Chapter Three
My world was crashing. The pass was closed.
“You better turn around and see if you can find a place in town,” the Policeman said, “I’d hurry, before they all fill up.”
My stomach clenched up into a tight ball, as I tried to understand what was going on.
Nick shook his head and started the car.
“What?” I asked. “What are you going to do? I have to get home. It’s Christmas Eve.”
He shrugged his shoulders and put the car in gear. “There’s not much we can do, Jenny.”
“But... But there has to be something. Another way? Something.”
Nick shook his head and made a three-point turn, driving back down the road that we had already covered.
“I think there’s a motel just a little ways behind us,” he said.
“A motel? I don’t have money for a motel.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll cover your room, and you can pay me back when we get home.”
“But, it’s Christmas Eve, Tomorrow morning ...”
My heart fell, as I realized all the things I would be missing. My father’s service tonight. The joy in my brother’s and sister’s face when we opened presents in the morning. The uncles and aunts, Mom’s cousin George, coming over for the Christmas meal.
My heart broke, as I desperately searched for a solution. Anything that would get me home to spend Christmas with my family.
If I didn’t think of a solution. I was going to have to contact my parents.
Great!
Nick pulled into a highway motel. One of those that tried desperately to stay semi-acceptable. The place looked like it had been built back in the seventies. The pool was empty, all the plastic furniture stacked in a corner.
The green and white paint wasn’t flaking, but it wouldn’t be long.
My heart refused to return to normal. I couldn’t stay here. I was supposed to be home for Christmas. It was one of those universal rules that my world revolved around.
I was still trying to get my mind around things when Nick pulled the car to a stop in front of the office and hopped out.
I sat there waiting, trying to figure out what I was going to tell my mom. I’d already determined that it would go better if I told her instead of my dad. I’d let her break the news to him.
Nick stuck his head out the door and nodded for me to come inside.
What? Did they need my identification? How much did a room go for? Did I have enough from my babysitting money to cover it when we got home?
This and a dozen other questions tracked through my brain, as I stepped into the office.
Nick held the door for me, then turned to the guy behind the counter.
“You tell her,” he said to him. “She’ll never believe me.”
The old guy behind the counter shrugged his shoulders. “One room. That’s all we got. And, if you don’t want it, there’ll be someone else within the next few minutes who will. The pass is closed.”
My brow narrowed in confusion as I looked at Nick, trying to figure out what was going on.
“We will have to double up,” he said with a silly grin.
Spend the night in the same room as Nick Parsons! Are you kidding me? NO WAY. My insides turned all jumbly, as I thought of the mere idea.
NO WAY.
Nick looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s up to you. We could try somewhere else, but this guy says that they’ll all be booked up. Everyone on the road is scrambling for a place. You’d think it was Christmas Eve or something.”
My life was officially at the bottom of a deep well. It couldn’t get any lower. Spend the night in the same room with Nick Parsons. My father would disown me. My friends would laugh their butts off and never let me hear the end of it.
NO WAY.
“Well?” the old man asked.
At that moment, another car pulled in behind Nick’s Nova.
My stomach fell, and my shoulders slumped in defeat as I said, “We’ll take it.”
What choice did I have? My love of snow disappeared. It had quickly become my least favorite thing in the world.
This was the moment when I realized what adulthood was all about. There wasn’t someone there to tell you the right thing to do. You had to decide for yourself.
As I said, what choice did I have?
Nick raised an eyebrow as if asking if I was sure.
I bit my lip and nodded back.
He shrugged his shoulder and paid the man. Filling out the paperwork and accepting the key.
“It’s in the far corner,” the man said, already dismissing us, as if we weren’t important. The guy knew we weren’t married and he rented us a room. It didn’t seem right. But, then, I’m a preacher’s daughter. What do I know about motels?
Nick held my passenger door open for me as I got in, then drove the car to the far corner and parked.
I grabbed my violin case and followed him to the room. No way was I leaving that outside. My parents had cut too many corners for me to ever let anything happen to my violin.
As I stepped into the room, one thing became my one and only focus. The bed. The only bed.
It sat in the middle of the far wall. A paisley bedspread covering it. A small table and two chairs sat off to the side. A dresser with an old-fashioned tube type television on top was against the other wall.
Everything else sort of disappeared. All I saw was that bed.
Swallowing hard, I turned around and took in everything.
I wondered if the decor had been changed since the place was built.
No, this couldn’t be happening.
Nick smiled, and shrugged his shoulders, then ducked back out to get his bag from the trunk of his car.
That’s right, I reminded myself, he had been in Ellensburg for two days. Shacked up with some college coed and now here he was, shacked up with a preacher’s daughter.
A drunken flock of butterflies launched themselves in my stomach.
How had my life gotten this bad, this fast? How was I going to explain this to my parents? They would never believe me. I missed the bus. I took a ride from a strange boy, and I ended up in a seedy motel for the night. On Christmas Eve no less.
No. I’d be grounded until my younger sister graduated from medical school. If they didn’t outright disown me.
Nick looked at me, then looked around the room. His eyes lingered on the bed for a moment, and I swear he was fighting not to smile.
Oh, how he must be loving this. For just a moment, I wondered if he’d arranged all of it. It had to be his fault. It couldn’t be just chance.
But, No. I couldn’t lay it at his feet. Even the perfect Mr. Nick Parsons couldn’t control the weather. Couldn’t arrange some arbitrary pick-up to go off the road.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t enjoying the moment, though.
I wanted to slap that silly smirk off his face, but I was afraid of getting too close to him. There was no idea what he might think.
That bed. It was right there. In the middle of everything.
How was I going to talk to my parents with that bed sitting right there?
Nick threw the dead bolt, then hung the chain lock on the hotel room’s door.
My insides turned to stone. I was now officially locked in a room with the devastatingly handsome and eternally cool Nick Parsons.
He glanced at me for a moment, his eyes looking into mine, as if he were looking into my soul. I felt exposed, vulnerable, and completely readable to this man.
What now? I wondered, as my mind kicked into top gear and tried to figure out what to do.
Nick didn’t seem to have any problem knowing what to do. He started pulling stuff out of his bag.
“I’ve got to take a shower,” he said. “I’ve still got that guy's blood all over me.”
That’s right Jenny, I thought. This wasn’t all about just me.
The next thought wasn’t very good for my self-esteem, but I couldn’t keep it out of my mind.
Nick had to share a room with me. The idea might very well be freaking him out. After all, he had to think of what people thought. The last thing he would want would be people thinking he was sleeping with Jenny Brewster.
It’d ruin him.
I nodded my head, indicating I understood about the shower. I had to nod, I was still unable to speak.
He grabbed some clothes from his gym bag and headed for the bathroom.
So typical. He goes away for three days and packs a gym bag.
At least he’s got clothes, I thought, then my heart stopped.
“What is it?” he asked, obviously having seen my stark white face.
“I don’t have anything to wear,” I said looking down at my concert dress. “I can’t sleep in this. It will ruin it.”
Nick smiled. I swear he was going to say something about me not needing to wear anything to bed if I didn’t want to. But, he thought wiser thoughts. No one ever said Nick was dumb.
Instead, he reached into his bag and tossed me a gray hoody.
“Here, wear this,” he said. “It’s big enough, it’ll fall halfway to your knees.”
I grabbed the sweatshirt from midair and looked at him as if he was fully insane.
“It’s clean, I promise,” he said as if that was the issue.
I looked at the sweatshirt in my hand and understood that life could get worse. It could always get worse.
Laughing to himself, Nick turned and entered the bathroom, as if there wasn’t a giant bed sitting in the middle of the room.
“And, Jenny,” he called from inside the bathroom, “don’t worry. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
My heart lurched. Was I that obvious? And, why hadn’t he said something earlier? I could have eliminated a lot of anxious worrying if he’d said something at the beginning.
Studying his gray hoody, I sat on the bed to wait, then jumped up immediately and moved to one of the chairs. No way was I letting him come out of the bathroom to find me waiting on the bed.
I heard the water turn on in the shower and my insides turned over when I thought about Nick taking a shower.
Don’t go there, girl, I thought to myself. Do. Not. Go. There.
I sat there with my hands in my lap and waited. I could have turned on the TV, but I didn’t want to move. My body felt like a violin string pushed to the limit. Ready to snap at any moment.
After a while, I heard the water turn off. My heart increased its beat accordingly.
A few minutes later, the bathroom door open and Nick stepped out in a cloud of steam.
He was shirtless and barefoot. Jeans hugged his hips, and he was drying off his hair with a white motel towel.
I swallowed hard and looked away to give him some privacy. But, not before I saw that silly smirk again and a toned, wide chest.
I swear, the boy was pushing my buttons on purpose.
Grabbing his hoody, I snaked past him and into the bathroom. I couldn’t get in there fast enough.
“Hey, I’m going over to the front office,” he said. “They’ve got vending machines. Do you want anything?” he asked.
It took me a moment, as I stared at myself in the mirror. “Anything,” I answered, as I hung up my dress. There, I thought. That sounded normal.
The shower was heaven. I felt semi-normal afterwards. At least I did until I put on Nick’s Sweatshirt.
He was right. It did come down halfway to my knees. At least almost hallway. I pulled at the hem, trying desperately to stretch it out.
My stomach rebelled. This was not my normal attire, to say the least. It wasn’t like I was a prude or anything. But, I did have standards and wearing only sweatshirts was not in my normal range.
Especially, not around Nick Parsons.
Brushing my hair, I tried to think up some alternative to the situation. I still had to call my mom. My stomach cramped with pure fear.
Hey, he said he’d sleep on the floor.
But, was that fair? I wondered. He was paying for the room. Shouldn’t I be the one sleeping on the floor?
My mind tumbled and turned, but I couldn’t figure out anything. After a moment, I realized I was stalling.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped out into the room.
Nick was sitting in a chair, his socked feet up on the bed, watching the weather channel. He’d placed his boots neatly next to the front door, his leather jacket hung over the back of the chair.
And, he was dressed. A shirt and everything.
Thank you, I silently whispered to myself.
He tore his attention away from the TV to glance my way and froze. His eyes bore into me, as if he’d never seen me before. I felt my entire body begin to blush.
His eyes slowly traveled up my legs. I swear, if he didn’t stop staring I was going to punch him or something. My dad always said that violence was never the answer. But, I’m pretty sure he’d agree with me.
Nick swallowed and slowly shook his head. “Darn girl, you rock a sweatshirt. You should think about wearing it every day. Just like that.”
Okay, so I wasn’t as upset as I should have been.
Totally ignoring him, I hurried over to the table. My hands tightly grasping the hem of the shirt the entire way across the room. I knew for a fact that if I moved the wrong way, I’d end up flashing him. Not something I wanted to think about on my death bed.
Nick smiled and began pulling chips and candy bars out of a white plastic bag.
“I didn’t know what you wanted, so I grabbed one of each,” he said, as he continued to pull more and more from the bag.
My stomach rumbled. I was so hungry. I didn’t care that it was Christmas Eve and I was missing my mom’s roast.
“The guy gave me a couple of candles in case the power goes out,” Nick said, as he finished removing items, then jumped up and slipped a small paper bag into his gym bag. A bag way too small for candles, unless they were for a birthday cake.
What was that all about? I wondered. Why the mystery? I swear, if he bought condoms I’d shoot him. I don’t care if I had to carve a gun out of soap, I’d shoot him.
He pretended like it wasn’t anything and returned to help me finish the fruits of the vending machine.
When we were done, I leaned back, then remembered and pulled my shirt down.
Nick’s glance fell to my hand on my bare leg and smiled.
“Will you please stop looking at me like that?” I demanded.
He looked back with an innocent expression. “Like what?” he asked, as if he didn’t know exactly what I was talking about.
Sighing, I shook my head and said, “I’ve got to call my parents.”
“Go ahead,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“Yeah right,” I laughed as the dread began to build in my body.
This was not going to be good. I just knew it.