“Can you call the doctor? And maybe give me a minute?”

He inhales sharply, and I feel a flare of guilt, inexplicably. Then he nods, and steps away from my bed. “Of course. Give me a few minutes to find him. If you need anything—”

“I’ll call,” I say, and he nods.

I don’t know who he is. Why he’s here. Why he looks so strangely hurt by my behavior.

“Do I know you?” I ask, hesitantly.

His whole body seems to tense, and I want to reach out and touch him, to soothe the tight lines of his shoulders.

A tattoo is licking up his neck, a bird in flames, just visible over the collar of his scrubs.

“I’ll be back with the doctor,” he says hoarsely.

And then he’s gone, and any answers he might have are gone with him.

It stings a little. Like I should know him, or why he was here—and I don’t.

Why the hell am I a hospital in Austin? Why aren’t my parents here?

Every memory I reach for is blank. A space where something should be. It’s like who I am has vanished. The doctor is a Haitian man with skin the color of midnight and a wide smile. And an accent so thick I almost can’t understand him as he explains.

The nurse—not Tattooed Blue Eyes—gives me a notebook, and when the doctor leaves again to find my MRI scans, I write what I know.

I was brought in from a car crash two weeks ago.

I had traumatic brain injury, causing memory loss.

Apparently, I was drunk before the accident and that didn’t help my mental functions at all.

The girl with me is still in critical condition.

Her license says she is Lindsay Illian and I am Peyton Collins.

The driver died.

I live in Austin.

It’s not nearly enough for me to work with—to build a life on.  But it’s all I’ve got, so it’s going to have to do. What bothers me isn’t that I can’t remember. It’s that I’m alone here.

What the hell kind of life was I living, that I am so fucking alone?

The door opens, and Tattooed Blue Eyes enters with a paper bag. He eyes me for a minute, and I stare back silently.

A tiny grin turns his lips, and he comes deeper into the room and sits in a chair near my bed.

“Knock knock,” he says, and waits, staring at me.

I frown, “Who’s there?”

“Hatch.”

“Hatch who?” I ask, my tone sharp and annoyed.

The grin blossoms into a full smile, “Cover your mouth when you sneeze!”

I giggle and shake my head. “That’s really bad, Blue Eyes.”

His grin falters for just a second, and then he shrugs. “But you laughed. Now. Are you hungry?”

I don’t respond, and he doesn’t seem to care, going to work pulling out a plate of fried rice and chicken with vegetables and spreading it all out on the table. He moves easily, almost ignoring me, but I can feel the tiny glances he darts at me.

“What are you doing?” I ask, when the plate is in my hands and he’s back in his chair. The sleeves of his thermal have been shoved up, and I see stairs crisscrossing up his arm, and a brightly colored fish on his other, twisting through weeds and flowers.

“I’m eating dinner with you,” he says. Pauses. “Do you want me to go?”

That possibility looms in front of me. All night, alone in this room, and nothing. No memories or knowledge to keep me company.

The thought is terrifying and I shake my head. Because whoever he is, he’s a distraction. Someone to keep my mind off the emptiness.

“No,” I whisper. “Please stay.”

Chapter 3 : Before

Scotty is strumming on his guitar, but without any real point or purpose, and it’s grating on my nerves.  I scrub a hand over my head, and breathe a curse. He misses a note and I glare across the room at him.

“Cut that shit out, would you?”

“Why are you fucking nervous?” he demands. “It’s just a chick. Hit it, and let it go. Get it out of your fucking system.”

I snort. “Because that’s worked so well for the past few months. Don’t you think if I could forget her, I would have by now?”

Scott drops the guitar to the futon we picked up from a girl he fucked before she moved to L.A., and stands. “I think you’ve been fixating on her since the first time she walked into Barrie’s. For fuck’s sake, man, you turned down Lindsay.”

He hadn’t. And Lindsay is a little bit indiscriminate—she was just as happy coming back to the apartment to fuck Scott as she had been when we were both on the table.

It did make the next morning awkward.

“Can we keep her out of this?” I demand. Scott’s eyebrows climb, but he doesn’t argue as I reach into the almost empty fridge for a beer. My nerves are dancing.

“Text her, dude,” Scott says, and his tone is somewhere between amusedly resigned and annoyed. I glance at him, and he extends the phone.

“She’s outta my league,” I mumble, and take a pull on the beer. It’s shitty, lukewarm Bud Light but it’s what we had the money for this week.

“Fuck you,” Scotty spits, and stalks from the room. I swallow the beer and follow him. He’s in the back bedroom, the one that’s ostensibly his, but rarely used.

“You know what I mean,” I grit out.

“And I’m fucking sick of it. We aren’t that shit anymore, Rike. Get it through your fucking head.”

“We aren’t country club socialites either,” I snap.

Scotty gives me a disgusted look. I get it. I’ve known Scott longer than anyone else in my life. With our history, I know exactly what he’s thinking.

We’ve fought a long time to get away from the past we share. And for the most part, we have. Scott left it behind, threw himself into his work and his music. He’d forget it completely.

I can’t. I’ve never been able to forget where we came from, or why we can’t ever be more than that shit. It’s why I’ve stayed away from Peyton.

“You let them win,” Scott says, grabbing a shirt and pulling it over his head. It ruffles his blonde hair, giving him the just-fucked tousle girls can’t keep their hands off. “Every fucking time you say we can’t be more, you let them win. And I’m fucking tired of that. We’re out—no one gets to decide what we are except us. If we want to be damn rock stars, that’s on us. If you want Red, that’s on you. But no one can take that shit from you but you.”

He stares at me, green eyes brilliant and furious, and I swallow hard. Nod. I dig my phone out and tap out a quick message. A stupid knock-knock joke I heard a few days ago on the morning show.

Hold it up for Scotty to see. “Happy?”

He grunts, and pushes past me. “It’s a start.”

He’s pissy and he’ll sulk for a few days. I expect it. I knew he would when I said it. I’m just stupid enough that I said it anyway.

The phone vibrates in my hand and Scott twists to give me a knowing stare. “That was quick.”

“Fuck off,” I mutter, and thumb over to the message.

P : Took you long enough. Was beginning to think I’d need to find a new bar to keep things from being awkward.

I grin, and type a quick response.

R: I’m the one who got shot down the other night. Shit like that will hurt a guy’s ego. Make it up to me.

P : How?

I hesitate for a moment, and then.

R: Dress casual. I’ll pick you up tomorrow.

P : Slow down, Jokes. Where you think you’re going to pick me up?

Well, fuck.

***

She agrees to meet me at Barrie’s after her last class the next day, and I sit on the bouncer’s stool—not that we’ve ever actually used the bouncer to turn people away. My leg bobs nervously, and I clench a hand on it to still the nervous energy.

Why the fuck doe this girl wind me up so much? It’s more than just her beauty—although that helped.