Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“Thank you?” I reply unsure if I’m supposed to be happy for the makeup or not.
Ally cups my face and I see the glossiness in her eyes from unshed tears. “You’ve been through hell. Let me take care of you.”
Nodding, I let her, because the truth is, I need something familiar, even if my own memories won’t give it to me. Ledger watches the whole exchange from the corner of the room, eyes glancing to the windows every few seconds.
He’s on alert. He’s working even while pretending to sit still.
“Busy day?” Ally asks him pointedly.
“Just makin’ sure the wrong people don’t get near her,” he mutters.
“Oh?” Ally raises a brow. “So the right people can?”
Ledger’s jaw flexes, but he doesn’t answer. Ally smirks like she won something. She visits for a bit, but without me at work, she can’t stay long.
After she leaves, the silence returns, thicker now. Ledger finally stands from the chair, stretching slightly. “You said you wanted out of here for a bit?”
I blink. “I did?”
“Last night.” He shrugs. “You said the walls were closing in.”
That sounds like me.
He grabs his keys and nods toward the door. “Come on.”
The drive into town is quiet, but not awkward.
Ledger glances over once in a while, like he’s making sure I’m not in pain. Like he expects me to faint or disappear if he looks away too long.
I don’t hate it.
Actually, I like it.
Which feels dangerous for my heart.
“So,” I say, clearing my throat, “what did we usually do together? Before all this?”
Ledger doesn’t tense, no he freezes.
Completely.
“Depends what you mean,” he answers carefully.
I pick at the loose thread on my jeans. “Did we hang out? Go places?”
“Sometimes,” he replies vaguely, eyes fixed on the road.
“Like on actual dates?”
Silence.
Then without emotion, he states. “Not really.”
My stomach sinks.
“Oh.”
“That wasn’t on you,” he adds immediately. “It was me.”
That’s not the answer I expected. Not that I actually had any idea of what he would reply.
“How so?”
His jaw works. “Because we had an arrangement and I liked to keep boundaries.” There is a pause, an awkward one. “I wish I hadn’t.”
Something in my chest aches unexpectedly. “Did you want to and just didn’t change it? Or we didn’t have time?”
Another long pause.
“Yes,” he states but doesn’t elaborate.
The softness in his voice hits me like sunlight through a winter chill. Warm. Quiet. Honest.
I stare at him, trying to see if the answer exists somewhere in my missing memories.
It doesn’t. But the feeling it stirs does. “So what’s today?” I ask lightly trying to figure out what comes next. “An outing? A date?”
He jerks the wheel slightly. “Jesus, Kelly. No, it’s not.” A pause, then he stammers, “I mean, unless you, that’s not—”
I bite back a smile. “You’re flustered.” In all the time we haven’t spent together in the hospital and in his home, he has never once not had a response. He’s rattled and I find myself proud to have caused it.
“No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Stop.”
“I can’t,” I reply laughing, amused and breathless. “It’s funny.”
His glare is weak. “You have a head injury. You shouldn’t tease.”
“Is teasing something I did a lot?”
His jaw loosens. “All the damn time.”
I grin. And something warm flickers in his eyes.
He parks downtown, in front of a row of small shops. The bakery sign catches my eye — Frosted and Filled. An odd sensation rushes through me.
“I work there,” I whisper.
Ledger follows my gaze. “You do.”
The door is propped open, music drifting out. Fresh bread. Sugar. Butter. Strong emotions slam into me. Homesickness for a home I can’t remember. Pride in work I don’t recognize. A sense of belonging I can’t name.
“Do you want to go in?” he asks softly.
I step toward the entrance before I fully decide to. Ledger falls into stride next to me, always slightly between me and anything else.
Inside, everything feels wrong and right at the same time.
The register.
The chalkboard menu.
The display cases full of pastries I know I made before. Somehow, somewhere in the lost parts of my memory they exist.
Customers glance my way, some smiling, some greeting me by name. But the faces blur, names vanishing before they come.
I swallow hard and grip the counter for balance.
“Kelly?”
Ally’s voice breaks through the noise. She rushes from the kitchen, apron dusted with flour, eyes wide.
“You okay?”
I nod, though I’m not sure.
Ledger steps closer. “She’s overwhelmed.”
“I’m fine,” I whisper the lie.
Ally frowns. “Want to sit in the back?”
“No, I don’t want to sit.” I reply quickly as the need to be in the space overtakes me. “I want to see where I worked.” I feel like I know every inch of this place. I’m on the cusp of something coming back.
“That’s literally everywhere,” she explains. “You worked here nonstop.”
A laugh escapes me thin but real. Ledger’s hand hovers near my lower back, not touching but grounding.
Ally leads me through the bakery, narrating everything like a tour guide. “This is your station. You hated when anyone messed with your set up. You kept your measuring spoons in this drawer. You always burned the first batch of muffins because you forgot they were in. This is the fridge you threatened to kick last summer. That’s the oven you cussed out when it made a weird noise. You and I once got drunk and decided to invent a chocolate-chip-pumpkin-maple-monstrosity that made Chux cry into his shirt.”