Page 59 of Forgotten Dreams
“I’ll work on that,” he quips and then he’s interrupted by the doorbell. He walks over to the door, opening it. The guy with the camera equipment is there to talk to him, so I walk over to the kitchen. Placing the mug in the dishwasher, I walk over to the fridge and open it, spotting the steaks I bought two days ago. I take them out.
“Where is your cell phone?” he asks, coming into the kitchen. I reach into the back pocket of my jeans and hand it over to him.
“What’s your code?” He looks down and then looks up at me.
“You don’t even know my birthday and you are moving in with me?” I put my hands on the counter. “Do you not see how fucked up that is?”
“You can either tell me or I put in random shit and lock you out for five hundred and fifty-four days.” He smirks at me. “I know it was last month, so I have what, thirty tries.”
“Zero, nine, two, five,” I grind between clenched teeth, as he pulls out a stool and starts doing something on my phone.
“I’m making dinner tonight, but I hope yours doesn’t taste good.” I turn back to the fridge and take out the ingredients I need to make one of my favorite meals.
“Baby,” he says, not even looking up, “I’ll love whatever it is. I’m starving, I didn’t have lunch.”
“Why not?”
“I was dealing with stuff,” he mumbles as I grab the garlic and an onion.
“Weren’t we all.” I place the ingredients on the island before walking over to get a cutting board.
“What stuff were you dealing with?” he asks me as I grab a knife and start going over to my spice drawer and grabbing the paprika, parsley, and salt.
“I got the list of births for the day I was born, and from the look of it, everything looks normal.” He looks up now. “So I was thinking, if I wanted to get rid of a baby, what would I do?” I open the steaks and start seasoning them with the spices and some olive oil. “I would either have it at home so no one would know, or have it at a private clinic where they don’t really have to issue paperwork.” I look up at him as I rub the spices into the steak with my hands. “There are four private clinics that were open and two are now closed.”
“So you think it’s one of those?”
“I have no idea, but I’m going to go and speak with Bruce and see if he remembers anything.”
“You should check and see if there are any forums on the clinic also,” he suggests. “Sometimes you can get a doctor’s name or something and then work with that.”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” I admit to him as he pushes away from the island and comes over to me.
“I got it all downloaded.” He shows me my phone. “The app is there. I also installed it on my phone. As soon as it detects motion, it starts recording.”
“There goes me trying to sneak all my other men into the house.” I knock his shoulder with mine, laughing. When I look at him, all he does is glare at me. “I was kidding. Jesus, you live here now. How am I supposed to be able to do anything?”
“Sierra,” he says my name, his voice tight, “I’m going to go upstairs and take a shower and then come and help you make dinner.”
“You better not leave your dirty clothes on the floor in the bathroom,” I tell his retreating back as he jogs up the stairs.
I turn to start making dinner, and when he comes back downstairs, I’m almost done. He wraps his arms around me, pressing his front to my back as he buries his face in my neck. The wetness from his hair makes me scrunch up my shoulder. “I cleaned up my mess.” He kisses me. “It smells amazing. What are we having?”
“Creamy garlic pasta with steak,” I tell him and he stands up.
“You did all that in twenty minutes?” he asks me, looking around.
“I did.” I nod and plate up his food, the two of us eating side by side.
“That was so good,” he compliments after his third plate.
“You don’t say.” I grab my plate and start to stand.
“You cooked, I’ll clean. Go take a bath,” he urges and I lean over and kiss his lips. “I’ll be up after I’m done.”
“Okay, maybe this living-together thing is going to be okay for a while.” I kiss his neck before walking upstairs and taking a bath.
I slide into bed with him, as if I’ve been doing it forever and not that we just started doing it. The following morning I’m getting dressed when my phone rings, and I look down to see it’s Bruce. I called him last night after dinner but left him a message on his answering machine. And not the one where it’s in the phone; no, this one was an old-school one.
