Amnesia - The Matlock Pack: Book One

Friday 11 December

~*Nat’s POV*~

“Don’t look now, Cody, but he’s totally checking you out.”

Cody planted her eyes on mine and froze in place. “What do you mean?” She held the glass of vodka sunrise in one hand, and the straw connecting the glass to her mouth in the other.

We were both seated at a booth in The Gap, facing each other. I had a clear view of the rest of the room and could see the mysterious man from yesterday that Cody had called cute off to the side and behind her, glancing every few seconds at Cody.

And, just like yesterday, he was with his friend. They were seated in a booth on the opposite side of the room, and although I could only see the back of the friend’s head, I had an uninterrupted view of what, or should I say who, Cody’s ‘rugged mountain man’ had his sights on.

And it was undoubtedly Cody.

“The guy you were checking out yesterday?”

“Who? The hunk that looked like he’d just walked off the top of a mountain?”

“Yeah, him. He’s here. And he’s checking you out.”

Cody shifted in her seat to look.

“Don’t turn around! Then he’ll know that we’re talking about him!”

Cody stopped, took a deep breath, and shuffled herself back towards me. “Nat, that just made it super obvious that we’re talking about him. Not to mention how weird it felt.” She sucked on her straw again, raising an eyebrow at me.

“Well, you’re the one who turned around.”

“Only because you told me I was being checked out!”

“I didn’t think you’d turn as soon as I said it, Cody!”

“What else was I supposed to do, Nat?!”

“Um, I don’t know. Don’t turn around, like I told you not to do?!”

We glared at each other, then burst into laughter.

After we both settled down, Cody leaned over the table between us and whisper-shouted at me, “is he still looking?”

I glanced over, trying hard not to make it obvious. Cody’s mountain man was staring back at us with the biggest grin he could muster. As soon as he noticed I was looking his way, he burst out laughing and said something to his friend opposite, who also then started to laugh.

Yup. I had definitely been caught looking. I mentally face-palmed myself, but as I had already been through my own first glass of vodka and orange, I was already feeling less inhibited, so I grinned back at them. Then I actually face-palmed myself and shrugged in an over-the-top manner. Cody’s mountain man continued to laugh at our antics, so I motioned them both over to our booth.

“Nat? What…” Cody’s face drained of colour. “What are you doing…?”

“What?” I focused on her. “They look reasonable. And it’s obvious that he’s checking you out, so I invited them over.”

“But…” Cody sputtered. “I’m not ready!”

“You best get ready, because they’re about five steps away, four… three…”

Cody gulped and started to flap her hands around. She was still holding her half-full glass in her hand so, of course, the vodka went everywhere.

“Evening ladies,” the mountain man said to us both, but his focus was entirely on Cody as she frantically reached over to grab some paper napkins from the edge of the table to clean up the spilled drink. He held a somewhat cheeky glint in his shadowed eyes, mixed with concern about what Cody was doing. “Do you need some help?”

“Oh! Oh, no. I’m fine. It’s fine.” Cody dabbed away at the table, soaking the napkins before going to place them on the side. Unfortunately for her, she nudged the still half full glass over as well.

Right into her mountain man’s crotch.

“Oh, fuck no!” Cody grabbed some more paper napkins and went to dry his pants.

Fair play to him; I’d not seen a man move away from her hands as quickly as he did just then.

“It’s okay. I got it.” He leaned over from a distance, plucked the paper napkins from her hand, and wiped his pants. “Uh… I’ll… uh… just go and clean this up then, shall I?”

He looked at his colleague, who, just like me, was in hysterics at the pair of them.

“Go,” his friend said in a deep, husky voice that echoed his booming laugh. “I’ll keep them both entertained whilst you sort yourself out.”

I shuffled across my bench to let his friend in. He took the hint, sat down next to me, and leaned over to grab more napkins.

Cody held her head in her hands. “What the fuck did I just do?”

“Uh, I think you just made Tiergan’s dick wet,” the man sitting next to me said, as he mopped at the table, still laughing uncontrollably. “He’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

I roared with laughter at Cody’s horrified expression. She threw one of the vodka-soaked napkins at my head, which only made me laugh more.

“Fuck this. I need a bin,” Cody grumbled, as she got off her bench seat and went looking for a waitress. “And a new fucking drink…”

I leaned back into the corner of the bench, the window we were seated next to, and the table, and peered at my new colleague. “Welcome to the madness that is Cody. I’m Nat. You are…?”

His almond-shaped, dark brown eyes glinted as he chuckled to himself. Laugh lines appeared at the corner of each of his eyes, hinting at exactly how entertaining he was finding the entire situation. He wore a pale grey beanie that just barely hinted at the black hair he was hiding underneath. His pale brown skin glowed under the lights that sparkled above us. His thick lips were undoubtedly his defining feature, however, no doubt helped by the faint moustache gracing his top lip.

“The name’s Rafiki, but everyone calls me Raf. Pleasure to meet you.” He nodded my way, as we were both still battling the spilled drink on the table. “Tiergan’s the one with the soaked pants. You said your friend’s name is Cody?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “She’s a walking, talking disaster, just waiting to happen.”

He chuckled. “I can see that. She’s always like this?”

“She’s not usually this bad, but yeah.”

Cody finally re-appeared with a bucket instead of a bin and swept the soaked paper in one go straight into it.

“So embarrassing,” she muttered to herself, as she wiped the table down even more. “I can’t believe I just did that. How fucking stupid can I be…?” She angrily threw the napkin she held into the bucket before storming off to the bar area, no doubt to order another drink.

“This was supposed to be her birthday party,” I told Raf, nodding towards her retreating form. “She turned eighteen yesterday, and she’s been looking forward to finally being able to see how drunk she can get.”

Raf looked around at the reasonably empty bar. “Did we catch the tail end of the party, or the start?”

“Hopefully, the start. We only finished at Camp about an hour ago.”

A look of recognition crossed his face. “That’s right. We saw you two yesterday, didn’t we?”

“You did. Although, it seemed like your friend Tiergan was the one doing all the looking. Just like tonight, in fact.”

Raf snickered. “Yeah, he’s got a bit of a crush on your friend.”

“No. Really?” I sarcastically said to him. “I never would have guessed!”

He laughed. “Not half obvious, is it?”

“Not in the slightest.”

The grin he sent my way was incredibly broad. “I keep telling him not to be so obvious, but he can’t help himself around such a pretty face, like your friend’s.”

“I’m quite sure he’ll remember this night for a while.”

“No doubt in my mind at all, Nat.” He laughed again. “And I can’t say that I’ll be letting him forget it anytime soon, even if he wanted to.”

I laughed along with him.

“Stupid drink.” Cody was still muttering as she returned to her bench seat, sliding into the far corner to face me. “Stupid hands.” She held onto her fresh drink carefully, with both hands, trying very hard not to spill anything. “Stupid paper towels.”

I reached over to grab one of her hands. “It’s okay, Cody. Relax.”

“Relax? Relax?!” She glared at me. “You’re not the one who just threw a drink at a man’s dick!”

“His name’s Tiergan, Cody.” I desperately tried to stifle my laughter but struggled. “And this fine gentleman’s name is Raf.” I gestured towards my right.

Raf lifted a hand in hello. He grinned at her to try to make her feel more at ease.

“Thanks, Nat, for putting a name to my humiliation,” she muttered, nodding half-heartedly at Raf. Thankfully, he didn’t take it too personally, just chuckled to himself. I got the impression that he found the entire world humorous, not just Cody. Either way, I felt like he was going to be a fun guy to be around.

“Technically, he already had a name, Cody.” I pointed out to her as I took a gulp of my drink. “You just didn’t know it yet.”

“I can’t imagine he’s going to want me to know it after I just gave his junk a vodka shower!” She glared at me angrily. It was obvious that she was really beating herself over the whole situation, and thankfully, the only one who could make it any better had just reappeared at the end of the table.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Cody’s mountain man replied to her. “It’ll be something we can tell our grandchildren.” He smirked at her as he sat himself down in the booth next to her.

Once again, the colour drained from Cody’s face as she realised he’d overheard her, and was now sitting next to her.

I grabbed her drink before she could knock this one over too, pulling it from her grasp as she startled. She burrowed into the booth’s corner as much as she could, trying to hide herself away from his gaze.

“Tiergan, this is Cody,” Raf introduced, gesturing first towards Cody, then to me. “And this is Nat.”

“Pleasure to meet you both,” Tiergan said, looking directly at Cody, pretty much ignoring me entirely. The tiniest sparkle of a cool blue peeked from his deep-set eyes under rough brown brows. His coarse, dark brown beard had little streaks of multiple different colours, and matched his un-styled, medium-length hair. His smooth olive skin wasn’t what I’d call weathered, but I could tell that he enjoyed being out in the sun, as his cheeks were ruddy. Cody was right. He had a dark, rugged, and muscular look that screamed to the world, ‘I’m from the mountains, and I’m not shy about everyone knowing it.’

“Nat told me it was your eighteenth birthday yesterday, Cody,” Raf said, raising an eye at Tiergan. “Is that right?” Tiergan’s eyes widened the tiniest amount before relaxing his appearance back into the attentive gaze he had aimed at Cody. As Cody was still embarrassed about her mishap with Tiergan, she was looking everywhere but his face, so completely missed the somewhat bewildered look of surprise that had crossed his face.

“Yup,” Cody replied, popping the end of the word. She leaned forward to grab her drink from my hands, threw the straw on the table and took the biggest gulp she could without making herself choke. “Tonight’s my birthday party. Everyone should be here in the next few minutes…” She gazed around the room, then towards the entrance. “I told them all to be here around nine.”

“Would you care if we joined you?” Tiergan asked Cody.

I caught Cody’s eyes, then flicked my own towards Tiergan, trying to persuade Cody to talk to him. She gulped. “I guess… Although I can’t imagine why you’d want to join someone who did… what I did… to you…” Her voice faded off as she finally turned to face him. He caught her eyes, and I could almost pinpoint the moment her heart stopped beating.

A few awkward seconds drifted by before I turned to Raf. “I’m getting the feeling that you two joining us will be fine.” I grinned at him as he laughed.

“Yeah, I’m getting that feeling too.” He clinked my drink with his own, as we both sat back in the booth, chuckling to ourselves, drinking our drinks, and essentially watching Cody and Tiergan just stare at each other, occasionally muttering an odd word every now and then.

A couple of quiet minutes passed before I turned to the entrance as I heard Bells, Murph, Owen, Zelda, and Tatum coming in. They shook their coats out as they entered. The weather had looked like it was about to turn when Cody and I had headed to The Gap; it now looked like the rain was really coming down, judging by the condition of the group’s hair and soaked jackets.

“Here they are now,” I nodded towards the entrance. “Cody, everyone’s here.” I nudged her foot underneath the table, jolting her out of her staring contest with Tiergan.

“What?” She looked absently at me.

“Everyone’s just turned up.” I tilted my head towards the door to point them out. I put my hand up and waved to get their attention. Zelda looked our way first and grabbed Tatum’s arm. She dragged him over to us, which made everyone else in the quintet head our way, too.

“Hey guys!” Cody called out, waving her hand as well, her face lighting up even more. Grimacing, I grabbed her drink again, lest this glass go flying too. “They’ve got a table ready for us. We were just waiting for you guys to show up.”

Tiergan swivelled in his seat to watch as they all approached us. Cody nudged him out of the booth so she could greet everyone and direct them to the large table that had been reserved.

I followed her lead, nudging Raf out of our booth as well.

Cody flung herself at Zelda first, whispering in her ear. I assumed it had something to do with Cody and Tiergan’s mishap, because a wicked grin slowly emerged on Zelda’s face as Cody talked. Eventually, Cody disentangled from Zelda before moving to Tatum to hug him in greeting.

Zelda couldn’t have been more obvious, as she peered first at Tiergan, then his crotch, before turning her attention on Raf and looking him up and down as well. “I’m Zelda. And you both are…?” She held her hand out first to Tiergan, her eyes returning to his crotch.

I coughed, grabbing her attention. When she finally dragged her eyes my way, I widened my eyes at her and shook my head ever so slightly. I honestly didn’t know who was worse at being subtle; her or Cody.

“This is Raf.” I gestured towards the man on my right. “And this is Tiergan.” I turned my gesture towards the man to my left. “They’ll be joining us tonight.”

Apparently, I hadn’t drunk enough to miss the glare that Murph sent Tiergan’s way when I announced that. He had already noticed the way Tiergan was staring after Cody.

And he really was not happy about it at all.