It stopped as quickly as it started, and Mathew shook the ringing out of his ears as he brushed the stray glass off Jessica. “Are you all right?” he asked, propping her body back up.
“Yes,” she stammered, moving her body gingerly, trying to make sure she was still in one piece. “Are you?” she asked, brushing some glass off his shoulder.
“I’m fine.” He blinked hard a few times, trying to take control of this spiraling situation. “Tom,” he shouted, leaning forward toward the now smashed partition that had separated them from the driver. “I smell gas. We need to get out of the car and get Tom out.”
“I’ll help you,” Jessica said, inching her clearly sore body out the passenger side door.
“No, just get clear of here. I’ll get him out.”
“What if—?”
“Exactly,” Mathew replied briskly as he pushed her gently away. “Hurry.”
Mathew raced around the smoldering and smoking front of the car and heard the hiss of escaping fluids. Tom was slumped over the steering wheel, coughing and sputtering. “Come on, buddy,” he said, reaching in the car and releasing Tom’s seat belt. Grabbing the large bald man beneath the arms, he freed him from the car with great effort.
The flashing lights of the approaching ambulance and police cars lit the buildings around them as he dragged Tom to the sidewalk, away from the wreckage.
“Mathew,” Jessica gasped as she crashed into him. “Are you all right?”
The EMTs were on them before he could answer. Instructions buzzed around like bees in a field of flowers. Sit down. Lie still. Look here. Can you follow this light?
When it was all over, Tom was loaded into the ambulance, conscious and seeming to be mostly all right. Jessica and Mathew could finally breathe again. What a difference half an hour could make.
“That could have been so much worse,” Mathew said, sliding out of his sports coat and resting it on her shoulders. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital and get checked out?”
“I’m really fine. A couple of scratches from the glass, but that’s all. If you hadn’t been holding on so tight I might have gone flying.” There was a look of genuine gratitude in her eyes, and he glanced away and nodded as he pulled her into his arms the way you might a long lost lover. Brushing down her hair, they stood there not saying a word.
“Can I get either of you a ride?” an officer asked, his voice shattering the calm he’d folded her in.
“We’re going to my place. It’s only a few blocks. We’ll walk.” Mathew didn’t check her face to see if she objected. Keeping her half tucked beneath him, he led her down the road toward his apartment. He’d only been in Texas a few weeks, and the furnished rental he was living in looked exactly as it had the day he’d gotten there. He was still living out of suitcases and refusing to make the place feel like home. Although he hadn’t planned on company, he wasn’t ready to let Jessica go.
As the elevator rose to his top floor apartment, he could see Jessica squirming with unease.
“I think I should just go home,” she gulped out finally. “I mean if that wasn’t a sign from God, then I don’t know what is.”
“I didn’t realize you were religious,” Mathew said through a smile as he watched her argue with her desires.
“I’m not but I don’t really want to be smited.”
“Smited?” Mathew asked, a full-on laugh escaping him now. “I don’t think that’s a word.”
“You know what I mean. What’s the past tense for smite? Smoted?”
“I feel like we’re losing the thread of this conversation. But if you don’t want to come to my place, I’m not going to make you stay. You seem shaken up. I didn’t think you wanted to go home.”
“I’m not in a rush to get in a car right now, but what we were doing before, maybe we shouldn’t.”
He scanned the card from his wallet to unlock his door and placed a hand on her lower back leading her in. “Just sleep then.” He shrugged.
“That’s pathetic. We’re too old for having a sleepover.” Her own back and forth on the conflict of right and wrong made him feel both terrible for her and very amused.
“Then get naked already,” he said, untucking his shirt quickly. “Let’s do this.”
“You’re hilarious,” she said, rolling her eyes. “A sleepover it is.”
“I’m fine with that. We’ll need our rest. One of these days I’m going to show you I’m not the boring sap you think I am. When I do you’ll need all the energy you can muster.”
“Oh, you’re one of those guys. You can’t walk away when you think you’ve been challenged?”
“You should appreciate it,” he said, his face falling serious.
“I should, why?” The tiny argumentative spark was returning to her, and he was relieved to see it.
“Because you’re the biggest challenge I’ve met in a long time, and I don’t think you want me to back down.”
Chapter 4
Jessica was creeping toward the elevator in Mathew’s apartment building as her phone rang.
“What?” she barked into the receiver as she jumped through the open elevator doors like an action hero narrowly escaping a villain.
“Um, good morning to you too,” Libby said in a half laugh. “I was just checking up on you. Mrs. Silverio from your building called and said you hadn’t come home last night.”
“Mrs. Silverio calls you when I don’t come home at night?”
“Yes. Most days I just check your social media to make sure you’re still alive, but you didn’t post anything for the last twelve hours. That was a clear sign something was wrong. I started planning your funeral. Don’t worry, it’s going to be very tasteful. I’m thinking white roses and maybe a slide show of your best pictures. Nothing at all of you before your braces.”
“Are you done?” Jessica asked, the ding of the elevator making her jump as it opened up on the lobby.
“Is there an elevator involved in your walk of shame this morning? I feel like you’re in an elevator.”
“Do you need something?” Jessica was ready for this call to be over. Nothing she had to report to her best friend made much sense in her head, and she needed to call a cab to get home.
“I need to know how it went with Mathew. I know that’s who you were with.”
“Nothing happened. Well we were in a car accident but—”
“What?”
“Relax, mamma hen, we’re fine. Just a few scratches. We were closer to his house so I just crashed there last night. Nothing happened though.”
“Why? I thought you were into him. I know he’s into you.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because basically every guy we’re ever around is into you unless he’s already off the market or gay. And I’ve even seen both those types give you a second look. So if you’re telling the truth and nothing happened, then you need to tell me the real reason why.”
“Nothing happened,” Jessica repeated flatly as she breathed in the fresh air and headed away from Mathew’s house. She couldn’t walk home from here, but the last thing she wanted was to still be on his doorstep when he woke up and came looking for her.