Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Adam blinked awake. Ethan was shaking his arm. "Where are we?"

He'd taken all his meds this morning. They'd knocked him out and, in the fully reclined passenger seat, he'd slept a dreamless sleep.

"Alexandria, Minnesota."

Ethan helped him to move the seat up, and Adam got his first look at the new state they were in. Apart from a few more trees in the distance, the highway didn't look any different, and the hotel they had stopped at was a carbon copy of the one they'd just left.

"How long did you drive?"

"Six hours or so, stopped halfway at a mall and got you some more clothes, ate shitty barbecue, played my music really loud, but nothing was shifting you from sleep."

Adam covered a wide yawn with his hand. He felt like shit; not so much pain, but confused and uncomfortable. "I need a shower."

"I need a shower, then food."

Adam looked at Ethan, but there was no innuendo in his voice and certainly nothing on his face to show he was about to make a joke about them sharing a shower.

"If you want a separate room…." Adam deliberately trailed off and let Ethan fill in the blanks. Again, Adam kept his expression carefully neutral.

"Would you like a separate room?"

"I'm not the one paying for all this." Adam waved at the hotel. "I'm happy to share."

This time, Ethan frowned. "You have money, you know, in frozen accounts. Income from your portion of the ranch. I can pay, and you can pay me back later."

Adam filed that information away, not sure what to do with it. "Okay," he said, which was all he could manage, still with the fuzz of sleep clouding his thoughts.

"But like I said, if you want a place to yourself?—"

"No," Adam said immediately, "I don't want to be on my own."

Compassion filtered into Ethan's expression and he nodded. He didn't jump on that comment, or analyze it, or make a point of encouraging discussion; he just accepted Adam at his word.

Their room faced a stand of trees.

"Seems like the view is getting better each time," Ethan said, staring out of the window.

Adam stood next to him, stretching out tight muscles. "I need a shower," he said.

"You take the shower first," Ethan offered. "I need to check my email and fond the nearest place for food."

"You've been driving. Are you sure you don't want to go first?"

Ethan looked at him and quirked an eyebrow. "Have you smelled you?" he teased.

Adam pressed a hand to his heart, affecting his most wounded look. "I'll have you know I smell of man," he said, then smiled.

When Ethan smiled back, something passed between them: recognition, a spark that Adam couldn't define.

"I got you this." Ethan gave a toiletries bag to Adam. "Now go," he ordered. "Make yourself pretty."

And then he picked up the folder from the desk to look at the details of the hotel inside, and Adam couldn't do anything other than go into the bathroom.

He closed the door behind him, and for a second he rested there. He felt different today, more relaxed, not like his every single nerve was on fire. His chest still hurt when he breathed too deeply or when he twisted in a certain way, but he felt better.

He attempted to center himself, then leaned on the sink and stared at the face in the mirror.

"Okay, I really do look like shit," he mumbled to his reflection. He catalogued dark eyes, ignored the bags under them, examined the tattoos in reverse on his chest, and ignored the bruising. He could do that—compartmentalize all his pain and exhaustion and focus on what was important.

His identity. Dark hair, nearly black in this light; brown eyes; rough, scarred skin on his neck; the tattoos climbing his chest and shoulder. He attempted to twist to see the horse in the mirror, but that just made his chest ache. He could recall what it looked like and didn't need to see it again. Stubble was slowly turning to beard, and that didn't feel right .

Scars on my neck. No beard. Tattoos all over my torso. I wonder what Ethan sees when he looks at me?

Actually, Adam could guess what Ethan saw.

The one who was alive.

Not his brother, not Justin. That was who he saw. What Adam had focused on in Ethan's expression just then couldn't be anything but concern. There was nothing else it could be.

Adam was there and Ethan's brother wasn't. Simple as that. Ethan probably hated him under the calm, supportive exterior.

But Adam didn't feel hate. He felt warmth inside him whenever he thought of Ethan. And hell, wasn't it Ethan's name he recalled in the hospital? Not Cole's or anyone else's.

He'd looked to Ethan for help, and Ethan had been there for him ever since.

Adam's cock thickened, and it took him by surprise that thinking about Ethan had this effect on him. Hell, if he could recall what sex was like, or what he'd done…. All he knew was his body was reacting and instinct took over.

Staring at his face, he closed his hand around his cock and lost himself in the sensation of connecting to his body again.

Everything seemed to take forever in this smooth drive to getting off, but Ethan's voice interrupted Adam's focus.

"You okay in there, Adam?"

"I'm okay." He felt the burn of embarrassment and stepped away from the sink, turning on the shower. The last thing he needed was Ethan walking in on him to check if he was still alive.

The toiletry bag held everything he could need to shave, but the effort seemed way too great, and it hurt just a little bit too much to lift his arms. He settled for pulling out the shampoo, conditioner and shower gel.

The water was heavy on his back. As he turned to allow it to press against his chest, he winced. He quickly turned around so his back was under the water again; it was the lesser of two evils.

He washed his hair and put conditioner on it, because that was what he knew to do, a routine from his past.

I'm the kind of man who takes care of himself. Someone who conditions his hair.

The shower gel smelled of lemon, and he washed every inch of himself. His cock made a valiant rise, but not too far. Even the somewhat erotic thoughts of Ethan were pushed to one side by the sheer joy of feeling clean. He hummed a little under the water, then realized he was humming, and in recognizing the fact, completely lost whatever tune he'd been using.

He rinsed out the conditioner and turned off the water, toweling his hair and wrapping a towel around his waist. He should have brought clothes in with him, but that was his life at the moment, a confusion of barely thought-out shit.

He opened the door and the steam inside the bathroom billowed into the room.

"Was it good?" Ethan asked.

He stood and stepped closer, and abruptly Adam felt uncomfortable at the fresh scrutiny his traveling companion was giving him.

Adam rubbed a hand over his stubble, an unconscious gesture of apology that he hadn't used the shaving bits and pieces in the kit.

"If you want me to do that, I can," Ethan said, his voice a little unsteady.

"What?"

Ethan touched a hand to Adam's beard and then dropped his hand as if the touch had burned him. "Shave you."

That kind of offer sounded curiously intimate, and Adam's cock was well into the idea of a party now. "I'm okay," he said.

Ethan smiled at him. "Beards are in."

Then he went into the bathroom and pulled the door shut, leaving Adam standing there wondering what the fuck had just happened between them.

And also, what the hell? Beards were in? Had he somehow been transferred back to the seventies?

He crossed to the bag of clothes Ethan had indicated, and peered inside. Soft sweats again and some T-shirts. Two fleeces in matching eyeball-burning citrus colors, and new underwear.

Pulling on the new stuff and at the last minute recalling he needed to take off the labels, Adam felt warmer than he had in a while. He sat in the desk chair, looking out at the trees.

He listened to the sounds of Ethan's shower and closed his eyes; the sound of running water was a good backdrop to attempting his meditation exercises.

Ten… nine… eight…

He began to count back from ten as he tensed and released each muscle set. His feet were okay, his calves and thighs fine, but his knees were a little sore and tight. His ass seemed to be handling whatever had happened to him, but he was careful when it came to his torso. He skipped anything there and instead concentrated on his fingers. One at a time, then the whole hand. Then his other hand. Finally, he relaxed his breathing.

Three… two… one.

He thought of the trees outside the window, closed his eyes, and focused on the image he had of his own face.

My name is Adam. Horses. My brother is Cole; he was married. My dad was harsh. Horses. I work with my hands. Horses.

A vivid image of a field with grass as far as the eye could see, and horses there, and he was moving, the up-and-down motion making him think he was riding.

He turned in the saddle, felt the leather give beneath him, heard the creak of it, and laughed.

"Why are you laughing?" the voice said next to him.

He looked left, and in his mind there was Ethan, smiling at him—a younger Ethan, his hair long around his face, his eyes bright with excitement.

I want to tell Justin….

The words were clear in his head: I want to tell Justin…. What? What was so important that he felt so light inside, and that he wanted to tell his best friend? "He'll understand," his memory reassured him.

"I love you," Memory Ethan whispered and leaned closer in the saddle of his horse.

They kissed. They tasted, and the taste was sunshine and forever.

Fear carved into the memory: an argument, shouting, confusion, nothing more than a jumble of words and accusations, and in the real world, in the here and now, Adam snapped out of the relaxation and thrust straight into today .

For a while he sat quietly. Who had he been arguing with? Was it Ethan? Or was it Justin? And had Ethan actually said he loved him?

And why was this the memory his brain wanted to throw at him?

"Adam?"

Ethan dropped to the edge of the bed right next to his chair; there was worry in his voice.

"You told me you loved me," Adam accused.

"You've remembered something?" Ethan's eyes widened and he looked expectant, like he wanted more.

"Riding horses, saying I was telling Justin, and you said you loved me. Ethan?"

Ethan sighed and seemed to curl in on himself, bowing his head. When he looked up at Adam again, he smiled wryly.

"Why couldn't you do this easy and just remember your house or something?"

The doctor who signed Adam out, not Dr. Armitage, who was nowhere to be seen, had explained to them both that the brain was a fickle thing. The memories could flood back or trickle in like a dying stream. The first recollection could be riding a bike as a kid or what the patient ate for dinner the night before they lost their memories.

"Ethan?" Adam prompted.

"I did love you," Ethan said. He looked pained, like the words were spoken at great cost to him.

"When?"

"You were only fifteen, I was seventeen. Young love, is all."

He spoke with conviction, but his eyes said different. And he couldn't quite look at him.

Adam considered the words, not quite knowing what to make of them. Ethan had loved him, and from the way he'd felt in the memory recall just now, Adam had loved Ethan back.

"And then you disappeared," Ethan summarized.

Adam pulled at his lower lip with his teeth. He didn't have anything to add at this point.

Ethan continued, "That same week, the last thing we spoke about was you talking to Justin after he saw us kiss. But he'd been arguing with Dad, I don't know if that was before or after you spoke to him, and then… I never saw you or him again. You remember that day?"

"Moments, is all, and it's gone already. Like I was watching TV or something."

Ethan leaned in a little and placed a hand on Adam's thigh. "This is a good sign."

He made to move, but Adam stopped him by placing a hand over his. "What happened?"

Ethan frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Do you still love me?"

Ethan dropped his gaze momentarily, then looked up, and his eyes were bright with emotion. "Do you remember when you were having that nightmare, and I woke you up? You said you weren't in a good place and that I pulled you out of it."

"I do."

"I'll always be there for you," Ethan murmured. "Anytime you need me to rescue you from a nightmare, I'll be there."

"But what about love?" Adam pressed.

Ethan smiled at him, tilted his head a little, and spoke as he extricated his hand. "You were part of my childhood, Adam. I'll always love you for that."

Adam winced at the words. He didn't know what he wanted to hear, but somehow this statement made him feel so sad. He had so many questions to ask, but Ethan had a different agenda.

"Food," he announced.

Deliberate or not, the restaurant Ethan chose was noisy, and every so often the waiters would break out in song for someone's birthday. The food was hot, the coffee bitter, and Adam held back his questions.

As he managed to find sleep that night, the questions were still there, but the memories were fading.

And that terrified him.