So is Ruby. Even if I have no memory of her.
“It’s not good,” he says with a shrug, then looks at me with an expression I know all too well. He was my VP. Now he’s Casper’s. That look might mean a million things to someone else, but to me, it means shit is fucked. Not dead and gone, but close.
I nod again.
Glancing around, I take in everyone. Some seem more upset than others, like Kooper and Mama Bear, but it could be for a variety of things. And with all the bullshit of everything else, I don’t have the energy to ask.
It’s probably about Ruby. And I can’t offer comfort. Not in the way I’m sure they expect from me.
“Think I’ll head out.”
“You sure? We can get a room for you if you don’t want to drive.”
I shake Bulldog off as I stand.
“Feels good to ride again,” I say. I’m not even sure I have a room anymore. The biggest room is for the president, and that ain’t me.
I get a few chin lifts and some waves, but I feel a sense of relief from the entire club at my exit.
I get it. Doesn’t mean I like it. That I don’t feel it.
But the moment I sit on my bike, there’s relief in me as well. Which should feel wrong, but I prefer it to guilt. I can leave and ignore the pretense of having to care when I don’t know the girl. I just don’t recall her.
I’ve been back home for a few days now. I’ve gone through the house more times than necessary. Looking at pictures, smelling perfume, going through Ruby’s stuff—anything to trigger a reaction. But there’s nothing. Not a single damn thing.
Which is why I pass the house today. It’s familiar and not all at once, and I can’t deal with that right now. Not when I’m meant to remember what was there and don’t.
I ride instead. Just around town, remembering things here and there and just letting my absent mind lead me where it wants to go.
After an hour of riding around, I pull into the local hardware store. During one of my angry moments—which apparently is common according to General, the memory loss pissing me off to where I can’t hold it in anymore—I ripped a dresser drawer out and broke off the handle. I can’t fix most things in my life right now, but I can fix this. I might not recall Ruby, but I at least need to make sure I keep her room free of debris. If she still calls it that. It’s the least I can do for someone who calls me their father.
I noticed that the room I figured out was hers had more dust than the rest, so she probably rarely visits or just stopped coming altogether. The rest of the place seemed well enough, though. Either I used to be a decent cleaner or the club sent someone over to tidy it up.
Probably the latter, since I was stuck in the hospital for close to nine months.
As I walk into the store, I pull out my phone and look up the app for this place to figure out what aisle has what I need. I’m a man—I don’t ask questions when I can do shit myself. This place also doesn’t have signs above each aisle like it should with names about what’s down each, just numbers. And unless you have the app, no one can tell you what the numbers mean.
I guess I must have asked once to know that.
I head to aisle fifteen and start looking for what I need. Doubt they have the exact style, so I might as well find something close enough to the silver pull bars with a twist toreplace the lot of them. If I’m lucky, she won’t notice the change.
I’ve got a feeling in the pit of my stomach that she’s the type to notice a lot of things, though. And a change like this might set her off. Seems silly enough, but the feeling is there, and I just deal with it over trying to understand it.
“Oh, hello.”
My head snaps to the left. She’s here. Babygirl. My nurse. The only thing that feels easy right now.
Standing as pretty as can be, all doe-eyed. Strawberry blonde hair pulled into a low ponytail with pieces falling around her oval face. Her lips are full and pouty, and they draw my gaze just like her blue eyes. Eyes that stand out when she wears any light blue scrubs.
Like the ones she’s in now. Tight scrubs that show off a female body that’s had me thinking so many bad thoughts that my brain should be scrubbed clean.
“Di—” I clear my throat before giving away that I know her name. One she never gave me herself. “Nurse Zimmer.”
“Diana,” she corrects with a quick smile.
“Diana,” I repeat, more to see how she reacts when I call her by her name than trying it out on my lips. I’ve said it a few times already. Like this morning when I thought of her in the shower and didn’t deny myself the pleasure of rubbing one out to thoughts of her.
And her reaction doesn’t disappoint.
