Lost In Rewind (Audio Fools #3) by Tali Alexander Page A

seventeen years ago in that club in New York City. I had a moment with that fortuneteller over a decade ago a few feet from where I stand now. I had that moment when I married Jacqueline, and when my children were born, and I just had that moment with Kali two minutes ago. You can’t explain it to anybody except to the person who caused it in the first place.
    I hate myself for what I think I feel. I can’t bring myself to even look at her and, God forbid, see in her eyes the same feelings I have. I begin to frantically look around the room for things that can take my mind off this striking girl who keeps watching me with expectations to deliver her answers, but I don’t have any … just more questions. If she only knew how lost I am. If she only knew what kind of man I really am, she’d stop looking at me with hope. Everything I touch, I ruin. It’s best I touch nothing from now on.
    I pretend to examine an intricate tapestry hung on the wall, distancing my thoughts away from how attractive she is. Without warning I feel her arms engulf me into a hug from behind. I glance down to find her hands lace together and wrap around my waist; her chest molds flush against my back. The air I’ve held inside from the second she touched me deflates, allowing her to momentarily incapacitate me.
    “You look like you need a hug,” she whispers innocently. I shouldn’t be imagining anything but an innocent hug with this girl.
    I turn to face her. Her eyes study me with such anticipation I almost wish I could give her the information she so desperately seeks. Against my common sense I hug her tight to me, not letting my feelings rule this peculiar situation we’re both in. “I think we both need a hug,” I answer with a chuckle, hoping to hide how nervous I am.
    She looks up to give me a small smile, and I pull her close again, resting my chin on her head. Embracing her feels as natural as breathing, and yet we know nothing about each other. We stand huddled in the middle of what I suspect used to be her grandmother’s bedroom, and I can’t help but feel for the first time in a long time that I’m in the right place, with the right person, at the right time.
    “Please don’t faint again,” I beg her as we begin to pull away from our hold.
    “Deal.” She nods with a smile. “Do you think we should stay and talk here?” She’s already moving farther away from me, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like having her close.
    I look around the small room covered in old books and photographs with the dried flowers immortalized in dozens of colorful vases scattered around religious statues. I look up at the ceiling draped in a dusty white fabric coming from the center where a dim chandelier gives off almost no light. I return my gaze to the bed, with Kali standing by it. It’s too much for me to stay here and pretend that I don’t feel the things I know I shouldn’t after being numb for so long. This room feels like a hidden lovers’ tent suspended in another lifetime. In a way, this room reminds me of the place Sara and I once called home, and I know I will never again have a home.
    “Would it be okay with you if we talk in that first room? I don’t want you to faint again, but this room feels wrong,” I confess honestly.
    She nods. I motion for Kali to go back through the doors I carried her across once she fainted. She leads the way, looking down as we pass first the living room and then the room just beyond the curtains, taking a seat at the round table. There are only two seats, so I naturally sit across from her. I just now noticed that this room is completely round, and if I release the black curtains, we’d be in total darkness. Maybe I’ve been in total darkness ever since I stepped into this room years ago. Knowing your future is unnatural. Perhaps I allowed the darkness to live inside me, and instead of forgetting it and running as far as humanly possible toward the light, I ran right back to it.
    I