Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 174544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 698(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 698(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
“Sorry.” He clears his throat and drops his hand. “I know this has gotta be harder for you. You, um…” He looks right at me and takes a breath. “You’re turning twenty-one this month.”
Twenty. One.
“Holy shit,” I mutter, alarm coursing through me. “I’m missing three whole years.” What happened in those three years?
His neck twists towards the door. “I’m sure if we brought Farrow in here, he’d say something about getting your memories back. It might not take that long.”
Mild. Moderate. Severe. “Yeah, I think he already told me something like that.” I calm down, but I blush a little at how he’s looking me over, as though he wants to scoop me up and carry me off to a place that’ll never harm me. Has anyone ever looked at me like that? Someone who’s not related to me?
In the past few years, maybe they did. Maybe he’s not the only one. I wouldn’t know, would I?
The more my face heats, the more I realize this is real attraction roasting me. For another beat as his eyes sweep me, I study him like he’s a new specimen on my homeworld.
Protective.
He’s protective of me.
“Are you my bodyguard?” I ask quietly. There must’ve been security transfers in the last three years. Maybe J.P. retired from my detail.
“No.” He shakes his head slowly and sees me examine the old defective watch. I flip the thing over and trace the scratched silver casing.
The letter D is etched crudely.
Donnelly. “Is this yours?” I ask, my heart skipping.
“Yeah.” His eyes redden. He sits a little straighter. “I gave it to you.”
I tap the face. “Was it always broken?”
“Nah. Gimme.”
Passing him the watch, our fingers brush in slo-mo, and hairs rise on my arms, an electric feeling zipping through me again. How many times have I discovered this sensation?
Was it only with him?
While he fiddles with the tiny gears, I click into my phone. Only four percent battery. Whaaat is…this? My lips part, and I go cold at the unfamiliar lock screen picture.
In the photo, I must be dressed for a costume party. Likely as Polaris from X-Men. The sprayed green hair, green lip gloss, and sparkly matching dress are giveaways, and I think I look a little older in the pic—but that’s not what’s shortening my breath.
The baby.
I’m holding a little baby dressed as a purple dragon. Lockheed. Only this baby…his eyes are so, so blue. I glance up at Donnelly.
He looks over at me. “You alright?” His eyes.
I glance down. The baby’s eyes.
“Luna?”
I eat air, until I manage to blurt out, “Do we have a baby?”
“What?” He’s frozen-faced, only his eyes growing. Those blue eyes.
“Do we have a baby together?” I ask again, trying not to freak out. I wonder if this seems as unbelievable to him as it does to me, and I’d one-hundred percent jot this down for a future fic. It’s a great sci-fi plot, but I don’t exactly want to live it!
He reaches for my phone, but I spin around the screen first and point to the lock screen photo. “That’s me. And that’s a baby that looks a whole lot like you.”
It dawns on him.
I wish it would dawn on me. Before anxiety fully kicks in, he’s telling me, “That’s not your baby.” I wait for the release of oxygen, the breath, the relief, but my stomach sours, thinking the baby still might be his. Why do I even care?
“This is your baby?” I whisper.
“No, he’s not.”
“He…he has your eyes.” Am I wrong?
“Yeah, he looks a bit like me…but he’s not biologically mine. That’s Ripley Hale.”
Hale. It’s unlikely he’s my parents’ kid, so only one thing really makes sense.
“As in…?” I can’t even finish. Tears well. Overwhelmed tears. Happy but also sad that I’ve forgotten this monumental moment in my brother’s life. The brother I’m the closest to. “Moffy has a son.” I wipe at my wet cheeks. “He has a husband and a son…when he said he’d never have either.” He sacrifices so much for others, I never thought he’d choose a family of his own. I’m so happy for my brother, but the mourning of this memory tries to swallow me whole.
Donnelly passes me tissues, but he seems like he’d rather do more. Struggling to stay seated, he’s rooting his hands on his kneecaps. I zero in on the dried blood and broken skin along his knuckles.
“Were you there tonight?” I ask after blowing my nose. “Or…maybe it wasn’t tonight. Last night? Whenever I hit my head.”
“Time’s a little fucked up for me too,” he admits. “I wasn’t there for the whole thing.” I see how he’s looking into me. I crave to reach that expression, to understand and know and feel, but it’s like my fingers are pressed to frosted glass and he’s stranded on the other side.