Page 14 of When I Forgot Us (Blue River #1)
Michelle pushed to standing and hurried down the steps. Her heels banged out a furious rhythm, and he hurried to catch up.
“What’s wrong?” He didn’t dare touch her. The need to comfort her eclipsed every other thought. If he pulled her into an embrace, he might never let her go. And that would ruin everything about his promise to help her.
She whirled to face him. Red rimmed her eyes, but no tears fell. “I don’t want to talk about it. I want to pretend like nothing is wrong with me, like I’m not the woman who lost her memory and everyone thinks they need to save her.”
He held up his hands in a show of surrender. “Okay.”
She glared up at him, her jaw set with stubbornness and heartache. Maybe that was his heart breaking all over again and not hers.
Distraction. They both needed a distraction. “What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” The question knocked her from the grip of despair.
She punched him in the arm. “How am I supposed to know?”
“You have six months of memory. Surely you ate ice cream in those six months.” He ran a hand over his heart and winced. “Come on, it’s a food group all by itself. Not eating ice cream at least once a week is like saying you can’t remember the last time you ate chicken.”
“I ate chicken yesterday.” She rolled her eyes. The tension eased back into the shadows, and they walked together toward the ice cream parlor.
It wasn’t old-fashioned or modeled after an old soda shop, but it still possessed enough charm to stop Michelle in her tracks.
She took in the bubble-gum pink walls, the towering teal shelves stacked with photos of the shop through the years, and the woman with lavender hair behind the counter.
The solid white buckets of ice cream boasted fifty different flavors, everything from a traditional vanilla to the exotic chocolate pistachio with slivered almonds.
“Morning, Chase.” She tugged on a pair of gloves and eyed Michelle. “Hi! I’m Barb. What can I get for you?”
Michelle approached the rows of delicious ice cream the way he approached a nervous colt. “What’s your favorite?”
He couldn’t tell if she asked him or Barb, and they both answered.
“Rocky Road,” he said at the same time Barb said, “Butterscotch.”
Michelle looked back and forth between them, a panicked look flickering to life. She blinked and it disappeared, covered with that familiar resolve he’d always loved about her. “Can I try a bite of everything?”
“Like…everything?” Barb’s voice shot upward a full octave, and her eyebrows hit her hairline. “Why?”
“Experimentation.” Michelle’s cheeky smile dimpled her cheeks. “I can’t remember my favorite flavor, and this guy is trying to prove a point.”
“Hey, don’t drag me into this.” He took a step back. “I came here for my two scoops of Rocky Road.”
“Have you tried all their flavors?” Michelle challenged.
“No.” The admission pained him, and he suspected he knew where she was headed.
“Then how do you know that Rocky Road is your favorite?”
Yep. Exactly what he’d expected. They’d gone through this before about his favorite hat back when they were teenagers. “Because it’s what I always get, and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet.”
“Not sure that’s what qualifies ice cream as your favorite flavor.” She slammed her hands on her hips.
A smile teased his lips at seeing that familiar spark on full display. “Then what counts?”
“Choosing it because you’ve had everything else and you keep coming back to this one thing over and over.” She pointed a slim finger at his chest. “You’re doing this with me. Come on.” Her finger crooked. “You can’t know your favorite until you’ve tried them all.”
Until he’d had everything else and came back to this one thing.
Was that what she’d been doing all these years?
The startling intensity of the question burned a path across his scalp and down the back of his neck.
Lord, is there anything I can say to that?
Nothing came to mind, so he kept his mouth shut and joined her in front of Barb.
“Fine. We’ll take a single bite of every flavor. ”
“How am I supposed to charge you for that?” Barb made a disgruntled sound. “I charge by the scoop, but I’m not about to even consider charging you for fifty scoops.”
He slapped a few bills down beside the cash register. “Will that cover it?”
“You’re ridiculous.” She raised the glass dome and reached into the first bucket of ice cream, scraped two small wooden spoons into the chocolate and vanilla swirl, and handed it to each of them.
“Try that, throw those away, and I’ll have the next ready.
Better grab a water from the case. You’ll need it to cleanse your palette. ”
“You’re really taking this seriously.” He tried the ice cream. “Not bad.”
“Agreed.” Michelle took both of their sticks and threw them away while he picked two bottles of water from the upright cooler. He passed her one and swigged from the other.
“Not too much,” Barb warned. “Just enough to wash the flavor out. Here.” She thrust the next set of spoons at them. “Raspberry with chocolate swirl.”
They worked down the line of flavors with slow, methodical precision.
Michelle had something to say about each flavor, and he simply enjoyed being with her in an environment that didn’t cause either of them stress.
Her favorite flavor used to be pistachio.
He kept a close eye on her with every flavor, and other than the commentary, she seemed perfectly content not to pick a favorite at all.
Barb entertained them with stories, causing Michelle to laugh so hard that she dropped her spoon. He bent to pick it up, and they almost cracked their heads together, which made her laugh even harder while joking about being part of some romcom.
Hearing her laugh twisted his insides. He longed to hear that sound forever, to wake up each morning and see her, speak to her, laugh with her.
God, I’m not sure how much more of this torture I can take. I promised to help her without any hope of reconciliation or another chance for a future. But I didn’t expect I’d still love her this much.
He should have known. Once he settled on something, his heart and his mind stayed rooted and grounded…forever. He tried every flavor of ice cream because she wanted him to, but in the end, Rocky Road still won.
A soft hand smacked against his forearm when he declared his winner. “Are you sure you even tasted them all?”
“You watched me.” His stomach turned over when she kept her hand on his arm.
“Yeah, but did you taste them, or did you tolerate them while commanding your taste buds not to change their mind?” She licked her spoonful of pistachio, turned it over, and frowned. “I need a couple scoops of that.”
“Found your favorite?” He ignored the rush of relief that one more thing about her was the same. People were allowed to grow and change. It shouldn’t make a difference if she preferred vanilla or the most absurd flavor known to man. He preferred predictability.
Michelle had wanted challenges and excitement. He saw the things he’d missed when they were younger. Her desire to stretch her wings and find new things to try wasn’t new. He told himself back then that he’d be enough for her, that things would settle down over time.
It wasn’t until this moment, with her in front of him and years of her life ripped from her, that he realized all he’d ever done was hold her back.
The scrape of a bowl on glass shocked him from the revelation. He backed up a step, then another. “I’m going to get the truck. Be right back.” It was rude and inexcusable, but he couldn’t face her when everything he thought he knew about their relationship lay scattered around his heart.
Promising to help her had new depth. She had every right to return to that spontaneous woman who looked at every challenge like it was tailor-made for her to beat.
This version had a solemnness that he had attributed to them both growing older.
What if it was nothing more than Michelle losing that part of herself to her amnesia?
Once she had that back, she’d leave him again.
Better for him if he kept to his silent promise, refusing to let his heart fall in love.
Easier said than done. He’d survived her leaving once. He could do it again. This time he knew the outcome and had a chance to harden his emotions against the trauma coming his way.