Unlocking Melodies (Oakwood Grove #3)

3. Muscle Memory

Chapter 3

Muscle Memory

I lay in bed, listening to horses nickering and country music drifting through the windows. Apparently Past Jimmy lived in some kind of pin board for “Rustic Ranch Life.” Though given that Present Jimmy couldn't remember his own middle name, maybe I wasn't in a position to judge.

The bathroom mirror presented my first existential crisis of the day. The face staring back at me matched the photos I'd seen, but it felt like looking at an actor playing me in the movie of my life. A pretty good actor, to be fair - the kind of scruffy-but-charming look that said “I try, but not too hard.” There was a small scar near my hairline that was probably from the attack.

“Okay, Jimmy,” I told my reflection. “Time to figure out who you are. Starting with... basic hygiene?”

The bathroom counter was like an archaeological dig site of my apparently elaborate personal care routine. The electric toothbrush probably cost more than my phone - or it would have if I could remember how much either of them cost. The hair products lined up like expensive soldiers had labels worn off in specific spots, suggesting Past Jimmy had his favorites.

“Right,” I muttered, picking up a fancy-looking bottle. “Because obviously I was the kind of guy who spent...” I checked the price sticker still stuck to the bottom and choked. “Holy shit. Past Me, we need to talk about financial priorities.”

The shower presented its own mysteries. Five unmarked bottles sat in a neat row. Shampoo? Conditioner? Secret ranch potions? I sniffed each one, which only confirmed that Past Jimmy had expensive taste and possibly a side hustle as a professional smeller.

Post-shower, I stared at the deodorant. Before or after getting dressed? These were the kind of deeply personal routines no one ever had to think about, until suddenly they did. I opted for before, but who knew? Maybe I'd been doing it wrong for years and was known throughout town as That Guy Who Deodorants Wrong.

The closet was its own adventure. Vintage concert tees hung next to button-downs that definitely required ironing skills I wasn't sure I possessed. The shoes were organized by type, which felt suspiciously unlike me, though I had no actual evidence for that feeling.

A shoebox tucked in the back corner caught my eye. Inside, ticket stubs and backstage passes told the story of a life I couldn't remember living. The Killers at Madison Square Garden. Arcade Fire in Montreal. A broken guitar string in a small envelope labeled simply “First string to break on stage - L.”

My stomach growled, reminding me that existential crises burned calories. Time to face my hosts - friends? employers? benefactors? The social etiquette guide for “How to Act Around People Who Know Everything About You When You Know Nothing About Them” was frustratingly thin.

The walk to the main house gave me time to practice my totally fine, definitely not freaking out face. The morning sun painted everything in that perfect golden hour light that probably looked great on Instagram. Past Jimmy had probably posted about it. Past Jimmy seemed like the kind of guy who had his social media game together.

A delivery van pulled up to the ranch gates, and the driver waved with the easy familiarity of routine. “Jimmy! Man, glad to see you up and about. We were all worried when we heard-”

I waved back with what I hoped was the right amount of recognition. Too little would seem rude, too much would be lying. I'd started mentally cataloging these interactions on a scale from awkwardly painful to actively want to crawl into a hole.

This one landed somewhere around “mildly uncomfortable” until the driver called out, “Hey, you still want your usual order?”

I had a usual order. Of course I had a usual order. Past Jimmy probably had usual orders everywhere.

"Actually," I started, ready to admit I had no idea what my usual order was, but a hand landed on my shoulder.

"I've got it covered, Mark," Caleb called from behind me. "Just the regular delivery. Oh, and that other thing we talked about?"

Mark gave a knowing nod and reached back into his truck, pulling out a sleek box that definitely wasn't filled with pickle-flavored anything.

Caleb handed me the box. Inside was a brand new phone, already wearing what looked suspiciously like my preferred case style. "Figured you might want a fresh start."

The gesture hit something in my chest. My old phone sat in a drawer like a time capsule I couldn't bring myself to open - too many memories, too many passwords I couldn't remember, too many pieces of Past Jimmy I wasn't ready to face.

"You didn't have to-"

"Yeah, we did." He nudged me toward the house. "Breakfast first, though. Then we can deal with your very specific and slightly concerning addiction to pickle-flavored snacks. And maybe set up your new phone with a password you'll actually remember this time."

The unspoken understanding in his voice made my throat tight. Trust Caleb to know exactly what I needed - even before I did.

“That's my usual order? Really?”

“Three bags a week, like clockwork.” He grinned. “Some things about you are still deeply questionable, memory or not.”

I followed him inside, adding apparently loves weird chips to my growing list of Jimmy Reed facts.At least my taste in snacks was memorable, even if nothing else was.

Breakfast with Liam and Caleb turned out to be an oddly hilarious crash course in being myself. They passed information like relay batons, tag-teaming my personality.

“Coffee's ready,” Caleb said, sliding a mug across the counter. “Two sugars, no cream.”

“And don't touch the strawberry jam,” Liam added quickly, snatching it away. “You're allergic.”

“Severely,” Caleb emphasized. “Found that out the hard way at the Fourth of July picnic.”

I picked up the mug they'd handed me - black ceramic covered in musical notes - and watched their expressions. “Let me guess. This is my favorite mug?”

“You threw a fit when Caleb used it once,” Liam confirmed.

“In my defense,” I tried the coffee, “this is really good coffee.”

“See?” Caleb nudged Liam. “Still a coffee snob. Some things are just hardwired.”

The normalcy felt forced, but I appreciated the effort. They kept up a steady stream of chatter while I worked my way through eggs and toast, casually dropping Jimmy Facts? like they were reading from a user manual for my personality.

“After breakfast we should probably head down for morning feed,” Caleb said absently. “Your girl's been missing you lately.”

“My what now?”

“You have a horse,” Liam said carefully. “Sort of.”

“I have a horse?” The word came out embarrassingly high-pitched.

“You don't ride,” Liam quickly clarified. “You just spoil her rotten with treats and call her your therapy horse whenever you're stressed about contract negotiations.”

The casual mention of my job sent another wave of panic through me. Right. Music manager. Whatever that meant.

“Actually,” I set down the musical note mug, “I want to see The Watering Hole.”

“Jimmy, you just got out of the hospital-”

“And sitting here trying to piece together my life from context clues isn't helping. Maybe if I see where I worked...”

They exchanged another look - they did that a lot - but twenty minutes later we were in Caleb's truck, heading into town. It turned into an impromptu tour of my greatest hits, narrated by the world's most enthusiastic docents.

“Oh man, there's the park where you tackled that guy trying to crash Liam's acoustic set,” Caleb said, pointing out the window.

“I did what now?”

“He was trying to grab the mic,” Liam explained. “You went full bodyguard mode. It was impressive.”

“And terrifying,” I muttered. Past Jimmy sounded exhausting.

“That's The Daily Grind,” Caleb gestured to a coffee shop. “Where you had that showdown with the pretentious indie label guy.”

“The one who said that my music was too 'mainstream accessible'?” Liam mimicked air quotes.

“You made him cry,” Caleb said proudly.

“With words,” Liam clarified quickly at my alarmed look. “You're terrifyingly good at verbal takedowns when you're defending your artists.”

Great. So I was some kind of coffee-snob vigilante with a therapy horse and a talent for making music executives cry.

“And that's where you organized the Christmas flash mob!” Caleb pointed to the town square.

“Of course I did,” I sighed. “Because apparently I'm also a festive criminal mastermind.”

“People loved it,” Liam assured me. “They still talk about how you got old Mrs. Henderson to breakdance.”

I stared at them both. “Please tell me you're messing with me.”

“There's video,” Caleb grinned.

“I hate Past Jimmy,” I declared. “He sounds exhausting.”

“Nah,” Liam's voice went soft. “You just care. About everything and everyone. It's kind of your thing.”

The sincerity caught me off guard. Before I could process it, we pulled up in front of a building with a familiar neon sign.

“Home sweet home,” Caleb announced.

The Watering Hole looked exactly like it had yesterday, but somehow more real in the morning light. My old apartment was supposedly above it. My life was supposedly inside it. My memories were supposedly connected to it.

I took a deep breath. “Okay, Past Jimmy. Show me what you've got.”

Nina was waiting at the bar, her bright smile only slightly too wide to be natural. The effort she put into keeping it steady made my chest ache.

“Ready for the grand tour?” She gestured around the space. “Though I guess it's more like a re-tour. Re-introduction? Is there a proper etiquette for showing someone their own workplace when they have amnesia?”

“If there is, I forgot it,” I said, and her startled laugh felt like the first real thing all morning.

My office was exactly what you'd expect from someone who had their life together. Everything labeled, color-coded, indexed within an inch of its life. Past Jimmy was apparently some kind of organizational savant.

“Your filing system is legendary,” Nina said, proudly showing me perfectly arranged contracts. “You can find any document in under thirty seconds.”

It took me five minutes just to locate the desk chair.

The whiteboard calendar on the wall mocked me with its neat rows of upcoming events, all written in what was apparently my handwriting. Several were marked “URGENT” in aggressive red ink. Past Jimmy had been very concerned about something happening next Thursday at a place called The Sound Factory.

“Don't worry about any of this,” Nina said quickly, catching my expression. “We've got it handled.”

“Boss?” A young bartender appeared in the doorway. “We've got a situation with the supplier. They sent those weird pickle-flavored vodka shots you banned last summer after The Incident.”

He looked at me expectantly. I looked helplessly at Nina.

“I'll handle it,” she jumped in smoothly. “Jimmy's still getting his bearings.”

The bartender's face did the thing - that minute shift from normal to careful. “Right, sorry. Good to have you back, boss.”

I waited until he left to slump in my chair. “I banned pickle-flavored vodka?”

“After The Incident,” Nina confirmed. “Which we don't talk about. Ever.”

“That's reassuring.”

She patted my shoulder. “Baby steps. No one expects you to jump right back in.”

Except they did. They couldn't help it. Every interaction came with the weight of expectations I couldn't meet, memories I couldn't access, inside jokes I didn't get.

The ledger I found in my desk drawer was the final straw - pages of contacts, each one representing someone whose career apparently depended on me remembering who the hell I was.

“I need a minute,” I managed, heading for the bathroom before Nina could respond.

The hallway was lined with framed photos, a timeline of moments I should have remembered. Me with various artists on stage. Me at industry events. Me and Liam after what must have been a big show, both of us grinning like we owned the world.

That Jimmy looked so sure of himself. So confident. So completely unlike the stranger I saw in the mirror this morning.

I was so busy having an existential crisis over my own face that I didn't notice someone coming around the corner. The collision was brief but effective - hot coffee splashed across my chest, and I looked up to apologize.

Green eyes. Startlingly green, set in a face that belonged on magazine covers. For a fraction of a second, something flickered in the back of my mind - expensive coffee, piano music late at night, a laugh that felt like coming home.

Then it was gone, leaving nothing but the ghost of a memory and a very real coffee stain.

“I'm so sorry,” the stranger said, but he was staring at me like I was the one who'd appeared out of nowhere. Like he'd seen a ghost. Which was funny, because I was the one who felt haunted.

“No worries,” I managed. “I wasn't watching where I was going.”

He was still staring. I couldn't blame him - I probably looked like a mess, standing there with coffee dripping down my shirt, having some kind of breakdown in a hallway full of photos of my own face.

“You're here,” he said finally, so quietly I almost missed it.

“I... work here?” It came out like a question, because everything about my life was a question mark these days.

Time did this weird stretchy thing, like in movies when everything goes slow-motion except your heartbeat. The stranger's suit probably cost more than my hospital bill - the kind of bespoke perfection that usually only existed in magazine ads. Now it had a growing coffee stain that somehow made him look more human, less like a GQ cover come to life.

His face was doing complicated things - hope blooming and dying in the space of a heartbeat, something raw and painful flashing through those green eyes before disappearing behind careful neutrality. I knew that look. I'd been seeing it all day from people who knew me when I didn't know them. But this felt different. Bigger. Like I was missing not just a memory but an entire story.

“Mr. Cole.” Nina's voice could have frozen hell. Gone was the warm, caring woman who'd been helping me navigate my own office. In her place stood someone who wielded politeness like a weapon. “I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow.”

Cole. The name should have meant something. The way my pulse picked up suggested it did mean something, somewhere in the locked rooms of my mind. But all I had was this moment.

Footsteps in the hallway broke the tableau. Liam appeared, stopping short at the sight of us. The temperature dropped another few degrees, which I wouldn't have thought possible. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for... something.

I shifted uncomfortably, feeling like an actor who'd wandered onto the wrong stage. Everyone else knew their lines, their marks, their motivations. I was just standing there with coffee dripping down my shirt, trying to figure out why my heart was doing gymnastics in my chest.

“I apologize for the collision.” Cole's voice was perfectly modulated, like he'd run it through some kind of emotion filter before letting it out. But there was a rough edge underneath, like something trying to break free. “Please send me the cleaning bill for your shirt.”

The formality felt wrong, like hearing a familiar song in the wrong key. But what did I know? Maybe this was normal. Maybe expensive suits and careful distance were just how things worked in the music industry. Maybe my racing pulse was just caffeine and anxiety and not...

Not what?

I watched him retreat to a corner table, all controlled grace and perfect posture. He pulled out his phone, probably to handle whatever important business brought tech billionaires to small-town bars before noon. Not that I knew he was a tech billionaire. That was just an assumption based on the suit and the way he moved like someone used to people watching him.

“Jimmy?” Nina's voice was gentle again, the ice reserved apparently only for Mr. Cole. “Let's get you cleaned up.”

“I have a spare shirt in the truck,” Liam offered, but he was watching Cole's back with an expression I couldn't read.

“I'm fine,” I said, though I wasn't sure why I was protecting a stranger's feelings. “It's just coffee.”

“It's never just coffee,” Nina muttered, too quiet for anyone else to hear.

I wanted to ask what that meant. Wanted to ask why everyone was acting like we were in a play where I'd forgotten all my lines. Wanted to ask why I could still feel those green eyes on me even though Cole was very deliberately not looking our way.

Instead, I said, “I think I need some air.”

“Want company?” Liam asked carefully.

I shook my head. “I just need to...” To what? Process? Breathe? Figure out why a coffee stain and a stranger's careful distance felt like missing the last step on a familiar staircase?

“Take your time,” Nina squeezed my arm. “We'll be here.”

I headed for the door, very aware of the weight of multiple gazes on my back. Just before I stepped outside, I glanced back. Cole was still at his table, still staring at his phone, still perfectly composed. But his coffee sat untouched, and his free hand was clenched so tight his knuckles were white.

The morning air hit my face, and I took a deep breath. Somewhere in my missing memories was the key to whatever scene I'd just stumbled through. Somewhere was the reason Nina's voice went cold and Liam's went careful and my heart decided to run a marathon in my chest.

The coffee stain on my shirt had gone cold and sticky, but my skin underneath felt weirdly hot. Like a sunburn, but localized exactly where those expensive imported beans had marked me. Which was probably not a normal reaction to coffee. Then again, what about this day was normal?

I pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to stave off the headache building there. More mysteries. More half-conversations. More people talking about me like I was a puzzle missing its most important pieces.

Movement caught my eye, drawing my attention to the window. Cole sat at his corner table, phone forgotten in his hand, watching me with an intensity that made my chest tight. The moment our eyes met, something flickered in my mind:

Different lighting, warmer. The same green eyes crinkling at the corners. Laughter over spilled coffee in a practice room, his expensive sweater ruined but he didn't care because-

Gone. The memory vanished like smoke, leaving me with nothing but the echo of a laugh I couldn't quite hear and the certainty that I'd just lost something important. Again.

Cole's table was empty now. Only the untouched coffee and a generous tip remained, like he'd been a mirage that disappeared when I blinked too long.

“Jimmy?” Nina suddenly appeared, trying too hard to sound casual. “The supplier's on line one about those vodka shots. Want me to...?”

“Handle it,” I finished, still staring at the empty table. “Please. I need to...”

I gestured vaguely at my coffee-stained shirt, but what I really needed was to understand why a simple business text felt like a letter written in code. Why the ghost of spilled coffee and shared laughter haunted me more than all the other memories I'd lost.

"Take your time," Nina said softly. She hesitated, then added, "Sometimes not remembering is easier than..." She didn't finish the thought, but she didn't have to. The weight of everything I couldn't remember pressed against my chest like a physical thing, and somewhere in that void, green eyes watched me with carefully hidden pain.

"You know," she continued, her voice gentle, "you can take more time off. No one would hold it against you. The bar will still be here when you're ready."

I shook my head, maybe too quickly. "I need this, Nina. Need something normal, even if I can't remember what normal used to feel like. Sitting at home just makes the blank spaces feel bigger."

She studied me for a moment, understanding softening her features. "Alright. But promise me you'll say something if it gets too overwhelming. We're here for you - all of us."