I moved to the outside of the path so he could take the shorter inside and then let him set the pace, not wanting him to overdo it.
“Is this too slow?” he asked as we settled into a casual stride. Not speed-walking, but not a leisurely stroll either.
“Not at all. This is great.”
“I’ve been trying to work up to sprints. I’m just not quite there yet.”
“Oh yeah? Do you run?”Shit, how would he remember that?“I mean, uh…”
Reid laughed. “I know what you mean. And I don’tthinkso. From what I’ve been told, I wasn’t really into sports all that much. Or any cardiovascular activity, for that matter. I just saw people out here jogging and figured it seemed like a healthy thing to do.”
I chuckled at that. I didn’t need to look him up and down again to see that he was probably wrong about not breaking a sweat. He was much leaner than he’d been before the accident, but prior to that, Reid had had an athletic build that I’d taken notice of—and thought about often—so he had to be spendingsometime in a gym.
As we passed by my house, I said, “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“I might not know the answer,” he joked.
“Maybe not,” I said, my lips quirking up. “But… What exactly do you remember?”
He fell silent beside me and looked out at the ducks passing by in the water. “It’s weird. I remember pieces from the day of the accident. Like stopping at a gas station for a drink, but they didn’t have what I wanted.” His cheeks tinged the slightest shade of pink as he said, “I remember your face. I know we spoke, but I have no clue what was said. I know I was dressed up to go somewhere, to work, I think, but I can’t tell you where that is or what I did. And before that? I guess that’s where it gets tricky.” He pulled his beanie down and blew out a puff of air. “When I woke up in the hospital and saw my parents, I thought I was dreaming. They look so much older than the last time I saw them. And Anna, my sister? She’s not even in middle school yet, but they tell me she’s getting ready to graduate high school. And, sure, she looks it. But my brain doesn’t really comprehend that I seem to be missing a ten-year chunk of my life.”
I let out a low whistle. “Damn. Ten years? So that’d make you, what?”
“Seventeen,” he said. “Almost eighteen. But my driver’s license says twenty-seven.”
Oh my God.Seventeen?He thought he was stillseventeen? I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with that information besides stroke out.
“It’s not all cut and dry,” he continued. “I have flashes of things that seem to have come after high school, but nothing makes sense.”
“Like watching a movie of your life, only you don’t recognize the characters.”
He squinted at me, the sun in his eyes. “Exactly.”
We were coming back up to the house he’d come down from, and I inclined my head toward it. “Is that your house?”
“What?” He followed my gaze. “Oh. No, it’s my parents’ place. I’ve been staying with them since…” He shrugged. “The house they say is mine doesn’t feel like mine.”
“I can’t imagine.” What would it be like to lose all that time, all those memories? The people you knew, the places you went. Your job. Your whole life as you knew it, bam, gone in a flash. And would he ever get them back, or would he have to basically start over from scratch? How did you push a reset button on your life?
“Enough about all that,” Reid said, breaking through my thoughts. “Tell me about you.”
“What about me?”
“Well, considering the only thing I know about you is that your job is to keep people from dying, I’d say tell me everything.”
I laughed. “You don’t want to know everything.”
“Sure I do. We’ll start easy. How old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
“And are you married? Have a girlfriend?”
I almost choked out a laugh. “No. And no.” And then, to state what would become obvious soon enough, I said, “No boyfriend, either.”
Reid did a double take. “Oh,” he said, not seeming too bothered by it, but rather like he hadn’t thought about it. “Why not?”
“I guess you could say I’m married to my job.”Oh, and I seem to have it bad for a seventeen-going-on-twenty-seven-year-old guy who can’t remember anything about his life.