Tired, she looked at herself in the mirror as it fogged back up, not liking the shadow of her mother in the slant to her narrow jaw and the upturned curve of her nose. She’d pieced her life back together as much as she could on her own. It was time for Jack’s help, and she headed out, coffee in hand.
A sagging queen bed with a faded print bedspread took up one interior wall. There was a large window overlooking the parking lot and interstate beyond, and one small window opposite that looked out at scrub and rock behind the hotel. The maroon carpet was matted, and the furniture was decades out of date. A TV was bolted into a corner at the ceiling. There was an actual rotary phone on the nightstand, but beside it was a universal etherball plug-in/charger that connected any device to the Net—a necessity when catering to truckers. The one spot of high tech made the rest of the room more dreary. It was a far cry from the tech-rich, five-star service she was used to, but it was safe, and that was all that truly mattered.
“Better?” Jack asked as he scooted a second chair to the tiny round table he’d arranged.
“Getting there.” There was an omelet with toast and sausage across from a plastic bowl of yogurt and walnuts. The early sun streamed in, glinting on the button sitting at dead center of the table. Slowly her smile faded as she tried to both remember and forget the face of the man she’d taken everything from, his eyes open as he stared up at her with his last breath foaming the blood at his lips. Sometimes forgetting was a blessing.
“You, ah, going to shower before we hit the road?” she asked, hearing the whoosh of the interstate traffic leaking in along with the golden sun.
Jack glanced at the bathroom. “Probably. After I eat. I’m starving.”
“Me too.” The sausage smelled wonderful, and though the plastic spork was annoying, it didn’t seem to matter when the fatty bliss hit her tongue.
Sighing, Jack flopped into the chair across from her. Peri took another gulp of coffee, freezing when she set it next to Jack’s cup—sitting right in front of her. Great. Eggs and sausage were apparently not her usual anymore. Six weeks ago they had been.
She looked up to find Jack glumly poking at the yogurt. “Ah, this is your breakfast, isn’t it,” she said, and he sheepishly reached across the table to take his coffee.
“Ye-e-e-eah. You’ve been on a health kick lately, but go ahead. You look hungry.”
“Oh, Jack,” she breathed in chagrin, and pushed the plate to him, getting up and moving to sit in his lap when he protested. His arms felt right as they went about her, his grunt of surprise making her smile. The smell of gunpowder lingered on him, way down under the dry scent of blue chalk and old beer. The bitter odor penetrated deep into her psyche and kindled a tingling desire born of memories of adrenaline and joined danger.
“We’ll share,” she whispered, and he shifted her weight. “Here. Take a bite.”
His eyes lit up, and he held her securely on his lap as she angled the spork and sausage between his teeth. “I could get used to this,” he said around the mouthful, and relief dropped her shoulders. She hated it when she made a mistake this obvious.
It was all about routine. Routine wouldn’t bring her memory back, but she had to have stability to notice what was out of place—and she was making mistakes.
“Mmmm, good,” he said as he shifted her so he could help himself. “You know, Bill is really not happy about the knot. Wants us back ASAP.”
“Of course he does.” But her gaze went to the interstate. If something deeper than a memory knot cropped up, Opti could handle it. Fix her. Returning immediately was a good option. “What do you think? Back by noon?” she asked reluctantly, still wanting a defrag before she faced the couch warriors with their psych tests and evaluations. But if he was too tired …
Jack nodded, picking the walnuts out of the yogurt to eat them one by one. “If you drive. I gotta get some sleep.” He hesitated at her suddenly wide eyes. “I’m good to do a defrag, though,” he added, and Peri exhaled in relief.
It wasn’t as if she could force him, and if he had begged off because he was too tired, she would’ve had to wait. Most people at Opti thought the drafter was the ruling force in a drafter-anchor pairing, but the honest truth was, the anchor held the sanity of his or her partner—and every drafter knew it. “Now?” she asked, feeling as if they were running out of time.