Before & After (2 page)

She
went home with us a few week ago, and I knew even as she was in bed with us
that it was going to be a problem.

“Scotty
is flying solo,” I say, turning back to Red. I can feel the sorority girl at my
back, the indignant fury from her. Red is watching her with curious eyes, gaze
skirting between the two of us. I ignore the huffy girl behind me and say, “You
aren’t. If you were, you wouldn’t be talking to me.”

Her
eyes flicker with reserved amusement, and I lean forward, and whisper, “Please.
Save me from the sorority.”

Her
lips curve into a slow smile, something mischievous and mysterious in the twist
of her lips, and I want to see that smile every day. I want to know why it’s
different, and what makes it different from the smile she would give me half
asleep and naked in my bed.

I
blink, shake the thought. Focus on now.

God,
she’s fucking with my head,
hard.

“Go
find a new toy, Lindsay. This one is mine tonight.”

That’s
what her name was. Lindsay.

“You’ll
like them,” Lindsay says, a smirk in her voice, and Red’s eyes slip past me,
settling on the girl and hardening.

Shit.
That’s jealousy, and a part of me wants to fucking crow with victory.

Instead,
I reach out and claim her hand, letting my fingers trace over the curl of her
palm, bringing her attention back to me as I absently caress her hand. She
watches me curiously for a moment.

“Friday.
Pick me up.” She reclaims her hand and scribbles on a note card, sliding it
across to me. Then she grabs her bag, shoving her laptop inside as she slides
out of the booth and across the bar. She stops Lindsay, and murmurs something
to the blonde girl.

Curious,
assessing eyes flick to me, but Lindsay only nods and turns away from me. Red
smiles, and ducks out of the bar.

I
glance down at the note card. Her handwriting is messy and strong.

And
her name is Peyton.

Chapter 2
:
After

Sometimes, the
loneliness

Is a physical
blanket,

A tangible thing
that wraps around me,

Like a
suffocating
 
wave
that
won't recede.

And then your
hand,

Rescues me.

(
Rike’s
poems to Peyton)

Noise.
Quiet, steady, noise. It breaks the stillness, shrill and sharp, then gone and
it’s just a waiting silence. My eyes open, slow and painful, and I look at a
fuzzing white ceiling, and the bright silver of a pole near my head.

Why
the hell is there a pole near my head?

I
open my lips to talk, to ask, and a body, one I hadn’t noticed before, shifts
in the corner.

Someone—a
nurse?—looks at me with brilliant blue eyes, and for a moment, I can’t remember
what I was going to ask, because there are only his eyes and the questions
there, and a scruffy beard, a sharp, angled face, and long hair that hangs like
he’s been pushing his fingers through it.

“You’re
awake,” he says, and I remember that I was asking a question.

But
I can’t remember what it was. I think, struggling to hold onto the elusive
question, and my eyes widen, panic slamming into me. Beside me, the shrill and
sharp noise of the monitor that woke me screams to life as my heartbeat slams
in my chest.

I can’t remember anything.
 

***

It
takes a sedative to calm me down, and when I wake, it’s slowly, with no idea of
where I am. It’s dark, and I remember the light streaming into the room
earlier, lighting his bright blue eyes, and the wild panic when I realized
everything was a blank slate.

I
feel it again, now, but the panic is tamer, not as sharp and choking. I shift
to sit up in the hospital bed, and glance around.

My
gaze lands on the nurse, sleeping in a chair in the corner. His hand is wrapped
around a phone, and I wonder, inanely, if he sleeps in all of his patient’s
rooms, or if I’m special.

Tattoos
snake under the pushed up cuffs of a long, silver-blue thermal, and I have the
absurd desire to push them up and see what designs will be revealed.

I
don’t even like guys with tattoos.

Why
is he here? I clear my throat, and his eyes fly open. For a moment, his eyes
are sleepy, soft, so intimate it makes the breath catch in my throat, and I
swallow hard. Then he blinks, and the hungry emotions are tucked away, and
there is only concern there, calm and professional as he pushes out of the
chair and comes to the bed.

“How
are you feeling?” he asks, glancing at the machine briefly. His eyes flick over
it, and his lips tighten before he reaches for a button.

I
stop his hand with my own, and see his eyes flare wide before he closes them,
and with a deep breath pulls away from me.

Stung,
and strangely embarrassed, I tuck my hand back under my blanket. “Where am I?”
I ask my voice shaky with disuse.

How
long have I been here; how long have I been unconscious?

“St.
David’s Medical Center.” He pauses, watching me. It feels like he’s waiting for
something, but then he adds, “Austin, sweetheart.”

Austin.
Why the hell am I in
Austin?

“Where
would you rather be?” he asks, his voice carefully neutral.

I
blink. I hadn’t realized I’d spoken aloud until he responded, and I feel heat
crawling up my neck. His eyes drop to it and heat, and I clear my throat,
looking away. Searching for an answer to his question.

Where
would I rather be?

It’s
a blank page, my past empty, stretching behind me. For how long? I bite hard on
my lip. “How long have I been here?”

“I
think you should let me call the doctor.”

“Why
can’t I remember anything?” I whisper, and tears sting my eyes. I blink hard
and sniffle. He’s staring at me, his face tight and remote, and I want him
gone, suddenly. I want just a minute, to break down in private. Away from this
stranger with his tattoos and eyes that see too much.

“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.

It’s
that she’s the first thing in a long time that I’ve allowed myself to want.

A
car slows, a sleek gray Lexus and I see Lindsay, all straight hair and pursed
lips as she watches. Peyton spills out of the car and shifts her bag on her
shoulder. “I’ll get a ride home.”

Lindsay
makes a small sniff. “Just call and I’ll swing back by.”

Peyton
makes a face at her friend and steps away from the car, coming to stand in
front of me with a small smile. “Hi, Jokes.”

“Knock
knock
,” I say.

A
grin lights her face, and she says, “Who’s there?”

“Lettuce.”

She
rolls her eyes and I nudge her with the toe of my boot. “Lettuce who?”

“Lettuce
in please; it’s cold outside.”

“That’s
horrible,” she says, but there’s a sparkle of laughter in her eyes.

I
push off the stool. She’s wearing heels, but they still put her almost two
inches shorter than me, and I’m struck by how tiny she is. With her big blue
eyes and wild red hair, in a thin sundress and sandals with some kind of weird
wedge that does fucking amazing things to her legs, she looks like a presence
much bigger than she truly is. A part of me wants to scoop her up and tuck her
somewhere safe, where she won’t get bruised by the world.

Because
I know a fuck ton about the way the world can bruise the innocent.

“Where
you at, Jokes?” she asks, and I blink out of my thoughts to focus on her. She’s
watching me with curious, patient eyes.

No
one has ever called me out like that. Pulled me from the dark spiral of my
thoughts as easily as she just did—no one but Scotty.

I
think I fall in love right then.

I
shove that stupid thought down, and nod at the POS truck Scotty and I picked up
a year or so back.
 
I hold the door open
for her, and she doesn’t even seem to care that the truck is a rusted wreck.
She just gives me a small, private smile as she slips into the cab. I shut the
door behind her and jog around to slide behind the wheel.

“Where
are we going?” she asks.

“A
favorite place of mine,” I say and her eyes brighten with curiosity. But she
doesn’t press for more as I put the truck in gear and pull away from the curb.

Keagan’s
is a record store, although lately he’s been taking in boxes of old, used
books. Records don’t sell, not the way they used to.

We
push into the store and he lifts his head to peer at me from behind a ragged
copy of Playboy. I wave once and steer Peyton toward the back corner. A stack
of poetry books sits next to the coffee pot, and I glance at it as I pour her a
cup.

“This
looks like tar, Jokes.”

I
nod and dump some shitty powdered cream in it before handing it to her. I make
my own cup as I explain, “It’s a rite of passage. Keegan doesn’t really trust
you unless you can choke down this shit. And it
is
shit. But I put up with it so I can come back here.”

I
take her by the hand and she doesn’t protest as I lead her through the rows of
crates.

Keegan
doesn’t organize anything. He just puts it out there and lets folks wander
through it. “I don’t know how long I’ve spent flipping through records and
drinking this nasty coffee. A long damn time.”

She
steps up beside me and touches the glossy cover of a record by Aretha Franklin.
“My grandmother loved her. We used to listen to her for hours while Grammy
would make cookies and I’d frost them. Every time I hear “A Rose is Still a
Rose,” I can taste her cookies again.”

I
swallow hard, shoving down the pang of loneliness that rises at her words. Not
her fault, and she can’t possibly know why it stings.
 

I
grab a crate and nod at the coffee. "Come with me."

Peyton
give me an amused half-smile as she follows me to a small area with ratty
couch. It looks vaguely like it was rescued from a dumpster after making a nice
home for a rat family.

Smells
that way too. For a heartbeat, as I drop onto the couch with a puff of stale
old odor, I think I've fucked up bringing her here. Flawless and classy in her
dress, she sinks down next to me, and kicks out of her wedges, curling up with
her feet tucked beside her. "What are we looking for?"

I
lick my lips and she follows the motion, and I know women enough to know
exactly what that means
,.
She leans forward, just a
little, and I get a peek of the gorgeous cleavage I've been trying to ignore.
She smirks and taps the crate. "Focus, Jokes."

"I'm
very
focused," I say, my tone hoarse and hungry.
Her eyes dart to me, and she hesitates for moment, but I pull back before
either of us can act on the hunger that's running too hot between us.

Maybe
I should have taken Lindsay to bed with Scotty. I probably wouldn't be so
fucking desperate to get my hands on Peyton if I had.

"Nothing,"
I say, and force my tone to stay casual and even. "Anything. Nothing. We
don't come looking for anything in particular, we just take what we find.
That's the beauty of Keegan's; you never know what you'll come across, so you
take what you find."

"When
did you find this place?" she asks as I pull out a stack of records and
begin flipping through them.

"When
I turned sixteen. We grew up around here, and we both loved music. We had the
freedom to roam then, so we'd meet here and flip through shit until it was time
to go home. Keegan sold Scotty his first guitar—a broke ass piece of shit he
picked up with a few dozen boxes of broken records. It was the only thing I've
ever seen him give away, and I think it was mostly because Scotty offered to
take the rest of the junk to the dump. We loved this place."

"You
still do," she contributes, leaning over and snagging a bright purple
record from me and examining it. She sips her coffee and shudders, before she
sets it aside and studies the album artwork intently. I try to ignore her
focusing on the stack in front of me. But it's hard, especially as she relaxes
and more of her slight body weight leans into me, warming my side in the best
possible way.

Her
breath brushes against my neck as she leans across me and puts her selection in
the keep pile.

"How
did you get started on the drum?"

Keegan
found a set of drums, a few weeks later. Looking back, we knew what he was
doing. Keeping us together and off the streets. Out of the shit that was our
reality. But at the time, it was just a weird coincidence that gave us another
outlet. And as long as we weren't asking for money, no one really cared what we
did.

It
was one of the few bright spots of our life growing up.

"The
drums showed up a little
laterand
the rest was
history. We played all the time. I didn't really care; it was for Scott"

She
examines me for a moment, and then, "You are very close to him."

I
nod, not bothering to argue or justify it.

Most
chicks don't really get my friendship with Scott. Most either like us because
we're into sharing, or they get annoyed because we have no boundaries. I'm
pretty sure Peyton isn't into kinky shit, but I don't know that she's sitting
in the second category either. And that's something I'm not sure I know what to
do with.

"You’re
thinking again. Stay with me," she murmurs, squeezing my hand, and I flash
her a smile before I drop a stack of records in her lap. She makes a little
noise of surprise, and I grin.

"Help
me."