Chapter 1
The Heart Does Not Forget by Mere Rain
David hated hospitals more each time he was called to one, which was all too often. Knowing his way around was absolutely not a worthwhile silver lining, but at least he made it to Arlo’s room in minimum time.
“David!” Arlo called, holding out a hand.
David froze for a second in surprise, then hurried to Arlo’s bedside to clasp his husband’s hand in his own.
“Where’s Axel? Is he okay?” Panicking, Arlo tried to sit up, but the nurse held him in place.
“I’m told your brother is out of the country,” she said, glancing at David.
He nodded. It was ironic, after so many dangerous escapades with his brother, helping Axel film his travel-adventure vlog Extreme Everything, that Arlo had been injured in a simple car accident on an icy road two miles from home.
“Out of the country? Wait, you sound American. Aren’t we in Mexico?”
David swallowed. “No,” he said slowly. “We finished filming in Mexico. We’re home.”
“Minneapolis?” Arlo frowned, then winced. “My head hurts. When did we get back?”
Mexico was months ago. “We’ve been here for a bit, preparing for the wedding. Axel and Ashley?”
“Right. I remember now. You have to give a speech. Glad it’s not me. I feel like crap.”
The speech had been delivered, the vows said, the cake cut. Ten days ago.
“The doctor is on his way,” the nurse said. “As soon as he’s talked to you, I can give you something for the pain, okay, honey?”
Once the doctor had come and shone his flashlight in Arlo’s eyes and approved pain killers, he ordered a brain scan and drew David aside.
“Mr. Brooks seems confused. That’s not unusual—”
“He thought we were in Mexico,” David interrupted. “That was months ago. He doesn’t remember his brother’s wedding. It’s amnesia, isn’t it?”
David was sure, for a reason he hoped he wouldn’t have to explain to strangers.
“As I said, not uncommon for head injuries. Everything other than the day of the accident will probably return as he heals. Don’t worry needlessly at this point. He may be back to normal in a day or two.”
It probably made David a terrible person, but he hoped Arlo wouldn’t be back to normal right away.
* * * *
Arlo cried.
David had seen him in tears before, of course. Not often, but they’d known each other since Arlo was eighteen and David nineteen. Practically children.
Only once had the tears been from physical pain, that time Arlo had shattered his shin bone in a fall on one of Axel’s Extreme Everything adventures. His leg still ached when the weather changed.
So, when he came out of the CT scan shaking, two days after the accident, David said firmly, “He doesn’t need another test today. The doctor said he was stable.”
The staff was aware that David was a physical trainer, and his affiliation with the Minneapolis Mastiffs gave him some prestige. They agreed that Arlo could go home for a few days, as long as David was keeping an eye on him.
It was a strange feeling, watching your husband walk into your home and look around, identifying changes. The bed had a new comforter. Arlo sat on the bed and ran a hand over the burgundy fabric.
“Are you hungry?”
“I’d rather sleep,” Arlo said. “I only slept when they knocked me out. All the lights and noises and people moving around…”
“Of course. I’ll be in the next room, if you need anything.” David withdrew awkwardly from his own bedroom.
It occurred to him a second too late that he should have kissed his husband. He would have kissed his husband. But it was too late to turn back.
Arlo got into bed. The mattress felt familiar, but the pillow didn’t. He put a hand out and patted David’s pillow, in case they had gotten switched, but they hadn’t.
He wished David had come to bed. It was early, and probably David had fallen behind on paperwork while Arlo was in the hospital.
But still, Arlo was surprised: it wasn’t like David to pass up a chance to cuddle. He complained when he didn’t get cuddled enough.
Arlo slept by himself fairly often—when he was traveling with Axel, or when David was on the road with the Mastiffs—but tired as he was, he couldn’t fall asleep now. His body ached and his mind was restless.
Arlo got out of bed, wrapped himself in David’s robe—where was Arlo’s robe?—and went to the window.
The snow was quiet and cold and peaceful, the opposite of the hot, stuffy, chaos of the hospital with its constant beeping driving him out of what was left of his mind.
He stood by the window and watched it fall, ignoring his chill.
Soft, silent, blank. Finally, Arlo could think, or not think, uninterrupted, for as long as he needed.
He could remember David’s Best Man speech now, and dancing with David at the reception. Not the accident, or where he’d been going when it happened, but everything else.
* * * *
A long while later, when Arlo had grown very cold:
“Ari? Are you okay?”
“You’re not my husband.”
David froze, one hand reaching toward Arlo.
“I am,” he said when he could breathe again. “We’re just…taking a break.”
“Separated, David. Taking a break means you’re planning to come back.”
David flinched. “You haven’t filed for divorce,” he said doggedly.
It was true, Arlo hadn’t. And Extreme Everything had an attorney. Phi could have handled it. “Neither have you.”
“I don’t want a divorce!” David shouted.
Arlo’s hand tightened on the windowsill. “You were unhappy. With me.”
David inhaled. “I wanted more of you, not less. And I wanted you to want me more.”
“I wanted you to listen to me, David! I told you that. To be my friend. The way we used to be.”
“I am! But we used to spend so much time together, you and me and Axel. It felt like we had all the time in the world, and now we can barely make time to see each other. Don’t you miss that?”
“College? Of course I do. But we were kids then. We were practically kids when we got married.” Arlo slumped against the window frame.
David came to his side, finally, putting tentative hands on his arms. “You’re freezing. You should get back in bed.”
“Does Axel even know I was in the hospital?”
“No,” David admitted, guilt plain on his face. “I thought…his honeymoon…”
“It’s fine.” Atypical: Arlo usually had no mercy for stupid excuses. “He’s a terrible hospital visitor, anyway. He’s so loud.”
David huffed a laugh. “Yeah, he is. And it seemed like the wrong time to explain.”
Axel didn’t know his best friend and brother had separated. They had agreed to keep it secret until after Axel’s wedding and honeymoon. Arlo remembered that now.
“Have you heard from him?” Arlo asked. “Are they having fun?”
“You know Axel. Lost in the jungle is a bonus, not a problem.”
“Oh, no.”
“Don’t worry, the waterfall was only a small one.”
Arlo laughed, and David’s heart thumped. How long since he had made his husband laugh? A real laugh, not a bitter one?
“If you aren’t sleepy you could catch up on their posts? But under the blankets before you freeze.”
“You don’t need your phone?” Arlo asked as he crawled back into bed.
“I can do without it for a night.” David patted at the pillows, then forced himself to stop.
Arlo swallowed. “You could say here. If you wanted. Watch with me.”
He put his hand on the empty side of the bed, where David normally slept. Alone, half the time, even before Arlo had moved out.
David’s breath caught for a second. He cleared his throat. “Okay.”
He slid under the covers carefully, gently, as if their bed was a horse that might buck him to the floor.
Arlo pressed play without looking at David.
“I’m Axel and this is my lovely bride Ashley, and this is our Extreme Honeymoon!” Axel yelled at the camera.
Arlo smiled to hear his brother’s voice again. Axel sounded happy. Ashley sounded happy, too, even when Axel agreed they were lost and she yelled, “Oh, no!” They laughed and leaned on each other.
David was achingly aware of the narrow gap between them, Arlo close enough for David to feel the warmth as Arlo thawed. It was so long since they had been intimate. Dancing at the wedding had been torture.
The video ended with the honeymooners still lost, but David knew they found their way in the next episode. “Miss you, bros!” Axel’s shout overlapped with Ashley’s, “Hi, Mom and Dad and Shelley!” as the feed ended.
Miss you, David thought, and said, “I’m sorry. I should have told you. It was selfish. I wanted to—to have you look at me like that again.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Arlo said. “It would have been upsetting, and I was already freaked out. You didn’t have to take care of me, so I’m—I’m grateful.”
“Jesus!” David exclaimed. “You don’t have to be grateful. I love you. Even if we were separated, I—are you saying you wouldn’t have come if I were in the hospital?”
“Of course I would have.” Arlo stared down at his hands, clasped around the phone that showed his brother’s familiar grin. “We were such good friends.”
David made a small, hurt sound. “Ari,” he whispered.
“I’m sorry.” Arlo whispered, too, the way he had when neither of them was out, when they’d been sneaking and lying and stressing over what people would think. “It was me that messed everything up, wasn’t it?”
“No! Baby, no.” David put an arm around Arlo and pressed his face into Arlo’s hair. “I shouldn’t have kept pressuring you to stay home more. You love working with your brother, and I had no right to ask you to change jobs just because I did.”
“You had the right to ask. It just felt any time I was home we argued about it, so I—I stopped trying to make more time for you. I shouldn’t have done that. At least not without telling you.”
“I didn’t know you were still in town, until the hospital called.” David couldn’t convey how much that had hurt.
“I was at Juno’s. I’m sorry. I didn’t—I wouldn’t deliberately hurt you, David. I love you. I hope you know that.”
David blinked back tears. “But love isn’t enough, is that what you’re saying?”
“I thought it wasn’t.” Arlo’s voice was hoarse. “But when I didn’t remember, and you came in, I was so happy. I haven’t been happy since I moved out.”
David could hardly breathe, choking on hope.
“I don’t have anywhere I have to be,” Arlo went on. “We could…talk? About us?”
“Yeah. That would be good.” David swallowed the lump in his throat and tried for a lighter tone. “You definitely don’t have anywhere to be—except the hospital. Did you forget you were just in a car accident?”
Arlo chuckled weakly. “Right. I feel a lot better now.”
“You should try to get some rest.”
“Stay,” Arlo whispered. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
“Okay.” David tried not to sound like he desperately wanted to spend the night in bed with his husband. He didn’t think he succeeded, but maybe that wasn’t terrible. Arlo should know how much David wanted to be with him.
David waved at his clothes. “I should change.”
“Just take them off. Don’t leave me.” Arlo clung to his hand.
When was the last time that had happened? When they were first dating, maybe: Arlo had always been strong and self-sufficient, or pretended to be.
“Whatever you want.” David gently pried his hand free and stripped, then got back in the bed.
Arlo settled against him with his head on David’s shoulder. It made David want to cry.
“How’s your head?” he asked. “You’re almost due for a pain killer, if you want one.”
“Not too bad. Don’t get up. Stay with me.”
“I will,” David promised. “As long as you want me, I’m here.”