Chapter 36: My Dark Prince: Chapter 35

I’d spoken too soon.

Oliver had not, in fact, decided to stop shadowing me. Unless, of course, you considered five calls in thirty minutes adequate personal space.

The Costa household’s sleek cordless phone rang. Oliver’s name flashed on the green-lit screen.

Make that six.

I clicked the answer button, interrupting him before he could speak, “Are you sure she’s my friend?”

His deep chuckle filled the other line. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

“Maybe the dozen or so red flags.”

“Dallas? Red flags? She’s perfectly normal.”

“Normal?” I wore Luca in a BabyBjorn, stroking the thick mane of dark hair on his head with one hand and holding the phone up to my ear with the other. “She brought a paperback to the house earlier.”

“She’s literate. Some would call that a wonderful quality.”

“Then she whipped out her Kindle.”

“Perhaps she got bored of the paperback.”

“Nope. She got hungry.”

“Don’t tell me she ate the Kindle?”

“She used it as a bookmark. For her paperback.”

Imagine my shock when the woman flipped the special edition open, wedged the Kindle between its pages, and slammed the book shut, discarding it on her coffee table.

Oliver offered a hmm, the clatter of a keyboard audible through the call. “People have quirks. That’s normal.”

I paced the length of Dallas and Romeo’s living room, enjoying the change of scenery from our mansion. “Then we drove to get Taco Bell.”

“Fast food is normal, too.” The keys paused their pitter patter. “Are you allowed to have it during your recovery?”

“That’s beside the point, Doctor Cohen.” I swung my head around, double checking the woman in question hadn’t re-entered the home. “Dallas used the car’s sunglasses compartment as a taco holder between lights.”

“Okay, now that’s pure genius. You can’t hold a taco and drive. It isn’t safe.” Ollie continued typing. “Where is she, anyway? Did she leave you unattended?”

“I’m not a child. I don’t need tending to. She left her wallet in the car and went to grab it.” I waited a beat. “Ask me why.”

“I’d rather not.”

“She buys stuff on TV, Ol.” I tossed my free arm up, conjuring a smile from Luca as we swayed together. “She’s the only person I’ve ever met that buys stuff off infomercials.”

“That you know of.”

“Point is, I spent twenty minutes watching QVC with her, and Romeo is about to be the proud owner of a foot shaver, an ostrich travel pillow, and a Nicolas Cage pillowcase.”

“She’s your best friend,” Ollie insisted. “Her and Fae.”

I sighed. To be honest, I didn’t doubt it. Not really. Yeah, Dallas could be … much. But I could tell in an instant that she possessed a heart of gold. In fact, I loved her quirks. I wanted to live tweet every second with her, so I could share her awesomeness with the world. No one would believe it, but still.

Plus, it made sense that I’d befriend the spouses of Oliver’s best friends. I was stalling. Filling up our conversation with anything I could, so I wouldn’t break my promise to Seb. Every time Ollie called me, I got closer and closer to demanding answers.

“If you were a nipple clamp, where would you hide?” Dallas charged back into the living room, hands full of breastfeeding gear. “Asking for a friend. Me. I’m the friend.”

“Gotta go. Dallas is back. Love you always.” I hung up the phone and pointed at something beige and silicone wedged between her luxe couch cushions. “Over there?”

Dallas leaned over the back of the couch, staying on the kitchen side of her open floor plan. “Is that Ollie again?”

“Yup.”

“Don’t tell me he’s mad I took you out.” She snatched up the silicone, identified it as a bib, and discarded her haul onto the kitchen island. “God forbid I hurt a single hair on his precious wife’s head.”

“Fiancée,” I corrected, though a little zap of lightning shot through my belly at the word wife.

You are going to be Mrs. Oliver von Bismarck.

Ten-year-old Briar Rose would’ve cried fat, happy tears.

Thirty-three-year-old Briar wanted to fast forward to the wedding, so she could jump his bones. No way would he deny me on our wedding night, memory or no memory. I’d never known Ollie to have such restraint.

Dallas paused her search for the nipple clamps. “You need to defy him more often.”

I frowned. “Do I not?”

Better question – before the accident, did I ever need to? I refused to be restricted.

“Doesn’t matter. In my humble opinion, you can never let your man get complacent.” Easy for her to say. She’d just told me the story of how her husband had taken an actual bullet for her. “God created man so he would be ignored. It’s literally in the bible.”

“Is that in the King James Version or the New American?”

“What’s the first thing Eve does? Eats that apple. Boom.” She snapped her fingers. “She ignored Adam’s request.”

“It was God’s request.” I bounced her napping son against my chest, wondering if he could absorb any of this conversation in his sleep. “And the outcome was pretty horrible. All of mankind banished from Heaven.”

“What are you? A pastor?” Dallas sipped her Frappuccino, drumming her almond nails over the Starbucks cup. “Girlie wanted a snack, and she practiced self-care.”

I blinked. I wasn’t sure I was on board with her version of things. I didn’t remember any of this from the religious history courses I’d taken at Surval Montreaux, but Dallas had grown up in the heart of the Bible Belt.

Dal shook her head, continuing her search for the clamps. “Point is, Ollie needs to be reminded that you are your own person. He can’t lock you in that place like a fairytale princess.”

She had a point.

And I had every intention of broaching that subject with Oliver as soon as I gained back a memory. Just one. Any memory would do. Every time I concentrated on the past, my headaches returned in full force. I’d begun to feel hopeless.

Hettie, the Costa personal chef, paraded into the kitchen with two bags full of groceries. “I told you guys I’d be back fast.”

Dallas clapped her hands, sprinting to Hettie’s side. “What’d you get?”

“I snagged fresh crawfish from Cracking Claws.” Hettie tied up her purple hair into a top bun, slipping an apron over her tatted neck. “It’s Viet Cajun for dinner tonight. I got Andouille, too.”

“Why don’t you stay for dinner?” Dallas spun to me for a moment before flipping open the oven and peering inside for her sex toy. “How do you like your sausages, Briar?”

“On the pig they belong to.” I patted Luca’s back, sauntering between the kitchen and the living room. “I’m a vegetarian.”

Wasn’t it weird that literally nobody in my life remembered that?

“Of course, you are. Now I remember.” Hettie blew a lock of hair from her face, popped open the bread box, and retrieved the nipple clamps, passing them over to her employer. “Bingo.”

Dallas pocketed the clamps in her dress. “You’re a saint.”

Hettie turned to me. “What can I make you?”

“For a snack?” I scratched my temple. “I mean … Ritz crackers and peanut butter sounds great.”

Hettie and Dallas exchanged worried looks, as if I’d asked to eat the head of the very baby I cradled.

“She’s a work in progress,” Dallas excused my apparently abhorrent choice. “So. Briar. I did some research about amnesia and how to help you regain your memory.”

I nibbled on my lower lip. “You did?”

I didn’t know whether to be excited or nervous. Dallas seemed full of good intentions and bad decisions.

“Does Googling count? Because if so, yes, I absolutely did.” Dal collapsed onto an island stool, flipping open a notepad. “I’m going to ask you questions, and it’s going to give your brain a ‘workout,’ so to speak.”

She grinned. She was beautiful in an old Hollywood way. With voluminous chestnut hair, pale green eyes, and a designer dress most would consider too formal to wear at a wedding, let alone at home.

I nodded. “I’ll try my best.”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Easy. Blue.” Always blue. Ever since I was a kid. I smiled. “The color of the roses Ollie gives me every day.”

“Where’d you go to school?”

I rattled off the dozen or so schools I’d bounced around at across the world, following up her next questions with ease. My parents’ names and occupation. The places I’d lived in and vacationed at. The names of famous figures. Some of the pranks Ollie dragged me into.

When we crawled to my adulthood, I started to struggle.

Dal pinched the tail of a saucy crawfish and yanked, decapitating it. “Do you remember anything about being an intimacy coordinator?”

I continued to march around the island with Luca in his carrier, a frown flying over my cheeks. “I remember college, I think.”

My temples throbbed. Flashes of faces zipped in and out of my brain like a faulty lightbulb. I clutched onto the edge of the countertop, knuckles white.

Cheerleaders flying in the air.

Signs flapping in the wind.

Screams and chants.

Baylor green. University gold.

A slender hand reaching out, followed by a mischievous grin.

“Hazel,” I called out, my heart kicking into overdrive. “I remember my roommate. Hazel Locklear.”

“Your roommate?” Dallas sucked on the head of a crawfish. “From boarding school?”

“College. Baylor.”

“That’s in Texas, right?”

“Waco.”

Suddenly, I remembered with certainty that I’d remained friends with Hazel. Good friends. Bits and pieces of her stitched together in my mind. Her impossibly long hair. Her wicked sense of humor. How her antics always reminded me of Oliver. And the outfit she’d worn when she won Miss Lumbee. She’d kept it on a mannequin I’d embroidered with blue roses for her.

“I remember my roommate.” I couldn’t hold back my grin. “Her name was Hazel. We’re still friends.”

“Your roommate … from your university in Texas?”

“Yes.”

Dal tapped her chin, staining it with sha-bang sauce. “Isn’t it spring break now?”

I pulled up the internet app on the new phone Ollie had left for me on the foyer console. It didn’t have any of my contacts or pictures. The repair shop couldn’t fix the damage on the old one.

“Yup,” I confirmed. “Says here that it’s spring break.”

“Me thinks there’s an all-girls Texas trip in our very near future.” Dallas shoved two Andouille sausages past her lips, rushing to finish. “Hettie, get the jet rolling. I’ll call Fae. She’ll want to be there.”

Ollie would veto the idea, fussing needlessly over my safety, but I didn’t want to point that out. It was time to find out who I was outside the confinements of my relationship.

And Dallas Costa was just the person to help me.