CHAPTER TWELVE
JACK
“There's a spare room down here, if you'd prefer,” I say.
I walk her down the end of the hallway, past my office. There are actually several spare rooms, some of them sitting empty. I have more house than I need for just me and Gunner, rooms I don't think I've stepped into except when I bought the place.
They just sit there, unused. Most days though, I don't think about the emptiness. The quiet and solitude, the absolute peace I find up here, is well worth dealing with a little wave of loneliness now and then.
“It has a private bathroom room,” I say. “And, it's already made up.”
I can see the look on her face, as she weighs the options in her mind. Down here, she's by herself on the ground floor. My bedroom is upstairs, and if there's trouble – not that I expect there will be – I won't be right next to her. I can see in her eyes that she’s weighing her feelings. I’ve already surmised that she feels safe with me, and she’s trying to figure out whether she wants to be positioned that far away from me during the night.
Still, I want to put her mind at ease.
“I'll sleep on the couch,” I say. “You have nothing to worry about here, Syd. You're safe.”
“You won't be comfortable down here.”
“Have you felt that couch?” I ask and give her a lopsided smile. “It's more comfortable than most beds.”
“Not better than your bed,” she says with a mischievous smile.
“Do you want to share a bed with me?” I ask. She bites her lip, and looks perplexed, but eventually nods. “I mean, we can share a bed and not – you know – sleep together.”
My raging erection says otherwise, but I can force myself to behave if I have to. Right now, I have to. Dammit.
“It's up to you,” I say.
“I'd feel safer,” she admits.
“That settles it then.”
I turn off the light in the guest room and shut the door behind us. She hesitates at the end of the hallway, as if she's thinking about staying there after all. I turn and look at her, giving her a chance to make up her mind. I don't want her to feel forced or pressured into anything. I want her to feel safe and comfortable.
“Mi casa es su casa, Syd,” I say. “You can sleep where ever you like.”
Her footsteps are light and gentle on the hardwood floor, as if she's trying to tip-toe on purpose. She joins me in the living room, and together, we walk upstairs. She pauses in the library for a moment.
“Want to read before bed?” I offer.
“You remember that about me,” she says, her tone filled with awe. “After all this time.”
I laugh. “So do you.”
She smiles and nods her head. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
More than just the last few days have gone missing from her mind, but I keep quiet. She can't remember me or what happened between us all those years ago. I’d rather it stay that way, because when she does finally remember, she’ll walk out of my life for good this time.
“No, I think I'd rather talk,” she says, strolling down the hallway.
“Talk?” I ask. “About what?”
“About you. I'd like to get to know you better.”
“Not much to really know.”
She raises her eyebrows and gives me a look. “Come on, you're some lonely mountain man who just so happens to have a mansion in the middle of the woods,” she says, arching her eyebrows. “There's bound to be an interesting story in there somewhere.”
“You'd be surprised,” I say. “It's pretty boring, actually.”
“I'll be the judge of that.”
Once in the bedroom, she goes into the bathroom. Water is running, and I hope she has everything she needs. I hadn't planned on having someone stay with me – especially someone who doesn't even have a toothbrush to her name. Damn. A toothbrush.
I call out to her. “I have a spare toothbrush in the top drawer,” I say.
“Thanks,” her voice is muffled through the bathroom door.
I step into the walk-in and grab some boxers and a t-shirt, but before I'm fully dressed, Sydney pokes her head inside, catching me without a shirt and almost without my boxers. Her cheeks flush and something I can't quite identify flashes through her eyes, but she doesn't look away.
“Sorry,” she says, her voice a little ragged. “I was wondering if you have something I can sleep in?”
“Yeah, one sec,” I say, pulling my shorts up the rest of the way.
I dig through some of my old t-shirts until I find one that's not as large as the others. She'll still be swimming in it, but at least she'll feel covered, hopefully. I toss it over to her and she smiles, thanking me again. She doesn't leave right away, instead, we stand there and share a look. I feel an electricity building in the air between us; an almost awkward tension.
“Is there anything else?” I ask, clearing my throat.
“No,” she says. “Thank you.”
Her cheeks turn a brighter shade of red as we both realize she's checking me out. My ego inflates a bit, and part of me wants to ditch the shirt entirely, and just sleep in my boxers just to tempt her. Hell, I normally sleep naked, but, best not to go down that path. Sydney leaves the walk-in and goes back into the bathroom, and I decide to ditch the shirt anyway. I tell myself I’m not doing it to temp Sydney into any sort of action, but I know that’s just a bit of a lie. I can’t help wanting to be near her again after all these years. How often does a guy get a clean slate to right the wrongs of his past?
Being honest with myself, I can admit that having Sydney checking me out, and seeing that flash of what I think was lust in her eyes, stirs something inside of me. I feel a tension that grows below my boxers and I once again have to scold my throbbing erection that's begging for some release.
“No, not tonight.”
“Did you say something?” Sydney asks.
She steps back into view wearing nothing but my t-shirt, which falls almost to her knees. Even though she's mostly covered, I can't deny that seeing here standing there, in one of my shirts, is sexier than anything I've seen in a while. Possibly ever. But then, Sydney has always had that effect on me.
Her red hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail, and her face is clean of any and all makeup.
I look at her again and feel those stirrings deep in my groin. I silently will myself to not get an erection around her, but it's getting more and more difficult to fight it back. The black shirt brings out the paleness of her skin, illuminating her. Back in the day, she always seemed to glow from within. That's something that most definitely hasn't changed with the passage of time. Her inner glow is as bright today as it ever was.
Sydney's eyes fall lower on my body, and she chuckles and her cheeks flare with color. She has to physically turn her head to hide her laughter.
“What?” I ask, but then it hits me.
I can feel the erection, long and hard, growing. I glance down, and the boxers are doing little to hide it. Heat rushes into my cheeks and I know they're turning a deeper scarlet color than hers currently are. Yeah, this is fucking awkward.
“Jesus Christ,” I say. “I'm sorry Sydney.”
“You can't help it,” she says. “It's – okay. It's not your fault. I know you're not trying to…”
Her voice trails off as if she's lost her train of thought. Her eyes sparkle and she's smiling, though she's trying to hide it. Sydney is doing her best to stifle her laughter – though, not very successfully. I shift on my feet and do my best to hide my hard-on, which is making an already awkward situation a hundred times worse.
“Seriously,” she says, “you look at me like I'm the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“That's because to me, you are,” I say. “You always have been.”
Shut up, Jack. She doesn't need this. She doesn't need you hitting on her, not when she can't remember anything about you or Peter – or anything else in her life for that matter. She's already feeling weird about it all, there's no need to keep piling on the weirdness.
Sydney looks down, but the smile remains. She pushes a tendril of loose hair behind her ear. She's never been more beautiful to me than she is in that moment.
“I really wish I had some answers,” she says.
“Me too.”
I toss on the shirt after all, and walk over to the bed, eager to cover up my erection. I climb in and throw the comforter over me and sit up with my back against the headboard. She follows and sits beside me on the bed, neither one of us saying anything for a long time. We just sit beside one another, looking into each other's eyes. As we do, the awkwardness of the previous moments dissipates entirely and the tension fades. Our silence becomes more companionable.
“Was Peter a good man?” she finally asks, breaking the silence. “From what you could tell?”
“I'm not sure how to answer that,” I say and give her a small shrug.
“Why not?”
I shrug. “I barely met him. It was literally for like two minutes,” I say. “And honestly, my feelings for you likely cloud anything I'd feel toward him.”
“But what was your first impression?” she presses. “Did I look happy, at least?”
She looks up at me, expecting answers. She wants something, but I'm not sure if she wants the truth. I have a feeling she won't like it. But, I don't want to lie to her, either. She deserves better than that. If she's going to reclaim her memories and her life, she should do it based on the truth. “He seemed like a douchebag to me,” I say. “And no, you didn't look happy. Daisy agreed with me – there was just something off about him. Something – slimy. He was extremely possessive of you.”
She nods, a serious look on her face. I can see the resolve in her eyes growing. It's as if my words only confirm thoughts that are already running through her own head.
“I feel that way too. I've been giving it a lot of thought, trying to remember and all, and I keep coming back to that,” she says. “Just from my dream and what I can remember – and the fact that he didn't even come looking for me at the hospital or anything. You'd think if he loved me, he'd come find me. Unless, he's responsible for what happened.”
“That's how I feel too.” I sigh, hating that she doesn't have all the answers she wants and needs. “But, I thought I might be biased.”
“Maybe you are. A little bit,” she says, a tiny grin on her lips. “Or, maybe you just know me better than I know myself.”
“Not hard to do right now.”
I kick myself mentally for that joke, afraid it might have been too much. A little too callous and insensitive. The old Sydney would have laughed at her situation – and the joke. I'm not sure how the new Sydney will react though.
Thankfully, she laughs and playfully punches me in the arm, and I let out a small sigh of relief.
“Hey now, you made a joke,” she says. “At my expense, no less.”
“I make lots of them. Most people never understand them, though.”
Sydney always did though. She always got me and my sense of humor. Right from the start. It's one reason I'm so powerfully attached to the woman. She gets me in ways nobody else ever has. She's like the gold standard and nobody will ever live up to her. She's special to me. Cherished. Always has been and always will be.
Sydney settles down into the bed, getting herself comfortable, and then rests her head on my shoulder. Her fingers trail up and down my arm, and I don't even think she realizes she's doing it. It's almost like an unconscious comfort-seeking gesture. She's just sitting there, staring off into the distance, thinking to herself.
“So, you joined the Marines, huh?”
It would figure that when she speaks again, she'd ask me that question. I feel my stomach lurch as I fear that the questions about our past are about to come flying fast and furious. I know she has to be curious about it all. To this point though, she's refrained from asking a single question.
“Yes,” I say. “As soon as I graduated high school.”
“Is that what you always wanted to do?” she asks. “Be a Marine?”
I lean back against the headboard and close my eyes. Again, I debate telling her a lie, just to make this conversation flow a little easier, and to avoid getting caught up on things that don't matter. I realize though, that what I'm really doing is trying to devise a way to avoid the questions I don't want to answer. Sydney though, deserves my honesty and transparency. So again, I settle on telling her the truth.
“Not really. I did it on a whim,” I say. “I wanted to be a better man. Someone people would respect.”
Her father also urged me to do so, just to get me away from her. I don't tell her that part, however. Telling her that will serve no purpose other than to raise more questions – questions that would be better answered by her father. I may not like him, but I don't want to denigrate the man.
“Was I sad when you left?” she asks quietly. “Or were we broken up already?”
“You were sad, I imagine,” I reply. “I didn't exactly – tell you what I was doing.”
“Oh.”
A deep, abiding quiet settles over us as she processes the information. I'm sure she's rolling it all around in her mind, trying to put some pieces together. Maybe trying to figure out why I wouldn't tell her. I don't want to push things or say too much, so I let her noodle it around in her head in silence for a while.
As I sit there in silence, thinking back to that time again, her dad's words come back to me. I'm surprised to find that they hit me every bit as hard today as they had back then. Time, apparently, does not actually heal all wounds.
“My daughter comes from a long line of doctors. Distinguished, successful people,” he sneers. “What are you going to do with your life?”
“I don't really know yet,” I say.
“You need to know before you even think about marrying my daughter.”
He'd been right, of course. Sydney deserved better than what I had to offer back then. Her parents knew it, and so did I. That didn't change the fact that I loved her intensely though.
“What can I offer you to make you leave?” he asked.
I remember looking at him, confusion enveloping my mind. “Offer me?”
“How much money would it take to make you go away? For good,” he pressed. “What can I give you to leave so Sydney can go off to college instead of hanging around here with the likes of you.”
He was right about that too. Sydney needed to go to college, and she'd gotten into UC Berkeley – her dream school. She had a bright future ahead of her, but she was putting off accepting it because we were young and in love. She'd told her parents she was going to attend community college instead. It didn't go over too well with them, obviously.
That led to her father's offer to pay me to go away and never darken their doorstep again. They'd determined that I was holding her back and as long as she stayed with me, their daughter would go nowhere in life. Back then, I guess I can't really fault them for feeling that way.
“Jack?” Sydney taps my shoulder, pulling me out of my trance.
“Yeah?”
“I asked you a question.”
She sounds amused, but I'm anything but amused at this point. The memories are still painful, and they haunt me to this day.
“What's that?” I ask.
“I asked what you do for a living now,” she says. “How can you afford living this way.”
This time it was my turn to say, “Oh.”
That story is more complicated. Much more so, and I'm not even sure where to start telling it.
“Remember my dad? No, of course you don't,” I say, shaking my head, feeling sheepish. “Well, my dad used to own a construction company. It was failing back when we were together, but somehow, he managed to turn things around and it became this huge corporation. He raised it from the dead and turned it into an incredibly profitable business. He passed a few years back and left everything to me.”
“So you run this construction company now?”
“Well, it's more real estate development with an in-house construction crew now, but yeah,” I say. “Not for long though, I'm selling it off. Piece by piece, I'm getting rid of it all.”
“Why?”
When most people ask that question, it's because they can't imagine I wouldn't want to rule the empire. They can't wrap their minds around the fact that I'm willing to walk away from it all because there's so much more money to be made. The fact that I'm essentially walking away from the billions I can make by just holding onto the company leaves them in disbelief.
They don't seem to understand though, that there's more to life than just money. There's also the quality of life to consider. What good is having untold billions if you can't enjoy your life? “Because I have more than enough money to live comfortably for the rest of my life,” I say. “And it's time for me to do my own thing and not rely on my dad's successes. I want to do what I want to do, not what he wanted for me to do.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Honestly? I enjoy woodworking,” I say. “I love building cabinets and furniture. Like this bed.”
“You made this bed?”
I nod. “All by hand,” I say. “Cut the trees for it myself too.”
Her eyes nearly pop out of her skull as she examines the handiwork. She lets her fingers trail over the decorative scrolling on the headboard and she looks in awe at all of the small, intricate details. I'm biased, but I think the bed is my best piece of work and I'm proud of it.
“You're really good, Jack,” she says.
“Thank you,” I say. “It's more of a hobby, honestly. I don't need the money or anything, but it fills my time.”
“What else do you like to do?” she asks. “I find it hard to believe that someone like you is single,” she says softly, as if she’s hoping I’ll confirm my bachelorhood.
I laugh. “I refuse to date.”
“Why? A handsome, successful man like you could get anyone he wants.”
“I don't want just anyone though,” I say. “Besides, I'm kind of an asshole.”
“You say that, but nothing about you screams asshole to me.”
“Wait until you get your memory back,” I mumble.
“I'm sure it's not that bad,” she says. “Whatever it is you think you did can’t be that bad.”
I remember the last time we'd talked before I left for the Marines. I ended things, with no warning. I just told her it was over. She tried to fight it, but I fought back even harder. She won't understand that I did it for her. I did it to make sure she had that bright future she seemed destined for. I did it to stop holding her back – even though it killed me to do so. I remember that I left her crying in the park on a sunny June day, all alone. Her last words to me echo in my brain to this day.
“My dad was right about you, Jack,” she hissed. “You're a terrible human being, and I hate you. I never want to see you again.”
Yeah, she was upset, but I deserved it. I deserved all of it and more, because right before that, I took her virginity. She gave herself to me after saving it for so long. I took what she had to offer and ran away to the service.
I ran away. Not because I was a coward or didn't love her, but because I did love her. I loved her so much, and I knew her father was right about me. I was going nowhere in life. I was a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. The bad boy who'd never amount to anything. The one always causing trouble for others when I wasn't getting into trouble myself.
Sydney had a future, a good one, ahead of her if I didn't fuck it up. So, I left her to think I used her and tossed her aside.
All these years, it still kills me to think about it.