Untimely You (28 page)

“Neesy, listen to me. The roads are getting bad. Let me come get you.” The anxiety in his voice makes me anxious too. I flit my glance over to Shawna. She stares out the window, her teeth chattering noisily.

“I’m only six blocks away, Adrian,” I tell him as I turn onto the main road that will take me right to the hospital.

He spits out a string of curse words before growling again. “Stop the goddamn car, woman!”

I huff in frustration but when my wheels peel out as we go through the next intersection, I heed his instruction. “Fine,” I say as I squint through my windshield as a pair of headlights nearly blind me. Even though it’s morning, the storm has darkened the sky, and everyone is driving with their lights on. “There’s a shopping center at Sixth and Washington. I’ll pull into the garage there.”

“Thank God,” he breathes into the phone. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

I toss the phone into the cup holder and risk a glance at Shawna. Her shoulders sag and her entire body quivers. I’ve been a terrible friend lately. I should have noticed the signs. How she would break off lunches with me or couldn’t talk long on the phone. If I’d asked her about how she was doing instead of always gushing about Adrian and the baby, then maybe I’d have realized her boyfriend beat on her. I’m so confused at how a strong, independent, fearless woman like Shawna got herself involved with a loser like Brad.

A sense of foreboding washes over me like an icy rain. It makes me glad that we’ll be stopping so my boyfriend can drive us. Every time I get that weird feeling, something terrible happens. And this time, it won’t have a chance.

“We’re going to stop and wait for Adrian,” I tell her.

She nods as I approach Sixth. The light turns yellow so I slow down. My wheels cause me to fishtail a bit but thankfully I’m able to bring the car to a full stop right before the light turns red. The odd feeling is still present, but I attempt to swallow it down. I’ll turn right and be in the parking garage in thirty seconds. No problem at all.

Except the screech is a problem.

My eyes flit to my rearview mirror to see a pickup truck slipping and sliding toward me. I’m barely able to brace myself before it makes impact. The crunch of the truck against my little car jolts us and sends us careening forward. Shawna and I both cry out.

I guess my
spidey
senses were right because we’ve just been in an accident. Adrian is going to kill me. My hands find my belly, and I let out a breath to realize at least we aren’t hurt.

“Don’t worry, Shawna,” I assure her. “I’ll pull over there and—”

But my words die in my throat when the blare of a horn screams at me from my left. Bright headlights barrel straight for me. I don’t even get a second of warning before the giant thing T-bones my car.

Crunching and hissing can be heard as my world turns black.

Shawna’s cries soften and die out as I fade into nothingness.

The last thing on my mind is Adrian.

M
y heart is in my throat as I drive a little too quickly for icy weather along Sixth toward Washington. The moment Neesy said she was going out in this weather I had a flashback. I was transported back to over a decade ago when my family and I were involved in that terrible accident. She may not worry about herself, but I’m going fucking mental worrying over her.

“I cannot stand jerks who hit women,” Eric mutters from the passenger seat. I shoot him a sympathetic look before turning my gaze back to the road. His mother was a victim of domestic violence. To this day, he still hates his father for what all he put his mother through.

“Me neither.”

As we near Sixth several cars are stopped in front of me, despite the light being green up ahead. Anxiety filters through me and I grip the wheel to keep from losing my shit.

“What’s going on?” I growl.

Eric rolls down his window and leans his head out to see around the vehicle in front of us. “Car accident in the intersection.”

His words stop time for me. I’m frozen. Frozen. Frozen. Seconds don’t move. Minutes don’t budge. Hours don’t exist.

No.

A fire truck blasting its siren charges past us on the wrong side of the road toward the wreck. I’m already scrambling out of my car despite Eric’s shouts. The pavement is slick as I make uncoordinated strides past the other waiting cars toward the big dump truck blocking the intersection. People are honking their horns everywhere and the sound becomes a dull roar inside of my head.

Neesy is safe inside the parking garage.

She’s probably talking Shawna’s ear off about the hundreds of outfits she’s bought for Lucy over the past few weeks despite me threatening to freeze her credit card in a block of ice. I bet she’s twirling her auburn hair around her fingertip. Her full lips are probably quirked up in a pretty smile as she gushes about how the baby moves more and more each day. Hell, she’s probably even found a place that sells bagels while she waits—hoping she can sneak one in before I get there.

Of course.

Neesy is fine.

She’s always fine.

My brilliant, brave, hilarious girl is resilient and strong. An unstoppable hurricane.

By the time I make it to the scene, firemen are standing between the two vehicles as if to figure out what to do next. It irritates me that they don’t seem to be in a huge hurry. That they’re blocking me from seeing what’s going on.

I ignore the fact that this vehicle is silver like Nees’s.

I ignore the familiar bumper sticker that says:
Nerds are where it’s at
.

I pretend I don’t notice the blonde climbing out of the passenger’s seat with the assistance of two firemen and proclaiming her name is Shawna.

All fucking coincidence.

Neesy is not fucking here.

“We need the jaws of life,” a fireman shouts to one of the others.

Not Neesy.

So how come I’m standing frozen in place sending up a thousand prayers to the heavens above?

“Ma’am,” one of the firefighters says. “Ma’am, can you hear me?”

“She’s unconscious. Pulse is present but low. Victim is bleeding from a contusion on the head. Her left leg is pinned between the door and the steering column.”

Not Neesy.

“Adrian,” Eric huffs from exertion. “Fuck!”

His exclamation jolts me back to life and I jerk my gaze to him. “It isn’t her.”

But then the girl wails. The blonde who was pulled from the wreckage. “Bernice!”

And then I’m gone.

Reality is a goddamned bitch.

One can only pretend for so long.

I push past several firefighters and make my way over to the smashed driver’s side. I get a glimpse of her brown hair and her gaudy gold and blue scarf fluttering in the wind outside of the window.

But she’s not moving. She’s not fucking moving.

“Sir, we’re going to need to ask you to step—”

“THAT’S MY GIRLFRIEND AND BABY!” I roar, shoving past them to reach the vehicle.

There’s commotion behind me, but all I care about is getting her out of the car and into my arms.

“Crazy, baby, it’s me. Wake up,” I shout. The right bumper of the dump truck is smashed into the door, and I can barely reach inside to touch her. When my fingers dart over her hair, they touch something warm and sticky. I choke with terror when I pull it away to see blood on my fingertips.

No.

Not Neesy too.

Scrambling away from them, I round the back of her car and climb into the passenger seat. I can hear the crunch of metal as the firefighters begin eating away at the door to get her out. People are telling me to get out of the vehicle but I’m not going fucking anywhere. The engine of the big truck fires up and someone slowly backs it away from the wreckage.

“Neesy,” I hiss out, hot tears burning my eyes. “Wake up, baby.”

Her head is lolled to the side and her mouth is parted open. My eyes run along her body, assessing every portion of her, and I’m thankful to see the only thing really constricting her is the metal holding her leg in a vise. I grab her hand and bring it to my lips. Her fingers are icy and it scares the hell out of me. Warming them with my breath, I vow to God in the heavens that I’ll be a saint if he just gets the both of them out of here without any problems.

“Neesy,” I urge, “wake up for me.”

“Sir, you need to get out of the vehicle and let our paramedic assess her.”

When I ignore them, they forcibly pull me from the car. I’m raging uncontrollably as I’m shoved into Eric. He attempts to hold on to me but I slip away and charge for the rear passenger door. I scramble inside and come in between the two front seats to get to her.

“What’s wrong with her?” I demand to the paramedic who’s checking her pulse. “Wake her up!”

“Sir, if you’d let us do our job, we could—”

He’s cut off when she moans. Music to my goddamned ears.

“Baby,” I murmur and stroke her cheek as her eyes flutter.

When she blinks her eyes open and realizes her situation, she glances at the paramedic and then to me, attempting a smile. “I’m okay,” her voice croaks, not at all in its usual singsong way.

My heart explodes inside of my chest. “You
are
okay, Crazy. I’m going to make sure of it. You don’t get off that easy.”

She reaches a shaky hand up to touch the back of mine. “Does this mean I’m not allowed to ever drive again?”

Only Bernice Noble, my beautiful love, could joke at a time like this.

“You bet your ass. I don’t think I’ll ever let you out of our home at this rate.”

She beams at me. “I’ll be a kept woman. Your love slave.”

“I’m going to marry your ass and keep you barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen until you get tired of popping out babies.”

Tears well in her hazel-colored eyes and her smile falls. “You want to marry me?”

The paramedic chuckles as he takes her blood pressure. “This is the first time I’ve experienced a proposal during a rescue.”

I lean forward and kiss her cracked lips. “I’ve wanted to marry you for longer than I can admit. You crashed into my world and branded my heart with your stamp of love. You’ll never get rid of me, Crazy.”

She lets out a sigh. “It’s a good thing I sort of like you then, Wacko.”

The crunching of metal has stopped, and then a loud creak of protesting wreckage deafens us. Carefully, the firefighters work together to pull the door away as the paramedic inside tends to her leg, all the while instructing them on which way to pull. She squeezes my hand and keeps her eyes closed as they free her leg.

The moment it’s loose, she lets out a pained
“Owwwww.”

But from my vantage point, she’s not severed an artery or anything. My dear, beautiful girl is okay. Just like she said.

“I’m fine,” she grumbles from the bed as she spoons some applesauce into her mouth. Neesy pouting is a look that gets my cock hard. The things I could do to her mouth that would put a smile on her lips…

“You’re not fine,” Shawna says and shakes her head. I don’t miss the slight wince though when she does it. Her ribs were bruised badly but not broken. Aside from some other cuts and bruises, she’ll recover just fine which is why they let her out of the hospital the same day she got there. Nees, on the other hand, was still there three days later. Thankfully she’s back home now, although the doctor urged her to stay off her feet for another day or two.