My head pulsed with pain. “Look lady, I can’t think straight right now… I don’t… I don’t know…
“You don’t?” she replied, cutting me off. “You don’t know your name?”
I closed my eyes, ignoring the throbbing ache behind my eyes as I dragged a word from the depths.
It felt right… It felt like home. Right or wrong, I was going to use it because I needed to get the hell off the side of the damn road.
“Landon….. My name is Landon.”
Chapter 4
My finger pulls at a ring of water left on the wooden surface of the table. My knee is bouncing underneath it. This is torture. This is the gods playing some cruel trick on me. They’re taunting me. The only thing that could bring me relief right now is to scream and cry until my throat is raw. But I can’t.
Instead, I’m made to sit in a booth at The Tavern beside the single love of my life, and he’s acting like he doesn’t even know me!
“So, Landon. What do we do with you?” Billie says, standing beside me with her arms folded. “‘Cause you sure as hell aren’t staying here by yourself.”
The tavern was empty by the time we arrived back allowing me a chance to endure another panic attack in the privacy of the bathroom.
“I’ll stay with him tonight, Billie,” I say. “If anything goes wrong, it’s on me.”
“That’s an even worse idea. No way in hell I’m trusting him around you. No way, no how, young lady.”
“I’m right here,” Landon says.
We ignore his comment. “You’re being dramatic.”
I’ve hardly spoken a word since we walked back in here. I keep coming back to the idea that this might be one very lucid night terror. How else can I rationalize this? Heck, I don’t want to rationalize this because it means facing heavy choices I’m nowhere near stable enough to make right now, or ever for that matter. Landon is supposed to be a ghost of my past. I’ve spent six years trying to let him go, to stop loving him, to stop thinking about him. All that anguish spent fighting the memory of him and here he is, in the flesh, in my tiny town.
“Why are you even here? What brings you to Baddock?” Billie continues.
“It wasn’t by choice, darlin’. This one’s the reason I’m here.” Landon gestures to me with his one free arm since his other is now in a sling. I wanted to be left the hell alone back there.”
“You don’t ‘darling’ me.” Billie leans onto the table to tower over him but Landon doesn’t seem intimidated. “Your boyish charms may work on the other ladies but they sure as shit ain’t flying here. I’m not asking you how you ended up in my goddamned tavern. I’m asking you why you’re in this goddamned town.”
“I wish I could fucking tell you,” Landon replies, rubbing his temples. “Look, things are a little foggy right now.”
I continue to dab disinfectant onto his facial wounds fighting every urge to have him hold me, to inhale him, to feel him. I want to thank the Universe for returning him to me. I want to be happy that he’s back but I realize the truth…
He’s not back, not really. He doesn’t look at me the way he used to. He’s not my Landon right now; Just some version of himself lacking the memories to make him mine.
And maybe there was a greater truth… Landon might not remember why he came to Baddock tonight, but I was pretty sure I knew.
He was here for me.
The only question was… Why? Was he in trouble? Was I?
“Look, Ma’am, I understand you’re upset. I have no clue what the fuck happened tonight. I’ve got a fucking concussion, I can barely remember my name, and your lecturing isn’t really helping ease the pain.”
Landon kicks his feet up on the table.
“You arrogant shit.”
“Billie!” I say. I have to stand to back her away from him. She’s gone red in the cheeks and I know she’s one to hit a man when the situation calls for it.
“This is my establishment, boy.”
“As you’ve said ten times before. And I’ll say again, I never asked to be brought here. I told this one to leave me out there.”
“Billie, stop. Stress won’t help his head trauma. Save it for tomorrow.”
“He’s not staying here, Lucy. If he can’t remember anything he should be in the hospital.”
“I’m not going to a goddamned hospital,” Landon said, his voice sending a shiver up my spine. I had to calm them both down before something bad happened.
“Trust me Billie. It’s ok. He’s been through a lot tonight. We all just need some rest.”
Billie narrows her eyes to me but finally relents to my pleas. “You best be believing you’ll be explaining yourself tomorrow when your memory’s working again. We’re a small, quiet town and we don’t need any of this bullshit being brought here.”
“Okay. I think he gets it.”
“He’s gonna hear it from me every time I see him until he leaves… Which is when exactly? Because I want you gone yesterday.” I choke. The thought of him leaving carries new weight for me to burden. He can’t just leave like that, not before we’ve talked this through and he remembers who I am!
“Ignore her,” I say quickly and guide Billie behind the bar to change the subject.
“No, you will not ignore me.”
“Billie, relax, please. Where’s Todd?”
“I sent him home once it quieted down. He’s doing a double shift tomorrow.”
The dull sound of the phone ringing in the office saves me from making small talk to calm her down further.
“Excuse me a second,” Billie says. “You keep him right there and be careful. Who knows what weapons he’s got on him.”
When she’s gone and the door clicks close, I look to Landon. He’s turned his attention to browsing through a well-read coffee table book called Beautiful National Parks of the United States.
I allow myself a moment to simply watch him, my chin cupped in my hand. I love how he’s aged. He’s a man now— The same boyish good looks but with a few more rugged lines that have come from what I’m sure are more hard years and experience within the motorcycle club he got involved with back in high school. His brow is strong, his hair is pulled back, and his chiseled jaw perfectly accentuates those cheekbones of his. He’s wearing only a black t-shirt and his jeans. It’s painful how attracted I am to him, even now… For a minute as I stand playing voyeur, it’s like a fantasy has come true; I’ve been offered the sweet power to peer into Landon’s life for a moment and know he’s okay. That’s until I remember I’m not just a fly on the wall. I’m here with him, actually in his life. Our worlds have collided again in the most bizarre way. I’m joyful and utterly terrified.
“I know this is kinda weird,” I pipe up before I’ve even thought through my idea, “but I have a sofa bed you’re welcome to take until you’re ready to get back on the road… Maybe you’ll, you know, remember things tomorrow… Billie’s gonna be a bitch about you staying here but I’d be happy to have you.”
Landon takes a sip of the beer I’d poured him because I didn’t know how else to busy myself. He reclines in his seat. “That’s real sweet of you but don’t put yourself out for me, honestly. I’ll find my way outta here somehow. You’ve done too much already.”
“Where will you go?”
At that, he lifts his eyebrows and tightens his lip. “I don’t know… Back to Portland. I think… My club… If I go back I think I can find them…”
He searches his mind for some more answers. I can tell he’s more frustrated by this than he’s letting on. I learned to read the signs of Landon’s inner distress early on in our relationship: The flared nostrils, the thousand yard stare, and the way he combs his fingers through his hair repeatedly. He doesn’t find the answers he’s looking for and leans forward to rest his forehead to his fisted hands.
I sidle in beside him again, wrapping my arm loosely around his shoulders. I like feeling the warmth of him against me. “Hey, it’s gonna be fine. You’r
e in shock. Tomorrow, things will come back.”
Landon lifts his deep blue eyes to me. He has creases in the outer corners that he never used to have. I can only hope they’ve been caused by a life of laughter he’s been living since I left. Then I glance down to the grey inked tattoo on his right arm that’s now fully finished. The way it accentuates his muscles is undeniably sexy. How I long for him to be able to see me through the same new eyes— To witness how I’ve grown into a woman. Would he be impressed?
“I’m really sorry we had to meet under these circumstances, Lucy,” he says in his deep cadence.
The lying is still so hard to do. Each time I go to speak, I send it through a filter of ‘Is this what a stranger would say to another stranger?’.
“M—Me too.”
“In another life, I like to think I could’ve taken you out, thanked you properly for what you’ve done for me tonight.”
I stick a final Band-Aid over a gash in his cheek. “Oh, really?” I smile at the alien sensation of butterflies awaken in my belly. “And what’s keeping you from doing that?”
“Well, unfortunately I—”
“Lucy! In here, please!” Billie interrupts. “Now.”
Inside the office, Billie has closed the door and is explaining to me how she’s going to call Ralph, the local cop.
“What the hell, Billie?” My jaw flexes. “It’s three in the morning. Don’t go waking him up for nothing!”
“He needs to know what’s going on here, Lucy. Why doesn’t Landon want to go to the hospital? That woman who dropped you two off told me he’s lying about his name. You don’t know who this man is. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“I said to give him a break until tomorrow. Tomorrow! Wait until he has some memory, Billie. This is ridiculous. He has no idea what’s happening right now! You drag Ralph out of bed and then what happens? How’s Landon supposed to be questioned when he has no answers to give?”
“Maybe he’s lying so he can slither out of this mess he’s made.”
“He is not lying,” My voice is cold, aggressive and I might’ve just given too much away in how impassioned I sounded.