“Amnesia,” he mutters for about the hundredth time. Usually, ‘fuck’, ‘shit’, or some blasphemy follows that statement. This time, however, there’s nothing. Maybe he’s finally getting used to the idea.

I sit on the opposite side of the booth, inspecting the cocktail menu. It’s as gross and sticky as the table.

“Can I get you guys something else?” asks the waiter with a practiced smile.

“I’ll have a piña colada.”

“You hate coconut,” Ed Larsen informs me, slumped back in his seat.

“Oh.”

“Try a margarita.”

“What he said,” I tell the waiter, who presumably thinks we have some kinky dom-sub thing going on.

Ed orders another lite beer, watching me the entire time. I don’t know if his blatant examination is better or worse than my sister’s furtive looks. He’d suggested going back to his place to talk. I declined. I don’t know the guy, and it didn’t feel safe. So instead we came here. The bar is dark and mostly empty, given it’s the middle of the afternoon, but at least it’s public.

“How old are you?” I ask.

In response, he pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and passes me his driver’s license.

“Thank you.” Information is good. More definites. “You’re seven years older than me.”

“Yeah.”

“How serious were we? Did we stay together for long?”

He licks his lips, turns away. “Don’t you have someone else you can ask about all this? Your sister?”

I just look at him.

He frowns, but then sighs. “We saw each other for about half a year before moving in together. That lasted eight months.”

“Pretty serious.”

“If you say so.” His face isn’t happy. But I need to know.

“Did I cheat on you?”

Now the frown comes with a glare.

Despite his don’t-fuck-with-me vibes, it’s hard not to smile. The man is blessed in the DNA department. He’s so pretty. Masculine pretty. I’m not used to being attracted to people, and he’s giving me a heart-beating-harder, tingles-in-the-pants kind of sensation, which is a lot new and a little overwhelming. Makes me want to giggle and flip my hair at him like some vapid idiot.

But I don’t. “It’s just that I’m getting some distinct vibes that somehow I’m the bad guy in all this.”

“No, you didn’t cheat on me,” he growls. “And I didn’t cheat on you either, no matter what you might have thought.”

My brows jump. “Huh. So that’s why we broke up?”

“This is fucked. Actually, it was fucked the first time.” He turns away and finishes the last of his beer. “Jesus.”

I just keep quiet, waiting.

“You have no memories, no feelings about me whatsoever?”

“No, nothing.”

A muscle jumps in his jaw, his hands sitting fisted on the table.

“It’s called traumatic retrograde amnesia,” I say, trying to explain. “What they call my ‘episodic memory’ is gone—all my memories of events and people and history. Personal facts. But I can still make a cup of coffee, read a book, or drive a car. Stuff like that. Things that were done repetitively, you know? Not that I’m allowed to drive at the moment. My car’s sitting outside my sister’s house gathering dust. They said to give it some time before I got behind the wheel again, make sure I’m okay. Also, apparently the part of my brain in charge of inhibitions and social restrictors, et cetera, is a bit messed up, so I don’t always react right, or at least not necessarily how you’d expect me to behave based on previous me.”

“Previous you?”

I shrug. “It’s as good a label for her as any.”

“She’s you. You’re her.”

“Maybe. But she’s still a complete stranger to me.”

“Christ,” he mutters.

This is awkward. “I’m upsetting you. I’m sorry. But there are things I need to know, and I’m hoping you can help me out with some of them.”