“Yeah.” I offer a gentle and reassuring nod, opting not to explain. I think of Florence’s advice earlier—that everyone needs to keep a little something for themselves.
“What the hell . . .” The bartender squints across the room, peering out the floor-to-ceiling windows. “That’s not . . . is someone actually lying in the street right now?”
I follow his gaze.
Sure enough, a man is lying on his back in the middle of Main Street in the pouring rain.
All around us, patrons are drinking and chatting and lost in their own little worlds. The two of us are the only ones witnessing this maniac.
“Do you have an umbrella?” I ask.
“You’re not seriously going out there, are you?” The bartender scoffs.
“He’s going to get run over by a car.” I slide off my barstool. Umbrella or not, I refuse to let someone die on my watch.
I don’t wait for his response—clearly time is of the essence here.
Trotting to the front door, I jerk it open and burst onto the sidewalk, loping between cars until I get to the middle of the street. With my heart in my teeth, I’m bracing for the worst—fully expecting to find a delusional psychopath or an unconscious heart attack victim.
Only the man in the street is neither of those things.
“Lachlan?” I ask, the rain dousing me in angry sheets.
He opens his eyes, peering up at me. The glow of streetlights paints his handsome face, and I’m taken aback all over again by how much he resembles Donovan.
“You trying to get hit by a car or what?” Water droplets bounce from my lips with each word.
He slips his hands behind his head and shrugs his shoulders into the hard ground, as if to show me he’s settling in and not going anywhere.
“Wouldn’t be the worst thing to ever happen to me,” he says.
“I don’t know if you’re trying to be charming, but this isn’t cute. Seriously. Get up.” I wave my hands, motioning for him to move.
The stubborn jerk remains.
“Come on. I’m not joking.” I reach for him, offering a hand.
His gaze flicks to my outstretched palm, then squints back to the sky. The drops of water that land in his thick lashes don’t faze him in the slightest.
Headlights beam bright in the distance—three blocks away if I had to guess. They stop at a red light, buying us a few extra seconds.
“Come on. There’s a car,” I say. “You have to get up.”
After the year I’ve had, I’m not about to stand here and witness a man get run over in the street—even if he is a bona fide jackass.
“They’ll go around,” he says, unbothered.
The light flicks to green.
“What if they don’t?” I ask.
He says nothing, only watches me.
“I really need you to get up,” I say.
He laughs through his nose. “You need me to get up?”
“Yes. I need you to get up,” I echo.
“I need a lot of things, but I don’t go demanding them from perfect strangers who owe me nothing.”
“Fair enough.” My clothes are soaked, adhering to my skin like wet glue, and a shiver runs through me. “I would like to know if you’re really Donovan’s brother. And if you are, then I would also like to know why he never told me about you.”
“I’m sure you would like to know those things.” His mouth forms a tight smirk.
The car lays on their horn. I motion for them to go around, which they do—thank goodness.
Donovan doesn’t so much as flinch as they pass.
“Two days ago you slammed a door in my face,” he muses. “Now you’re begging for favors. Funny how things change when you’re the one who wants something. Are you always this opportunistic?”
My jaw falls. “Opportunistic? I’m trying to save your life.”
“No one asked you to.”
I’m making zero headway with him, and given the fact that I know nothing about this man, I’m not sure where to go from here to get through to him.
“I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot.” I cross my fingers that an apology will smooth things over—a last-ditch attempt. “You caught me off guard, and you just showed up at my house saying it belonged to you. I was defensive, and I’m sorry.”
“Do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Qualify your apologies?” he asks.
I frown. “I was explaining. I wasn’t qualifying.”
“Same difference.”
The headlights of another oncoming car turn onto the road. “Okay, for real. You have to get up. This isn’t funny.”
The car coasts closer, and I wave it around, only this time it crawls to a stop. The driver, an older gentleman with tortoiseshell glasses, rolls down his window.
“You need help, ma’am?” he asks. His wipers swish, throwing splatters of rain in our direction.
“Nope, we’re good.” Lachlan motions for him to leave, but the driver looks at me for reassurance.
Crouching down, I tell Lachlan, “If you don’t get up, I’m going to ask this man to help me peel you off the damn concrete. Is that what you want?”
“Of course that’s not what I want.”
“Then get up,” I say through a clenched jaw.
Before he has a chance to respond, the driver speeds off—as if he wants nothing to do with our quarrel. Can’t say that I blame him. As of now, it appears to be a hopeless cause.
“All right, then,” I say. “You leave me no choice.”
I slump next to him, lying on the cold, wet cement like a fellow crazy person.
It’s a desperate move, but it’s all I’ve got.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he asks.
Little shudders run through me, and all I can think about are things like hot chocolates and warm blankets and fireplaces.
“If I catch a cold, it’s your fault,” I say.
“That’s a myth . . . that being cold is how you catch a cold. Colds are viral.”
“That’s great that you know that. Would be a shame for all of that knowledge to go to waste when you get flattened by a set of Michelins.”
“That would be a shame, but only because I prefer Firestones,” the smart-ass quips. “What do you think it would feel like? Getting run over?”
The rain softens, dying off by the second.
“Not sure,” I say. “And not sure I want to find out.”
“Do you think it’d be quick and painless, or do you think you’d be flopping around like roadkill, waiting to be put out of your misery?”
“Guess we’ll find out soon enough.” I slip my hands behind my head, same as him, though my heart is hammering so hard it’s about to rupture my chest.
“You don’t want to go out like this, do you?” he asks. “Next to me?”
“I don’t want to go out at all.”
“Then maybe you should get up?”
My teeth chatter. “I will when you do.”
The soft drone of tires on wet pavement steals my attention. I pop my head up and see a car speeding by on the opposite side of the road . . . a little too close for comfort.