (to flex my bicep, of course) and said, “I presume you’ve come for the panties.”
Her eyes lit with humor, easing a fraction of the pressure mounting inside me. “No, you can keep those.”
I dipped my chin. “Your generosity knows no bounds.”
Glancing down, she laughed softly, but it was fleeting. When her eyes came back to mine, all humor had vanished. “I have some questions, and I need you to promise to tell me the truth.”
My shoulders sagged. I hated like hell she’d assumed I wouldn’t. “Of course.”
“Promise, Bowen. Even if it’s hard. Even if you don’t want me to hear it. No more protecting me. I need to know the truth.”
I took a long step toward her, not touching but still close enough to feel her warmth. “I swear to you, Remi. You can ask me anything. No more lies or half-truths. I promise.”
She nodded and folded her arms over her chest. Her posture became a wall between us.
“Real or not real,” she began. “Sugar got out once because you left the gate open when you were moving the chairs to the garage. After we caught him, we went to Home Depot and got the swinging bed because you saw it on my Pinterest board.”
