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“I’ve been in here before, haven’t I?”
Foster glanced over in surprise. Then he inclined his head. “Yes, ma’am,” he answered. “You have.” Smiling nostalgically, he added, “You even delivered a couple of pizzas with me.”
As he put the truck into drive, I shook my head. “I don’t remember that.”
“It’s okay,” he assured. “I didn’t expect you to.”
“It still seems…familiar, though.”
He glanced at me, and the aching quality in his gaze as he silently begged me to remember made my stomach cramp with unease. He knew things about me that I didn’t.
“So what else did we do together?”
Eyes flaring for half a second, Foster coughed in his fist, and I watched his cheeks flush before he sent me a quick glance and then returned his attention to the road as he pulled out onto the street.
“Uh…” He shook his head. “Just about everything. There was maybe half a block radius you could get from me before you’d be forced back to my side. So you went to classes with me, to work, to visit my friends. You even had to watch me go through a photo shoot once.”
A vague image of him watching me as a host of studio lights flashed around us filled my head.
“But I made sure to stop in at the hospital as much as I could so you could check in with your body,” he added.
I nodded as I listened, suddenly realizing, “So that’s how you knew about my blood clot.” When he sent me a questioning squint, I explained, “One of my nurses told me you probably saved my life.”
Foster shrugged bashfully. “You woke me up in the middle of the night, whimpering in your sleep as if you were in pain. So I?—”
“In my sleep?” I broke in, confused. “My ghost could sleep? But…how?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea. I just know you did.”
“Andwheredid I sleep? Like, in your room? On your floor or something?”
“Oh! Uh…” He cringed as if he was in trouble before glancing at me sheepishly and admitting, “You just slept next to me.”
My eyebrows lifted. “I didwhat?”
“It wasn’t that bad,” he rushed to assure me. “I couldn’t even touch you. My hand would go right through your arm when I tried. It’s like you weren’t even there, even though you were.” Cringing at himself as if he could hear how crazy he sounded, he finished with, “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“So…” Trying to wrap my brain around the idea of sleeping next to Foster Union—in his bed with him for two weeks straight—I waved my hands. “Wait. I’ve been in your room? I slept in your bed? And I remembernoneof it?”
He only sighed. “This is why it would be so much better if you did. Even hearing me say it sounds…bad. But it wasn’t. I swear. It was…”
When his words trailed off, I glanced at him hopefully. “It was what?”
“I don’t know,” he murmured softly, shaking his head to let me know he had no idea how to properly describe our relationship. “We just made the situation work, that’s all.”
“Just how close did we get?” I couldn’t help but wonder.
Foster didn’t answer for the longest time. Then he waited until we stopped at a light before he glanced over at me with blue eyes that looked haunted. “Doesn’t really matter now, does it?” he asked. “Since we’re back to being strangers again.”
I swallowed, realizing my lack of memory actuallyhurthim. Alec had been right about that. “We must’ve gotten pretty close,” I decided.
“I told you things I never told anyone,” he answered quietly, keeping his gaze solemnly on the road.
Oh.
Well, no wonder he was so upset. I’d been his confidante.
Those weren’t easy to come by. I should know; Kinsey had been the only confidante I’d really ever had, and losing her felt as if I’d lost one of my own limbs.
