Page 25 of Until You Found Me

“We don’t know that.” He bumps her elbow with his knuckles in the smallest point of contact, drawing attention to how closely she settled beside him. It’s an effort to touch while being afraid to overstep that somehow manages to soothe her. “What you’re seeing could all connect somehow. It’s too soon to tell, right?”

“And if they don’t connect? If I spend the rest of my life seeing traumatizing snippets without ever remembering anything useful?”

“Then we’ll deal with that if it happens, but it hasn’t yet. Hasn’t been long enough to tell.”

She deflates even further at the reminder of how few dayshave passed when it feels like a lifetime already. “That’s why I know how to bake, because he made me. Now it all feels wrong. I don’t know if I want to bake anything and that’s why I asked you here.”

“I think we still should. Fuck him. We should bake a buncha cookies and eat the whole damn tray ourselves. He’s not here. He can’t say shit about it.”

“I don’t know,” she whispers, unconvinced.

“Nah, my dad used to do that shit, too. Would tell me what I could and couldn’t eat. Kept all the good stuff for himself. I ate all the damn snacks when he kicked the bucket and didn’t even care if I screwed my blood sugar. It was worth it.”

It’s a comment he barely thinks twice about. Intended to encourage her but it’s also confirmation, in some small way, that their lives have shared a common thread. One that she’s only now remembering but that he has never, ever forgotten.

“He was like the man who did this to me? Your father?” she asks carefully.

He nods but doesn’t elaborate, some of the wind in his own sails softening.

“And you felt better after eating everything you couldn’t before? It helped, even a little bit?”

“It did. I know it sounds stupid but—”

“It doesn’t. Let’s bake some cookies.” She straightens her spine with determination.

“Yeah?”

She cracks a sad smile. “Yeah. I’m gonna eat the whole fucking plate of them and no one can tell me otherwise.”

“Damn right, you are. Alright, let’s do this.” He claps his hands together like he’s coaching a football team and she lets out a half laugh, rounding the island to gather ingredientsand lay them out on the counter.

“Oh no.” She frowns. “I don’t have any baking powder. I didn’t even think of that.”

“Let’s go get some.” He’s already up with his keys in hand, heading for the door.

“Logan, you don’t have to do all this.” She feels foolish now, and unwilling to let him go out of his way for her.

He approaches her again, stopping close enough that her body betrays her, succumbing to his magnetism and swaying in his direction. “Do you want to eat some cookies?”

She nods.

“Then let’s go get that baking powder. We’ll be back in twenty minutes and can pick up some ice cream, too. Nothing better than ice cream between two chocolate chip cookies. That there is a classic.”

One corner of her mouth quirks up in a tentative half-smile. “Okay.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. Come on.”

They’re in his truck a moment later, heading down a dirt road toward town. It feels like an adventure after the nightmare reminded her how limited her life had been before she met him. A thrill of excitement overtakes her as they pass seafood shacks and bait shops until the one-horse town comes into view, every bit as quaint as she remembers from their journey to that food truck.

The store is empty, but she gets the feeling everything always is around here. There’s a calm domesticity to wandering the grocery aisles with Logan, plucking a can of baking power off the shelf and a carton of rich vanilla ice cream. The remnants of her nightmare still linger. Flashes of those nerve-wracking grocery trips mingle with the one she’s currently on,fighting with each other for dominance in her mind. When she thinks of buying food from now on, will she remember how afraid she was to make a mistake? Or will she remember the warmth spreading in her chest at being here with Logan?

She wants to hope she’ll remember only this.

“Next time it’s my treat,” she tells him as they head out onto the street again. He urges her from the roadside to the inside track and an unexpected flush heats her cheeks. “chivalry isn’t dead after all.”

He dips his head, fighting a bashful smile.

“I talked to Carl today. Arthur stopped by to check in and let me use his phone. I’m being gifted three hundred dollars in food money per month until they can figure out who I am. At least I can buy my own groceries soon.”

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