Grant
We stayed the night in the hotel. The thought of putting on clothes and leaving that bed
was entirely unacc eptable.
I sl ept with her in my arms. Woke with fewer blankets covering my body, my hands on
the skin of her stomach, my nose buried in the crook of her neck.
I love you.
I love you.
You came back to me.
I closed my eyes, let my arms tighten around her, and said a silent prayer, the kind
where gratitude runs so de ep that you can hardly form the words. Mercy was sound
asle ep, and as carefully as possible, I eased my arm from beneath her neck and shifted
from the bed, an insistent bladder the only thing that could’ve taken me from her side.
In the dim light of the bathroom, I washed my hands, giving my reflection a smug
smirk. There were hints of Mercy in the mess of my hair, the pink lines from where she’d
dragged her nails down my shoulders and along my bic eps. A small love bite on my right
pectoral. The dark shadows under my eyes that weren’t from an eternal, terrifying night in
a cold hospital room, but from hours of talking in a sumptuous hotel bed.
We didn’t talk about the past that was a blank space. I didn’t tell her stories that held
no weight in her mind.
Instead, we talked about the years we remembered. Connor. Dinners at his house.
Helping him study for his bar exam. And then again when his score fell one point short.
We talked about my family.
My students at the community center. Despite the proximity to her lost memories,
Mercy did want to hear about them. The baby shower for Katya was her favorite story, and
the bed shook with her laughter when I told her about the indignity of shower games that I
suffered.
“I’m really proud of who you’ve become,” she said quietly. Her fingers traced lightly
along my chest as she said it, her eyes following their path. “I hope . . . I hope that’s not a
weird thing for me to say.”
Had I not been so overcome, I might have been able to say more. Instead, I shook my
head and cradled her jaw, tilting her chin so that I could see her face. “It’s not,” I
managed.
She smiled. “I didn’t give you the benefit of the doubt at first.”
“I don’t blame you. I’m not sure I would have either.”
And we kissed. I could not kiss her for only about five minutes before the impulse could
no longer be ignored. And with a smile, a mischievous glint in her eye, she indulged every
single time.
“You’re so obsessed with me,” she whispered against my lips sometime past midnight.
“Hard not to be.” My hands skimmed up the line of her back. I kissed her shoulder,
sighing as she nuzzled against my chest and pressed her mouth to the base of my throat.
“I must give really good head.”
I closed my eyes. “Good Lord, Mercy.”
She laughed. Reluctantly, so did I.
Then she reminded me, as she guided my hand into her hair and eased between my
legs, that she did, in fact, have a remarkably talented mouth.
That memory would stir the dead, but I needed more sle ep. So did she.
I glanced down between my legs with a stern look. “I should think not. I’m far too
exhausted for this.”
I brushed my teeth and splashed some cold water onto my face before returning to the
bed. Despite the early hour, Mercy was sitting up, stretching her arms over her head as
she yawned. My eyes lingered on the graceful lines of her body, which held marks of their
own, from me. There were glimpses of love bites visible on the curves of her breast. The
edges of her ribs.
What a fiend I turned into around this woman.
“Good morning,” I murmured, st epping into my track bottoms. Sweatpants, Mercy
called them. Something about them made her feral, and I quite enjoyed the dazed look in
her eye as she watched me pull them up around my hips. “Sle ep well?”
She blinked. Regrouped. But the flush in her face made my ego spin to dizzying
heights.
“Yeah. I’ll probably need a nap later, but I feel okay.” She grinned. “Starving, though.
Can we order room service?”
“We can get the entire menu, love.” I braced my hands on the bed and brushed my
mouth over hers.
She pulled back with a slight wrinkle in her nose. “I haven’t brushed my teeth.”
“I don’t give a bloody fuck,” I whispered, weaving my fingers through her hair and
tugging lightly. I kissed her more de eply, letting my tongue brush languidly against hers.
“You’re perfect.” I sucked her bottom lip. “Delicious.” Kissed the edge of her mouth.
“Mine.”
“The things you do for my ego,” she said when I straightened. “We’re one of those
obnoxious couples. Who’d have thunk it?”
“The phrasing of that leaves much to be desired.”
She laughed, flinging the covers off to use the bathroom. My eyes lingered on the sight
of her backside as she walked across the room, body clad only in high-cut knickers.
The way I wanted her was sickening.
I shook my head and picked up the room phone, dialing the number to get us some
food.
An hour later, we’d eaten far more than I thought possible and decided to share a
shower to save time. Mercy let me work shampoo and conditioner into her hair. Let me
press her soap-slick body against the tiles and work my fingers between her legs until her
whimpers and moans bounced off the walls in the most delightful way. Let me kiss her
until the idea of shower sex overrode my best judgment and the fear of a broken bone if
we slipped and fell.
Let me dry her off with a towel and carry her back into the room, where I rolled onto
my back and guided her over me.
Let me hold her hips while she worked in maddening circles on top of me.
She let me love her, the whole day, in exactly the way I’d hoped. In the way I’d missed
so terribly.
We checked out of the hotel and held hands the entire way back to our cars, where we
parted reluctantly for the drive back home.
It was like that for a few days. Sweet and filthy and soul-nourishing. I canceled two
days’ worth of client meetings, citing my wife’s recovery, and met no resistance. She stood
on the deck and watched me mow the lawn with an undeniably dirty look in her eyes. We
went for walks. We watched movies and played games where our competitiveness led to
more than one heated argument. We cooked together and attempted another Victoria
sponge, because she was determined to prove she could do it. By her third attempt, it was
perfect. Tasted even better after I held her hips and fucked her against the kitchen
counter with flour and sugar and raspberry jam still dotting the surface.
I told her I loved her so frequently that I wondered whether it was too much.
She hadn’t truly said it back yet. Not since what she said in the hotel, that I was
making it impossible not to fall in love with me. It didn’t seem to matter, though. I could
see it in her eyes when something I said made her smile. I could feel it in her kiss when I
held her so tightly I worried it was past the line of propriety. I could hear it in the
softening of her voice when she said my name and beckoned me closer.
After three days of staying home, we dressed up—me in a de ep-blue suit, her in a
cream dress with a low back and lace around the hem. We went out to dinner at our
favorite restaurant, and I was silently delighted when she picked the same dish as always.
We kissed outside the car like it was a date. Like I wasn’t driving her back to our home.
Like I wouldn’t be wrapped around her when we faded into sle ep.
It was an oddly thrilling notion—that I could romance my wife all over again. That I
could experience her finding new things she loved. That I could kiss her fingers across a
candlelit table and watch her blush over something so simple.
I loved her. And she had come back to me.
I wanted for nothing.
Occasionally, she’d ask a question about something we’d done. Wonder about trips we
may have taken. She always listened quietly, expression pensive, eyes glazed like she was
de ep in thought. Only twice asked to see corresponding pictures. I reminded her that
when she was ready, all the photos and videos from her old phone were stored on her
computer.
We were under a blanket on the couch, a Tigers game playing quietly in the
background, when she turned to me with an oddly nervous expression on her face.
“Can I ask you a favor?”
“Anything.” I tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ears. “What is it?”
“Will you come to school with me tomorrow? I was texting with Rae earlier, and they’re
done with testing, it’s a light day in the classroom, and I think I might be ready.” She
inhaled slowly. “No. I am ready.”
“Of course.”
“I still worry,” she admitted. “That not remembering them will, I don’t know, harm
them in some way.”
I thought about her tears in the hotel. The way her body shook and how her
fears—something I’d never once worried about—had held her captive until she let them be
said out loud. I wasn’t the one to bring her through those fears. She’d done that on her
own. It was she who knew they needed to be faced. That she couldn’t run from them and
expect to heal, no matter what that healing looked like.
“You’re worried that you won’t be who they want you to be.”
She nodded.
I turned onto my hip, angling my leg so that I could face her fully and tug her closer.
“Let me tell you something that I know. I don’t have to guess. I know.” Mercy listened
attentively, her eyes locked onto mine. I cupped the side of her face. “I have never in my
life seen someone who cares so much about her students. They respect you. Trust you.
Love you. And seeing you, even with your beautiful Swiss cheese brain, will only make
their lives better.”
She let out a watery laugh, her eyes welling with tears. “I don’t even remember them,
but . . . I miss them. Is that strange?”
“No.” I settled my hand over her heart, relishing the steady thrum underneath my
palm. “That’s you. Anyone who’s been fortunate enough to earn your love wouldn’t find
that strange in the slightest. It overrides common sense, the way you love your people.”
My hand slid from her heart to the side of her neck. “It’s a small group, but a lucky one.”
Mercy’s smile was soft and sweet, seemingly incongruous with the fierce creature who
had stolen my heart. She showed this side of herself so infrequently that the appearance of
it felt like a gift.
“I’m glad you’re in that group, Grant Hastings.”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and with an ache in my chest—the good kind, the
wonderful kind—I brushed it away with the edge of my thumb.
“I am, too, my darling.” I leaned in to kiss her. “I am too.”
I wrapped her in my arms and we sat quietly for a few minutes. Mercy finally pulled
back and searched my face, her eyes clear.
“So we can go tomorrow?”
“If you need me, I’ll be there.”
Mercy kissed me again, hard and fast. “Good. Now, can I beat you in Monopoly?”
“I beg your pardon? You’ve never once beaten me in that game.”
She hopped off the couch, throwing a coy smile over her shoulder. “Funny. I don’t
remember that.”