Lost In Me (Here and Now 1)

When I walk up to the gate, there are two security guards in black suits. Big guys.

“Sorry, ma’am,” a dark-skinned man calls from in front of the gate. “Private party.”

“Keep walking,” his white comrade instructs.

“Yeah, um.” Shit. I didn’t really prepare to face the Men in Black to get to Nate. “I—”

“Jesus, Hanna, girl? Is that you?” The first guy slides his sunglasses down his nose and peers at me over the tops. “What are you wearing?” He nods to one of the other guys then grabs me by the upper arm as the gates slide open.

So I guess I’m going to get in after all, because next thing I know, he’s sitting me in a golf cart and driving me up to the house. Without a word, he leads me out, up the front stairs, and into the house.

“Nate lives here?” The massive marble staircase fills the entryway with all the pomp and circumstance of a grand museum. Crystal chandeliers hang overhead. Somehow, it doesn’t seem fitting of the secretly dorky rocker I know so little about.

The man frowns at me. “What’s wrong with you?” He shakes his head. “I can’t have you going back there dressed like this. Not with all those hos hanging around.”

It’s my turn to frown. I wasn’t exactly worried about my ensemble of a T-shirt and jeans when I left my house this morning. I was more worried about getting the hell out of Dodge. Anyway, I’m not here to compete with any “hos.” I just want a chance to talk to Nate.

“Um, do we know each other?” I ask the man as we head up the stairs.

He leads me into an impressive, large bedroom with an even more impressive walk-in closet. “Oh, you think you’re funny and you’re going to act like you don’t know me, huh? Well, play coy all you want, but those girls Crane has over tonight aren’t playing games.”

“What are—” I’m cut off by my own shriek as the man yanks my ponytail holder from my hair and my T-shirt off over my head.

I

wrap my arms around myself, trying for what modesty I can.

He wriggles his eyebrows. “Well, at least you wore the good underwear.” Then he’s scanning the closet and I relax. This man isn’t interested in ogling me. In fact, if I had to guess… “Damn good thing you have a gay man around to dress you tonight, sweetheart. Because them bitches out back aren’t messing around.”

I gasp dramatically. “You’re telling me there are both bitches and hos here tonight?”

“You think you’re cute,” he says, moving his head side to side, “but they’re ’bout to steal your man.”

“He’s not my man.”

The man rolls his eyes and waves away my objection. “This!” He pulls a bright red dress from the rack and offers it to me.

“Whose clothes are these?”

“Well, they’re Janelle’s, of course. Now get changed and walk by that boy before he does something he regrets. I don’t know what you did to him, but he’s been in a bad way since he got back here Friday night. Drinking, partying. Hiding from something.” He raises an eyebrow and gives me an unimpressed once-over. “You know what you did.”

“Actually, I—”

“Change. Then meet Jamaal in the bathroom to freshen that makeup.”

He’s halfway out of the closet when I ask, “Who’s Jamaal?” It’s only one question of the approximately 1700 that are floating around in my mind right now, but since I’m supposed to see “Jamaal” next, I guess it takes priority.

The man stops, turns, and glares at me. “I thought you were clean, girl? You know that’s why Janelle liked you. None of the drugs and bullshit. Now get changed and meet me in the bathroom.”

“Jamaal!” I hold my breath. Could this flamboyant man be such a walking cliché that he speaks of himself in the third person?

The man stops and turns. “Yes, princess?”

I grin. I can’t help it. I like this guy. A lot. “I don’t remember you.”

He snorts. “Don’t be a bitch. Nobody forgets Jamaal.”

“No, I…” I shake my head and bite back my laughter. “I don’t remember much of anything from the last year. I had a head injury, and I have amnesia.”