Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

ADAM

Adam moved some bowls, picked them up, put them down and in general fussed around like he was expecting a visit from strangers who would care what the place looked like.

Ethan read his actions. “It’s just Justin and Sam,” he reassured him and took the bowls from Adam’s hands and placed them on the table.

“I can’t help it.” Adam did a three–sixty, checking out their place. It never failed to make him smile that he and Ethan had this place and were together. Well, he’d smile normally. Tonight he couldn’t smile, couldn’t even summon up the pretense of a smile. The dreams wouldn’t stop, and the dread in the pit of his stomach was enough to have him on edge.

Inviting Justin and Sam over for drinks and cards had been Ethan’s idea. Something along the lines that the four of them needed normal.

Adam felt anything but normal. He felt scratchy and scared and a hundred other things he couldn’t get ahold of and deal with. So he picked up the bowls, and Ethan cursed under his breath, took the bowls from him again, placed them on the counter, then pulled Adam close, pressing him to the wall by the door and holding him in place. For a second, Adam wriggled to move away, but Ethan was clearly in one of his “holding Adam still for his own good” moods.

“Adam, breathe.”

“I’m fine,” Adam snapped, then realized he actually wasn’t breathing well at all. Fuck if the panic wasn’t fluttering inside him and becoming something so big he couldn’t stop it?—

“Breathe for me, Adam.”

So Adam tried. He inhaled the scent of his lover, his fiancé, and inhaled long and deep, letting the breath out gently, controlled. And all the time he twisted his hands into the material of Ethan’s shirt, and Ethan just said over and over, “You’re okay… I got you.”

One day everything wouldn’t be okay and Ethan would see right through him and be gone. How much longer would Ethan be able to put up with Adam and these stupid panic attacks and the blank slate where he should have memories?

Adam moved a little against the wall, the hardness at his back allowing him to straighten from a slumped mess. “Last night I saw it again.”

“I guessed that.” Ethan pressed a hand to Adam’s chin, tilting his head so that Adam was looking at him. “You had a rough night.”

“I’m sorry.” The sorry was Adam’s default answer to everything people said to him.

You look tired.

“I’m sorry.”

We can cancel the next booking if you don’t feel so good.

“I’m sorry.”

You cried in your sleep.

“I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Ethan said, his tone relaxed. “Nothing to be sorry about. Okay? Tonight will be good, normal. And if you need to talk to Justin, he’ll be right there.”

Adam shoved Ethan away, catching him by surprise so he tripped and ended up smacking against the far wall. Guilt churned with temper. “You arranged this so I’d talk to Justin?”

“No, sweetheart, I didn’t. I just thought it would be a nice relaxed night with them.”

Ethan’s look of surprise had melted to something like compassion as he spoke.

Meanwhile the guilt in Adam grew and grew until it became a real thing eating away at his balance. “I pushed you,” he said, horror in his voice.

Ethan stepped closer, placing the flat of his hand on Adam’s chest and shoving him just as hard. Only he didn’t have as far to go, and he flailed as he tried to catch himself as the wall met his back. Then Ethan was there, pushing a thigh between his legs and pressing hard, catching Adam’s hands and sliding them up the wall so that he couldn’t move.

“I can take anything you give me,” Ethan said, in the dirtiest, sexiest, rawest voice, which had every knot of tension unraveling inside Adam.

The kiss was just as dirty—fierce, a clash of teeth and domination that had Adam hard and rubbing against Ethan, desperate for something, anything, to get him out of his own head.

A loud knock on the door. Ethan pulled away from the kiss and Adam wanted the visitors to go. He’d been so close to forgetting everything, and the last thing he wanted was to see anyone else.

“Ready?” Ethan asked. He was straightening his shirt, then pressing fingers to his lips. “Later, right?”

“Open up!” Sam shouted from outside. “Fucking cold.”

Adam straightened his own clothes and nodded. “Ready.”

He opened the door, and Sam tumbled in as if he’d been leaning on the door. Adam caught him at the same time as Ethan, and between the two of them, they stopped Sam face-planting and also caught the containers he was holding.

“Tell me you brought chilli.” Ethan opened the corner of the first container, letting out a sigh of contentment at the scent inside. “Shut the door, little brother.”

Justin pulled the door shut behind them, and Adam didn’t know what to say.

They looked at each other for a second. At least that was okay, and Adam was able to look Justin in the eye.

“We need to clear the air,” Justin said.

“Now?” This from Sam, who looked from Justin to Adam and back again. “Don’t you want to eat first?”

Sam sounded concerned, and all Adam could think was that whatever they were going to talk about was going to be a fucking awful thing.

But suddenly he didn’t want to be the only one with all of this in his head.

“When I dream, you’re always there,” Adam blurted out. “Tell me you weren’t there, Justin. Tell me that you didn’t kill those two men at the ranch who were protecting me or the guy who did my tattoo. Tell me !”

Ethan moved then, placing himself right between but to one side of his brother and his lover. “Guys?—”

“I was there. At the ranch anyway.”

“He should remember on his own,” Ethan said a little desperately.

“Not when he’s recalling things that aren’t true.” Justin’s tone was flat and didn’t hold any accusation.

Still, Adam winced at what he said, because, hell, how could he know whether what he was recalling was true or not?

“He’ll work through it,” Ethan said. “One memory at a time.”

“I need to tell him.” Justin was adamant.

“No, you don’t. This isn’t about you.” Ethan stepped forward, and the last thing Adam wanted was for the two brothers to fight.

“We need to look at this like adults,” Justin snapped, and he too moved forward a little, restrained anger in every inch of him.

“Tell me what you want to tell me,” Adam said before Ethan and Justin came to blows.

“No,” Ethan said.

Adam yanked him back with a forceful tug, and Ethan had no choice but to park his ass back to the counter with Adam.

“They said you should remember on your own,” Ethan pointed out, his desperation turning to fear. He turned to Adam and cradled his face. “He could tell you anything and you wouldn’t know any different.”

Sam cursed. “ He has a name and he wouldn’t lie.”

Jesus, now Sam was getting all defensive of Justin. This wasn’t going the way Adam wanted it to go at all.

“Sam, don’t.” Justin stopped Sam from saying anything else. “Ethan is right. My brother knows how I could fuck with Adam if I wanted to, how I could twist this.”

The emphasis on brother had Ethan wincing, but he still didn’t take his eyes off Adam.

“Justin is a good man,” Sam snapped.

Was this what it had come down to? Was Adam coming between the brothers with his stupid, fucking brain and memories? “It will be okay,” he reassured Ethan. “You know your brother.”

“That’s not true. I don’t know this new Justin at all,” Ethan said.

Justin let out a soft noise of pain, and Adam had to stop this right now. Ethan loved his brother, and he certainly wouldn’t say that normally. He was 100 percent behind Justin, swearing that he was a good man.

“I want to know,” Adam insisted. “I don’t want to make up memories in my head. Or have Justin think I’m scared of him or that I hate him.”

Justin sighed heavily. “It’s okay to hate me. I can handle it. I don’t need anyone, and I’m a big boy.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Sam reassured. “And he needs me,” he added softly.

Justin murmured something to Sam that sounded like an apology, and they held hands.

“Adam doesn’t hate you,” Ethan said. “I’m sorry, Justin. I didn’t mean to say…”

Silence.

And then Justin snapped. “Adam should hate me!”

Sam’s turn to move. The shortest and slightest of them, but it didn’t mean no-one listened to him. “Table,” he ordered. “Let’s sit.”

Numb, Adam took the nearest chair, with Justin opposite and Ethan next to him. Ethan took Adam’s hand under the table and held tight. A touch of reassurance and enough to ground Adam.

“I was there, at the ranch. You’re right to remember that,” Justin began. He laid his hands on the table, and Sam reached over and took one of them in his.

Objectively, Adam saw the touch, knew that Justin had Sam’s complete support, respect, and love. Sam knew Justin’s heart, and knowing that made something unravel inside him. He needed to trust that he could know what was in Justin’s heart too. He just had to accept there was a reason for Justin to be in the places he dreamed of, like the ranch and the tattoo shop.

Adam cleared his throat. “Did you…?”

Kill them?

“You know I killed people,” Justin said, his eyes dark with emotion. “Does it matter if these were two on the list?”

“Fuck,” Sam cursed. “Justin, we talked about this. Don’t ramp up the fucking drama. Just tell Adam without all the dramatics.”

Justin looked a little chastened and cast Sam a quick look of apology. “No, I didn’t kill them,” he admitted. “I was sent there for someone else.” He focused right in on Adam. “You.”

“Okay,” Adam said evenly as Ethan squeezed his hand. “Not me though, right? You didn’t know it was me. You just had a name. Right?”

“I didn’t have anything but a name,” Justin murmured. “The men there were already dead, I checked. And then I looked for my actual target—you—but you weren’t there. You’d gone. So, I don’t know how you can see me killing them, because I didn’t, and you weren’t even there. It’s just your mind playing tricks.”

Adam closed his eyes and recalled the memory, or dream, or whatever the hell it was. “You were crouching over them,” he said. “Or someone was.”

“Are you just filling spaces with me?” Justin asked after a small pause. He didn’t sound hurt or angry or shocked, or any of the emotions that Adam thought might follow. “When your memories return like they do, are you assuming I was there?”

“I don’t know,” Adam didn’t open his eyes. “I don’t know how this works. I thought you were dead,” he said for the hundredth time since coming home.

“If I’d known you were there, if they’d ever told me… I would have come for you.”

Justin’s voice broke, and he opened his eyes to see Adam’s bright with emotion. Abruptly it wasn’t Adam who needed reassurance—it was Justin.

Adam reached over and pressed a hand over Justin’s. Yes, he knew that was true. He truly believed that Justin would have moved heaven and earth for his best friend.

Now if only Adam could remember more so that all of this made sense in his head. Then he could reconcile Justin the friend who did things because he didn’t know any better and because part of him had died, with Justin the killer in Adam’s dreams.

That was on Adam.

“I need to focus harder.”

“If you have questions?” Justin asked softly.

Adam shook his head. If he had to take it that Justin wasn’t there, that maybe he was making things up along with recalling events, then he needed time to process this.

“Can we just try for a regular night?” Adam asked.

The rest of the evening passed quickly. They ate, and it wasn’t entirely normal. There was an air of brittle tension that left Adam exhausted. Sam beat everyone at poker despite having the worst poker face. Adam suspected Justin was deliberately losing to his boyfriend just to keep the wild, childlike grin on Sam’s face. They all needed Sam here tonight, settling them, centering their group, being the bridge between Adam and Justin.

Adam’s mind wasn’t fully on the game, but somehow they managed a kind of normality, as normal as this misfit group of four men could be.

After they left and it was just him and Ethan, all Adam wanted was to hug and then sleep.

“I love you,” Ethan said into their kiss as they clambered onto the bed. “You were so brave tonight.”

“I’m not brave.”

Ethan huffed and did a flip maneuver that had him lying on top of Adam, pinning him to the mattress. Ethan was hard and ready, with focus in his eyes.

“Shut up, Adam,” he ordered and then proceeded to make sure that Adam’s mouth was way too busy to do any talking. And that his body was too exhausted for him to protest that he wanted to talk.

The dreams came again for Adam as he slept, but they changed a little. Tonight, Adam remembered visiting Justin at Crooked Tree as a grown man, even though this wasn’t true.

Justin, as Adam knew him now, was also there in his dream crouching over bodies that laid in rows outside Branches, and then he stood and looked around himself. Suddenly he was back on the ranch where he’d been hidden in WITSEC.

And as he watched from wherever the hell he was standing, he saw Justin there, poking at dead bodies and then walking away holstering a gun.

When he woke up, sweating and desperate to get out of bed, he was disoriented and crying. Ethan rolled over in his sleep, pulling him close, not even waking up but gripping him hard. As if he knew Adam needed him.

If I am remembering the right things, then why didn’t Justin see me there?

I wouldn’t have known who he was, but why didn’t Justin see me, and why didn’t he save me?