Playing for Keeps (Heartbreaker Bay #7)(57)

Naoki finished scanning Caleb’s tattoos and met his gaze.

Caleb stood there, calm, quiet, definitely searching for something in the man’s eyes. She knew that sometimes tattoos could trigger memories and she hoped that whatever Caleb was looking for, he found it.

“Who are you?” Naoki asked again.

Caleb let out a breath and shook his head, clearly disappointed. “It’s not important.” He reached for his shirt and pulled it back on. “Do you need anything?”

“No. I’m comfortable here.” Naoki stared hard at Caleb. “Are you the one who pays for me to be here in all this incredible comfort?”

“Who told you someone pays for you to be here?”

Naoki just turned away, silent now. Caleb didn’t seem surprised at this, and once more he took Sadie’s hand. “Have a good night.”

They were at the door when Naoki spoke.

“Wait.”

Caleb turned back with a look of vulnerability on his face that Sadie had never seen before. It tightened her chest so that she could scarcely breath. She’d recognized Naoki as the man in the pictures with Caleb at the gym. He was clearly incredibly important to Caleb. And whatever their past, the fact that Naoki didn’t, couldn’t , remember Caleb felt unbearably tragic.

“What is it?” Caleb asked him. “You remember something?” His voice was low and even. Still calm. But somehow Sadie could hear the hope in it and she squeezed his hand, wanting badly for Naoki to say yes, he remembered Caleb.

But the old man nodded to his cup. “My tea’s cold.”

Caleb drew in a deep breath and nodded. “I’ll see to it that you get more hot water.” He opened the door and gestured for Sadie to go through first.

Heartsick for him, she took a step, but Naoki spoke again.

“That tat,” the old man said.

Again Caleb stilled and then turned back.

“The tree on your shoulder,” Naoki said. “It matches mine exactly. And my name. It means tree.”

Caleb nodded. “Yes.”

“You have that tat . . . because of me?”

“Yes.” Caleb moved back into the room and crouched at Naoki’s side. “A long time ago, you made me strong. Strong as a tree.”

Naoki studied him for a moment. “Okay. But we clearly do not share a mother. Why do you have the same mom tattoo?”

For the first time since they’d been with Naoki, good humor came into Caleb’s gaze. “Because you never told me what the character meant, only that it was very important to you.”

Naoki took this in. “And because it was very important to me, you immortalized it on your body?”

“Yes.” In fact, Naoki had taken Caleb to get the tattoo, which of course he didn’t remember.

The man’s eyes had gone from dull and quiet to bright with humor. “That was dumb.”

Caleb had to sigh.

“I’m not sure how much I taught you if I didn’t make sure you follow your own path and not the path of another.”

“If you say wax on, wax off, you can forget getting hot tea,” Caleb warned.

At this, Naoki actually grinned. “You can come back.”

Caleb’s smile faded, but his eyes revealed the pleasure of Naoki’s words. “I will.”

“But you go now. You make me tired.” He looked at Sadie. “Don’t let him get any more dumbass tattoos. Only good tattoos.”

“I’m not in charge of him,” she said. “He’s in charge of himself, dumbass moves or otherwise.”

Naoki’s smile widened and he pointed at her. “You, I like. Sassy. Salty. Smartass. You’ve got his back, right?”

“So you do remember,” Caleb breathed. “You remember saving me, having my back.”

Naoki nodded. “You’re the boy.”

“Yes.”

“Small and helpless as a baby bird,” Naoki said. “A weakling.”

Something flashed over Caleb’s face, so quickly it was gone in a blink. A haunting sadness. “Yes,” he said. “I’m the weakling.”

“But no longer.” Naoki gestured around him. “Now it appears we’ve changed positions.”

“You’ll never be a weakling,” Caleb said. “What else do you remember?”

“Your right hook is strong. Your weakness is your guard, you forget to keep it up.”

Caleb’s lips twitched and he took a quick glance at Sadie. “True story.”

A nurse poked her head in. “Time for meds.”

Caleb turned back to Naoki, but the man had fallen asleep in his chair. Head back against his headrest, chest rising and falling gently, and the most ungentle snores coming from his mouth.

This got another lip twitch from Caleb, though his eyes remained somber. “Take good care of him,” he told the nurse.

“Don’t you worry on that score, Mr. Parker.”

Five minutes later they were back in Caleb’s car.

“Naoki was your hero,” she said.

“Not was. Is.”

This caused another tug on her heart. “He seems like a very sweet man.”

He laughed. “No. Not sweet. He’s tough as nails and thinks he knows everything—which is made all the more annoying by the fact that he usually does know everything—the man never had a single weakness.”