Forgotten Promises (The Promises Series Book 2) (12 page)

“The doctors can’t give me a definitive timeframe for when or even if your dad can be moved to a hospital closer to home,” she begins. “I don’t like the thought of you going back and being so far away.”

I scoff at the suggestion that she gives a shit. “If it bothers you that much, Mom, you’d be coming home with me.”

I huff out a disgruntled breath when she doesn’t respond, sensing that this conversation is pointless.

“Look, I’m eighteen years old. I don’t need babysitting, and I’ll be fine on my own.”

“You’re not fine, Ethan, you’re recovering from surgery. You have retrograde amnesia and heaven only knows the emotional trauma all this is causing.”

She moves to place her hand on my shoulder and I step away sharply. The hurt is instantly evident in her eyes; her face falls and the part of me that isn’t a screwed-up mess feels bad.

“That’s the one I dislocated,” I tell her, hoping she’ll accept it as the reason I don’t want her comforting me. “It’s still sore.”

“Sorry,” she says, shifting her weight on her feet.

“Listen, Mom. I’ve told you that I’m going to be okay. I have Blair and Susan if I need anything. Hell, if I get really desperate I can always call on Jackson. He’s only around the corner from us; I can always get a hold of him if I have to. I’m set; you don’t need to worry.”

She frowns and then begins rummaging around in an oversized purse she’s always carrying. I have no idea what could constitute the need to carry around a purse large enough to transport a small child. She squats on the floor and starts to pull out all of its contents one by one. Her cell, a notebook, what I’m assuming is a makeup bag, deodorant, a pack of tissues. I stare at her, getting more and more frustrated as she searches. A young couple walks past and the woman almost trips on all the shit Mom has laid out on the sidewalk. The guy is looking at us like we’re crazy.

“Mom, what are you doing? Get up, you’re embarrassing me.”

“Oh, hush your mouth. I can’t find—oh wait, here it is.” She pulls her wallet from the bag and holds it out to me triumphantly. “Found it,” she says, handing it over.

All that hassle. Why chicks don’t just carry them in their pockets, I’ll never know. I wait impatiently as she shoves all the crap she’s just unpacked back into the purse.

“Right, that’s better,” she announces, taking the wallet from me and pulling out her Amex card. She hands it to me. “You know my pin, so use it for food, gas et cetera. Just don’t go overboard with it.”

I give her a surprised look. “Um, okay. I don’t need it though. I have money.”

“I know, honey, but I’d feel better if you used it. That’s not an invitation to go and buy that new Fender, though.” She half smiles. “Try to be responsible.”

“Okay, look, I need to get back in there.” I point my thumb behind me to the restaurant. “They’ll be wondering where I am.”

“Oh, okay. Ethan, honey, I just wanted to ask—how’s your memory? Are things starting to come back to you yet?”

She asks in a strange tone, worried or nervous, maybe. It’s only been a matter of hours since I saw her last. Why would she think anything had changed?

“No, not yet,” I lie. I’m not even sure why, but I don’t want to tell her the truth. She bites at the inside of her cheek and studies me for a moment. I think she knows I lied, but she doesn’t call me out on it. There’s an awkward silence as my mind is racing about why she would ask me that and then react so strangely.
How would she even know I was lying?

“I’ll let you get back to dinner.” She moves closer and gives me a small, quick hug. It's about as unnatural as they come. We don’t have a cuddly mother-son-rainbows-and-unicorns relationship.

“Bye, Mom.” I make my way back into the restaurant as she shouts that she’ll call me tomorrow. I don’t acknowledge it; chances are I won’t answer if she does. Nothing has changed from earlier. She’s still choosing him, and I still hate her for it.

WE ARE ON our way to the campsite, Ethan’s driving, and I’m tucked up in the passenger seat, wondering why this feels so awkward. He’s barely spoken to me since we finished dinner and collected his car from the seedy bar where we abandoned it. He was acting strange when he walked back into the restaurant. He didn’t mention that he’d seen Moira, and I haven’t brought it up because I didn’t want him to question how I knew she’d seen him. I can’t formalize a good enough excuse to tell him, and the truth—that I’m feeding her info on his memory so she can keep secrets from him—sits so badly with me that I’m sure he’d hate me. Why wouldn’t he? I’m starting to. I need to talk to her when we get home. I can’t do this; I should have just said no in the first place.

“You warm enough?” he asks as he fiddles with the dials on his dash. “You’re shivering.”

“I’m fine, baby.”

“So we’ll pick up our shit from the site, go get gas and head out, okay?”

It’s more of a statement than a question so I simply smile and rest my head against the cool glass of the window, watching him as he studies the road ahead. Something is definitely bothering him.

According to my mom, someone from the site had called her while we were at the hospital. I guess they had noticed that we hadn’t packed up and left when we were supposed to.

We make it to the campsite after what feels like the longest twenty minutes of my life. I hate how the mood keeps swinging from comfortable to awkward. The unsettled feeling I have is ramping up as we pack up our belongings and he still doesn’t attempt to make conversation. I throw my bag into the trunk and my resolve finally snaps.

“Ethan, has something happened? Are you mad at me? You’ve barely spoken a full sentence to me at all in the last hour.”

“Why would you think I’m mad at you?”

“I’m not sure,” I shrug. “I just know something’s getting to you, and you are not doing a particularly stellar job of hiding it.” His eyes shoot up in surprise at my observation.

“You know, I think you may be the only person who’s ever called me out on that. Not many people can read my moods like you seem to be able to.”

I step up close to him and circle my arms loosely around his waist. The heat is radiating from underneath the soft worn cotton of his t-shirt and warms my wrists. I tilt back so I can see him more clearly.

“Yeah well, I’m not just anyone, and I know you. I know that when you’re upset you get a little crease right here above your nose.” I smile as I trace over the small indent before dropping my hand back to his waist. “I know that you drum your fingers on any available surface when you’re feeling anxious. You hum without realizing it when you’re relaxed, and I happen to know that if you smile genuinely, the dimple in your left check is deeper than the one in your right. I pay attention.”

“You pay attention, huh?”

“Of course I pay attention, I—” He silences me with a kiss. Fire dances behind the ice blue of his eyes, and he’s staring at me fiercely as his lips are pressed softly over mine. His intense expression is in complete contrast to the softness of his actions. The breeze chills the moisture on my lips. I shudder as he pulls away, and another chill races along my spine. I feel the ardor of his stare on my skin as his eyes map out every contour of my face, as if committing it to memory. Messy brown hair falls over his forehead, tickling my own as he moves forward again.

This time his eyes drift shut as he cradles my head in his hands and pulls me forward to meet his mouth. The warmth of his breath fans over my face and then his lips send electric pulses through mine as they move with a slow deliberation. I can feel my knees buckle, and I’m thankful he’s holding my face because I’m certain I’d sink like a boulder, and land in a mass of boneless skin at his feet. I’m completely lost, stumbling further into the abyss of my affection for him. He doesn’t even seem to know what he’s doing to me. I move my arms from his waist and slide them between us, running them up his stomach and chest, squeezing them amid our tightly packed bodies, and finally bringing them up to cup his face, the same way he’s holding mine.

He kisses me breathless, until I have no real conscious realization of where we are, or how long we’ve been standing here. Heat pools in the pit of my stomach as he pulls my bottom lip into his mouth and nips at it, dragging his teeth slowly over the flesh before releasing and placing tiny kisses over the bite. We finally break away, dizzied by the exchange, and he rests his chin on the top of my head, tucking me into his body like I’m an extension of him. It’s exactly where I belong.

I listen to the erratic rhythm of his breathing as he attempts to catch his breath, inhaling slow and deep. My face moves up and down as its rests over his heart, mirroring his breathing. The smell of soap and something that is uniquely Ethan infiltrates my senses; coupled with my dazed mood from our kisses, it makes for an overwhelmingly heady combination.

“You make it impossible for me to stop kissing you—you know that, right? I can feel my chest burn, and my lungs scream for me to stop and take a breath,” he smiles and I can hear it come across in his voice. “I know that I need to pull away, but I can't. I don’t want to, and I’m sure I’m about to suffocate, but I don’t care because it would be the sweetest way to die,” he whispers. I feel his words in every part of me; my toes curl, my fingertips tingle and if it’s possible for a person’s whole body to blush, I’m betting that’s what mine is doing right now.

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I say sarcastically with a small grin.

He pulls away, pushing me back at arm’s length while holding onto my shoulders. The sereneness of his expression morphs to ferocious passion. The wind is blowing strands of my hair across my cheeks and slapping them against the lenses of my glasses. I can feel my arms break out in goosebumps and I’m sure they have nothing to do with the gusts of wind that are slowly starting to pick up and everything to do with the way Ethan’s looking at me right now.

“You are the first and last person I will ever breathe those words to, Blair.” The seriousness to his voice sends a shudder racing through my body. There isn’t a single ounce of doubt in his voice and my stomach tightens. I watch the calmness return as I respond in the only way I know how. I rise on to my tiptoes, place my cold cheek against the unshaved roughness of his, and tell him the only truth I’m certain of at this moment.

“I love you.”

We’ve been traveling for about an hour since stopping for gas. After the exchange at the campsite, Ethan’s acting more like himself, although the telltale crease above his nose is prominently visible, mocking me that there’s still something troubling him that he hasn’t chosen to confide in me. I have no right to know every little detail about him, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting them.

“My headache hasn’t gone. Do you have any painkillers with you?”

I lean forward to reach into my purse strewn at my feet.

“Shit! Ouch! Crap that stings!” I fling back into my previously reclined position, the biting burn of my stitches pulling, and then easing ever so slightly as I reach under my shirt and attempt to rearrange the position of the dressing that’s tugging at the sensitive skin around the wound. I wince as my cold fingers come into contact with the hot skin around the incision.