Page 20 of Love You, Mean It

“Interesting.” He frowned. “Weren’t you in New York for a while after school? Doing something artsy?”

“A little over a year, yeah. Doing costume design. Not that I had any success at it.” Had Theo actually given two shits about me back then? Interesting.

“And how did you wind up back here?”

“My dad died,” I said tightly. “If I hadn’t come back, I’d have forced my grandparents out of retirement.”

“Oh. Okay.” His eyes widened. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend.”

“You didn’t.” I sighed. “It was five years ago. Anyway…where to?”

“My place. You know where it is, right?” He looked at me expectantly and my stomach bungee jumped again. Somehow I’d allowed myself to briefly forget about the task in front of me.

“About that…” I licked my lips, took a sip of coffee to buy myself a few more precious seconds ofnothaving Theo Taylor as my enemy.

That’s when it hit me: He’d poured inexactly three sugars.

Theo knew my coffee order. Which meant his memory—at least some of it—was back.

My skin tightened all over, panic vising my lungs. Fuck fuckfuck. I hadn’t exactly been looking forward to coming clean, but at least I’d have control oversomeportion of the narrative. Now he probably thought I was keeping up the lie on purpose.

But if he knew…why let the doctor think we were engaged? The Theo I thought I knew would have had a lawsuit ready beforeI even walked into his room. Instead, he’d kept up the cute-couple charade for the benefit of complete strangers.

Questions flitted around my head too fast for me to catch their tails, but one settled down in the center of my brain and stared straight at me, the points of its teeth showing beneath a Cheshire grin.

Theo knew. And he was keeping up the act. For fuck’s sake,why?

“Ellie? Were we planning on leaving, or…”

Theo’s face was perfectly blank, a handsome, unreadable mask. Whatever was motivating the lie on his side, I wouldn’t find it there.

Which meant the little shit was testing me. No,toyingwith me. He knew I was lying, and now he was trying to see…what, whether I’d say something actionable? If this was all going to explode in my face, I sure as shit wasn’t going to let him think he’d outsmarted me. And besides, I had to find outwhyhe would fake this. Just because he hadn’t sicced a pack of lawyers on me—yet—that didn’t mean the option was off the table. I started blinking rapidly, doing my best to mime fighting back tears.

“Sorry, I just…I’d hoped you would have remembered.”

“Remembered what?”

“We livetogether,Theo. Obviously.” I shook my head slowly, swiping beneath my eyes for effect. “But I know it’s not your fault. It’s just…hard to see the person you love look at you like you’re a total stranger.”

I glanced over just in time to catch his eyes narrowing before the expression melted into an aww-shucks shrug. OhI see you,Trip Taylor. He was good…but not good enough. Though, to be fair, he was a little brain-damaged at the moment.

“I’m sure you’ll be the first thing that comes back to me. Please know…Iwantto remember us.” He glanced down at his feet, clearly aiming for wounded puppy, but nope, not gonna fly here,thiswoman isn’t so dazzled by your jawline that she can’t see through your frankly flimsy attempts to play her.

“Really?” I narrowed my eyes as though I was deep in thought, shaking my head slowly. “I guess it’s hard to believe you’re at atotalloss on that front. You know, since you remembered how I take my coffee.”

Theo stared at me hard for a moment, then his lips curled into a smirk.

“I was wondering if you’d catch that.”

“Believe it or not, you’re not the superspy you apparently imagine yourself to be,” I spat, turning the key in the ignition emphatically. Unfortunately, I still didn’t know where we were going, so peeling out dramatically would have to wait.

“I figured either you wouldn’t notice, and I’d have more time to figure out your angle, or you would, and we’d cut to the chase.”

“So?” I planted my fists on my hips, striking my best seated power pose. “What is this?”

“You tell me. You’re the one who tried to convince me we’re engaged.”

“Convinceyou? Get over yourself, Theo, it was just crappy timing.” He raised an eyebrow, every inch of him drippingsmug. Apparently that had come back with his memories, too. “I told the EMTs that so they’d let me into your hospital room. I wanted to make sure you were okay—it didn’t seem ideal for you to wake up in the hospital alone, with a head wound, and not have anyone there to even…I don’t know, tell the nurses what had happened?” I relished his brief flash of shock. He hadn’t planned on my motives beinggood.And I had walked in that morning planning to come clean, so it counted. “I didn’t expect you to wake up without any memory of the lastsix years.”

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