Page 26 of Forget Me Not

I stay that way for the first few minutes, then finally I open my eyes and look around. The views are nothing new, I’ve been driving through Seattle for years now. Yet it all seems different. I feel my heart pounding, the adrenaline that I try so hard to avoid in my day-to-day life. But it doesn’t scare me when I have Kade here with me. The fear from eight years ago fades and all I feel is freedom.

The wind crashes against our bodies as we drive fast but steadily through it. I shiver, but the coldness I feel seems so inconsequential to the rest of what is happening around me. As I slightly loosen my death grip on Kade, the fear that we could crash is still there, but it’s small compared to everything else I feel. Pleasure, relaxation, exhilaration. Keeping my hold on Kade, I throw my head back, laughter falling from my lips. I feel liberated.

It’s only about twenty-five minutes until we pull up to a small restaurant. As he parks, I find myself reluctant to get off the motorcycle that, before this, I had been so terrified to get on. It’s strange, but with a single ride, it feels like a small part of me that had been broken so long ago begins to heal. I can feel the emotion clawing at my throat at the realization, but I swallow it down before it can break free.

Kade turns off the engine and guides me on how to get off the bike before getting off himself. He takes his own helmet off, locking it back onto the bike before unfastening my own and doing the same.

“So, how do you feel?” he asks, turning back to face me. With the adrenaline still coursing through my veins and little thought, I reply the only thing that comes to mind,

“Alive.” He smiles at me, a real smile, and I can’t help the giddiness that covers my own face in response.

“Where are we?” I ask, looking at the small restaurant in front of us. We aren’t too far from my apartment, but I haven’tbeen to this particular restaurant before. The parking lot is small but full. The restaurant itself looks small from the front, almost like a wooden shack, with string lights hanging all around it. It looks cozy. The sign reads “Chowder House,” and although it looks older, it doesn’t look worn in a bad way.

“Puget Sound.” He gestures to the ocean sitting behind the restaurant. “Come with me.” He grabs my hand in his own and I freeze for a second. Electricity zaps through my body from where our hands connect, and the feeling holds me hostage. Kade either doesn’t notice or doesn’t acknowledge my reaction. He gently tugs me along with him up the wooden ramp and into the restaurant.

Inside looks exactly how I would’ve imagined it to. All wooden booths and tables, with a nautical theme. Wooden fish hang from the ceilings and a wooden bar sits in the center of the room. Most of the tables are filled, but it doesn’t feel packed in an uncomfortable way. It’s still relatively quiet, comfortable, like my original thought, cozy.

Kade speaks to the hostess, but I pay them no attention, too lost in observing my surroundings. There’s a large jukebox in the corner that it sounds like the music is coming from. “Good Vibrations” by The Beach Boys plays softly but loud enough to hear throughout the restaurant. It fits the theme of the restaurant and adds to its overall ambience.

“Follow me,” I hear the hostess say. Kade and I follow her toward the back of the restaurant and out another door onto what seems like a large patio. She sets our menus down on a small table for two before walking away. Kade pulls out my chair and I thank him before plopping down and looking over to my right. It’s definitely a little cold out, but the patio is surrounded by heaters, so it isn’t too bad.

“Wow.” The word falls out of my lips. We are seated on a dock, the water of Puget Sound directly below us. I look over therailing right next to our table at the clear ocean blue. My first thought is that it reminds me of Kade’s eyes. My second is that I shouldn’t be thinking about Kade’s eyes.

“It’s pretty beautiful, huh?” I look over to find him staring directly at me.

“Yeah, it is,” I reply, staring back at him. Our eyes say the words that neither of us care to speak. This doesn’t feel fake. It feels real, and not only that, but it also feels completely and utterly right.

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

Kaden

Fuck, she’s beautiful. She called this a fake date, and in theory that’s what it’s supposed to be. But there’s nothing fake about the way she makes me feel. I had originally planned on taking her to a sports bar near where I work, knowing Kayla frequents it. But then I saw her, and Kayla was the last thing on my mind.

She was scared to get on my bike, and when I first took off, she clutched on to me as though her life depended on it. Holding me as tight as she was, my only thought was that I didn’t want her to let go. So, I kept driving until I saw the exit to where I knew Chowder House was, where the view is almost as beautiful as she is. Seeing her eyes light up as she looks out to the water makes me realize it was exactly the right decision.

“Is it strange that I hardly know anything about you, but at the same time, I feel like I’ve known you my whole life?” she asks, setting her elbow on the table and propping her chin up on her hand.

“No,” I say. “I feel the same way.” Although that could be because I do know things about Logan Hart. More than she’d possibly ever want to share with me. It reminds me of all thereasons I shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be on this date with Logan. Even if it is supposed to be for show, both of us know that it’s more. Just neither of us is willing to admit it.

But even with everything I do know about Logan, I know it all from someone else’s point of view. Plus, it was the Logan from nearly five and a half years ago. I want to know who she is now, from her own mouth.

“Why emergency medicine?” I ask her. Her body tenses for a moment as if the question caught her off guard, but she covers it quickly. It seems like a common question she would be asked so her reaction confuses me, but I don’t comment on it. I stay silent and leave room for her to answer.

“I want to be able to help people.” She hesitates. “It only takes seconds for a person to go from being perfectly fine to on the verge of death. I want to be the one that gives them a fighting chance at escaping it. To save a person’s life when they’re not strong enough to save it themselves.” She leans back in her chair, brushing her hair behind her ear with her fingers in a nervous gesture. “I just want to help people live, I guess. I don’t know, it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid, it’s admirable.”

She blushes, redness crawling up her chest, and I’m desperate to see just how far down it goes.

“You’re a good person and a good doctor, Lo. See.” I place my hand on the table to show where she originally stitched me up. “Not even a scar.”

She grabs my hand from the top of the table, gently pulling it closer to her to further examine my palm. Her touch is delicate, gentle. It makes me want to see what it would feel like to have her touching me all over.

“It looks good.” She softly caresses her thumb back and forth over where the gash originally was. She pulls her hand back suddenly, realizing she is lingering. “Tell me more about you.”

“What do you want to know?”

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