He didn’t have to.

“Because I can’t remember them anyway,” she quietly said.

He let out a sigh as he nodded. “I didn’t want you to get overwhelmed. And…” She forced herself not to flinch away from him as he reached out and gently stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “I knew you wouldn’t want a lot of people seeing you like this.”

“You’re seeing me like this.” She felt an instinctive urge to tip her face toward his hand, to nuzzle against it.

Familiar.

She closed her eyes and hoped more came to her but it didn’t.

For now, she’d settle for that little beacon of goodness in the middle of the inky sea that still comprised most of her memories.

“That’s because I love you,” he said. “You’re my life. Good luck trying to keep me from your side.”

“What about the couple bringing dinner? Would I want them seeing me like this?”

“They’re like family to us. You wouldn’t care what condition they saw you in.”

The door opened again and the deputy popped his head in. “Rob, there’s a couple here to see Laura.”

“Send them in.” He stood to greet them. Laura clutched at the sheet and waited for them to get all the way in.

They did feel familiar.

More importantly, like Carol earlier, they felt safe.

Tony Daniels stood a little taller than Rob and had green eyes, dark brown hair, and a friendly smile surrounded by a neatly trimmed moustache and goatee. Even though he had his hands full of take-out bags, he accepted an awkward one-armed hug from Rob. His wife, Shayla, had hazel eyes and wore her brown hair down past her shoulders.

She also noticed Shayla wore a gold necklace with a heart-shaped charm on it. Something about the look of it pulled a wistful pang from deep in Laura’s heart. Her hand flew to her throat again, fingers helplessly fluttering against the empty real estate there.

I need to remember to ask Rob about that.

Tony put the bags down on the bed tray. “We come bearing food,” he joked.

“Thank you,” Laura said. “Rob told me you were bringing dinner.”

Shayla hesitantly walked around the bed to the other side. She looked like she was on the verge of tears. “May I hug you?” she softly asked Laura.

Laura pulled back the sheet and turned to sit on the edge of the bed. Shayla tentatively wrapped her arms around her as Laura did the same.

She heard Shayla sniffle. “I love you so much, sister,” she whispered in her ear. “I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost you.”

A wave of emotion Laura couldn’t process swept through her. She let out a sob of her own as she tightly clutched Shayla and they cried together.

* * *

Alarmed, Rob started toward the women. Tony stepped in his path and gave a terse shake of his head. He motioned for Rob to follow him out into the hall.

When the door closed behind them, Rob whispered, “Why are we out here?”

“Give them a couple of minutes alone together,” he said, peeking through a crack in the blinds. “It’ll do them both some good. Even if it doesn’t jostle Laura’s memory, she’s obviously reacting to Shay.” He eyed Rob. “And Shayla was about to go crazy with grief, so she needs to let it out.”

Rob tried to look through the same space in the blinds as the women remained motionless, obviously still crying.

Shayla and Laura rarely went a day without talking on the phone. The reason Rob and Laura had an unlimited text plan was due to the tens of thousands of texts the women exchanged every month.

Laura was nearly as close to Leah, Tilly, Loren, and Clarisse, but Shayla and Laura were closer than sisters. When Laura first entered the lifestyle, Shayla had immediately scooped Laura under her wing, both her and Tony offering Laura mentorship and protection from douchetards.

On FetLife, they had each other listed as sisters on their profiles.

That did nothing to soothe the ugly jealously trying to ooze its way through Rob’s soul. Laura hadn’t had such a visceral reaction to him.

Then the ugly jealousy tried to spawn a whole lot of dark, nasty eggs of doubt.

Tony put his hand out and caught Rob’s arm. He waited until Rob finally looked at him. “Women relate differently than we do, okay?” he quietly said. “It’s not a personal statement against you. And she’s known Shayla a few months longer than she’s known you. Try not to read too much into it.”

Rob slumped against the wall. Tony was spooky like that in his ability to read and relate to people. It was one of the reasons people liked him so much, and why his classes in communication and negotiation in the lifestyle were so popular.

“What if she never remembers me?”

Tony’s expression softened. “She will. Just give her time.” He stared through the window again. “The way she looked at you before all this? You are her heart and soul. You will be again. Love like that doesn’t just disappear.”

“I hope you’re right.”

After a few minutes, Tony nodded. “Okay, let’s see if that did any good for either or both of them.”

* * *

Laura hated that she couldn’t coax any concrete memories from the abyss to go with the overwhelming emotions swamping her.

The only thing she knew for certain was she did love this woman, and that she was a safe person to confide in.

“I can’t remember anything,” Laura tearfully whispered. “I can’t remember Rob or you or your husband or anything.”

Shayla stroked her hair. “I know. Rob told us. It’s okay. We’re here for you. You’re not alone.”

After a few minutes the men returned. Rob walked over to her while Shayla stepped into the bathroom to blow her nose and wash her face.

“Are you okay?” Rob asked.

She nodded. “Yeah.” She looked up when he didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to voice his question. “No new memories. But,” she quickly added when disappointment flowed across his face, “it’s like when I met you. I feel something, I just don’t have the memories.”

Before he could step away, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. After hesitating, he draped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair.

As she closed her eyes and deeply inhaled, she pictured a laundry room, where she stood holding her face pressed against a shirt she had to put in the wash, one of his, maybe.

She pulled herself from the vision. “It’s a yellow jug,” she softly said, surprising herself.

“What?”

She didn’t want to look up or let go, afraid to break whatever tenuous connection she had with the delicately sprouting memory. “The laundry soap. It’s in a yellow jug.”

“Yeah,” he said.

Tony spoke from across the room. “I once read that the sense of smell is very powerful in anchoring and triggering memories.”

She pressed her face more tightly against Rob’s stomach, against the firm abs that no doubt lurked beneath the fabric, and deeply inhaled again.

Warm, slightly musky, and…

“Coconut?” she asked, mostly to herself. “Coconut body wash.”

She felt him exhale sharply, as if someone had punched him in the gut. “Yeah. Your favorite.”

After a few more minutes, she released him and wiped at her face. “Sorry. That’s all.”

He caught her hands and gently kissed them. “Hey, it’s a start.”

Bitter disappointment coursed through her. “It’s not very much.”

“Don’t be hard on yourself,” Tony cautioned. “Don’t push yourself. They’ll come back when they come back.”

“If.” She looked at him. He was setting the food out on the rolling bed tray table.

He shrugged. “What comes back will come back. We’ll help you make new memories, if that’s what it takes. Somehow, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. You’re a strong woman. Your body is trying to heal right now. I can’t imagine you not getting your memories back.”

Shayla returned from the bathroom, her face freshly scrubbed and devoid of makeup. Laura realized Shayla hadn’t been wearing any makeup when she arrived.

In a flash, the words were out of Laura’s mouth before she knew she was saying them. “Tony, why don’t you let her wear makeup?”

The three of them froze, staring at her. Tony recovered first. “What?”

Laura turned on the bed to face him. She didn’t miss how Shayla was now totally focused on Tony. “You don’t let her wear makeup?” It was more a question than a statement.

Tony’s gaze darted to Shayla before returning to her. “That’s not true.”

“But she has to ask?”

He set down the food container he’d been in the process of opening. “Rob?”

Rob looked clueless.

Tony sighed. “Shayla and I have a very close relationship,” he carefully said. “She asks me my opinion. My opinion is she’s beautiful without makeup. If she wants to wear makeup, that’s her choice.”

Shayla rapidly nodded.

Laura processed that while Tony continued setting out the food. His answer didn’t feel exactly like the truth. Then she got a strong whiff of the dinner and her eyes dropped closed again as she deeply inhaled, her previous train of thought completely and aromatically derailed.

“Eggplant parm,” she practically sighed, the picture of a restaurant’s dining room coming into view in her mind’s eye. “Sigalo’s.” She realized what she’d said. “Is that right? It just popped into my head.” She looked at them.

Maybe Tony is right about the sense of smell triggering stuff.

Everyone nodded. “That’s right,” Rob said. “It’s your favorite.”

Tony handed her a container. “And a batch of their famous garlic knots,” he said, holding up another container. He opened it for her, revealing it was crammed full of the bread.

“Oooh!” She grabbed three and jammed one into her mouth, letting out a soft moan as she carefully chewed. Her jaw still hurt like a bitch, but she would willingly endure the pain so as not to have to eat hospital food. “That is sooo good.”

She didn’t miss how the other three intently watched her as she chewed. “Are you going to eat or let it go cold?”

Shayla kicked off her shoes and settled, cross-legged, on the end of the bed, facing Laura and using the other side of the bed table for her food. “I’ll make you a batch of my dark chocolate Buckeyes and bring them in tomorrow,” she said. “They’re one of your favorites.”

That sounded familiar to Laura, but no memory accompanied it. “What are they?”

“A peanut butter mix covered with dark chocolate,” Rob said. “You love them.”

“Am I allergic to anything?” She didn’t know why that thought emerged out of left field, but something about peanut allergies had suddenly sprang to mind.

“No,” Rob assured her. “You get seasonal allergies sometimes, and sometimes to dust, but nothing serious.”

“Oh.” She dug into her eggplant parm and closed her eyes as she chewed. “This is amazing,” she softly said, her previous thoughts about Shayla and makeup completely set aside in the face of the best meal she’d ever eaten in her life.

That she could remember up until this point, at least.

“I’m surprised I don’t weigh three hundred pounds,” she said after savoring another bite.

Rob smiled, but it looked sad. “You’re out scuba diving many weekends. Or teaching in a pool. Taking care of the boats, hauling scuba tanks, jogging, swimming—you’re pretty active. This is the least active you’ve ever been since I’ve known you.”

“I don’t relax?”

“Sometimes. Not willingly.”

She looked at him as she forked another bite into her mouth and carefully chewed. “Do they have pictures of Italy on the walls? Paintings? No, wait…” She closed her eyes. “Murals.” She opened her eyes again to look at everyone.

They nodded. “You love their murals,” Rob confirmed.

She stared at the food, the tears taking her by surprise. “Why can I remember stupid stuff like laundry soap and restaurant walls and not anything about people?”

The men flanked her on either side while Shayla reached across the bed tray and held her hands. “We’re here for you, sweetie,” Shayla assured her. “Tony’s right. Don’t try to force things. That might make it harder. Go easy on yourself, okay? We’ll be here every step of the way with you.”

“We promise,” Rob said.

“Yep,” Tony echoed.

* * *

Laura took her time eating, savoring every bite. It didn’t matter how many times she’d supposedly eaten this dish before. She appreciated every nuance of flavor.

She wished Shayla could spend the night with her there at the hospital. More guilt she wouldn’t readily admit to Rob, but she suspected she’d spent many long hours with the woman, baring secrets and their souls together.