Lost In Me (Here and Now 1)

“Oh, damn, girl.”

“I know. Right?”

She rubs her hands together. “Okay. I could talk to Nate, right? Feel him out?”

“He’s hella pissed at me, Liz. I don’t think he’s any more likely to talk to you.”

“What about Asher?” she asks, but my horror must be evident on my face because she says, “Okay, okay, bad idea. No one else needs to know until they need to know, right?”

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

“Your phone!” she exclaims. “We didn’t know who we were looking for yesterday! Look in your contacts first. Maybe you have his name programmed as something else.”

I scroll through my contacts until I see find his name staring back at me. “He’s here. Programmed into my phone.”

She makes a hurry-up gesture with her hand. “Well, click on the history.”

I frown. I called him last Friday. That was the day of my accident. We had a three-minute conversation. About what? Judging from his reaction when he saw my ring, I obviously wasn’t telling him about my engagement.

“Oh, hell, Liz. This doesn’t make any sense.”

She snatches the phone from my hand and starts scrolling through the history under Nate’s contact info. “But you said there were texts from you on his phone?”

“Yeah. A lot of them. I didn’t get very far back before he found me and took it back.”

“But there’s nothing on your phone, which seems to indicate you deleted the evidence.”

I cross my arms. “It looks like it.”

“Where’s your laptop?”

“In the kitchen. I need to—”

I don’t get a chance to finish before she darts to the back of the kitchen and opens my laptop. “What’s your password?”

I shrug. “That’s what I was trying to say. I haven’t been able to get on because I don’t know. Thank God my calendar is synched with my phone, but I brought it down today because I need to take it to the shop. I can’t access my files.”

“What have you tried?”

“All the usual passwords I’ve always used. Birthday, initials, HanHan, initials and birthday together.”

“What about your anniversary with Max?”

I lift my palms. “No go.”

“What about Nate? Or Nate Crane?”

“That’s not it.”

“You sure?”

I drop my gaze to the floor. “I tried this morning.”

“Or…” She taps on the keyboard for a minute then presses ENTER. The computer beeps at her and gives her the “Wrong Password” warning message. “Hmm.” She taps again.

“Let it go, Liz. I’ve tried.”

She hits ENTER and the computer brightens as my desktop appears.