Chapter Nineteen
Jo
It had been a month since I left Clint’s room at the club. A month of me crawling into his bed after Nana went to sleep and a month of waking up together. It had been the best month of my life. I finally had a home and a family, and best of all, I had Clint.
Clint’s alarm went off and I groaned. Why did he always get up so early? Just once I wanted to doze in his warmth for hours.
His arm brushed my shoulder as he reached over me to turn off the buzzer. The way the bed was shoved against the wall, he had to get out at the foot of the bed or climb over me.
“Happy anniversary, babe,” he murmured from behind me. I could feel the bed move and the blankets shift—he was getting up. I kept my eyes closed. Maybe I could get one more hour.
Then I felt it. Something warm and wet licked me. This was definitely my favorite way to wake up in the morning. I rolled on my back and opened my legs for him.
I relaxed at first. My body was warm and still limp from sleep, and I enjoyed the sensation of his tongue on my clit. I moaned and reached down to run my fingers through his hair. He slid his index finger inside me and I tensed around it, looking for more. One finger was never enough.
I threw back the covers. I loved to watch his powerful shoulders as he worked on me with his mouth. Finally, he slid a second finger in and stretched me as he covered my clit with his lips. That was what I needed. The orgasm came fast and hard. My body bucked as I let the feelings overtake me. Clint held on to my hips with one hand and made sure to suck me until the very last.
“Good morning,” he laughed, giving the inside of my thigh a little bite.
“Fuck me, babe,” I said, lazily playing with his hair. “Let me make it a good morning for you.”
“Not this morning,” he said, giving me one last lick.
I shuddered.
“I need to get going. I’ve got a surprise for you tomorrow night, though. Bettes is staying with Nana and we’re having a real date.”
“Really?” I asked. I sat up and watched him put on his work uniform. We’d had a lot of stay-at-home dates because of Nana and the fact that I didn’t want to tell anyone about us at first. I just wanted to be sure things were right between us before everyone knew—especially his club. “Does Bettes know?”
“Nope.” He leaned in and gave me a kiss. “She thinks you’re just running errands and I’m working late.”
He kissed me again. Other than the sneaking around so people wouldn’t know, this month had been the best of my life, and I wanted to share it with everyone.
I broke our kiss. “Let’s tell people. I want to make it official.”
“Tomorrow? After our date?” Clint suggested. “I need to go, babe. But think about how we’re going to tell them.”
He kissed me one more time before he left. I lay back against the pillows. Only thirty-six hours or so until our big date tomorrow night. I couldn’t wait.
I dozed for another hour before my alarm went off. I needed to get my shower before Nana got up—today was dialysis and I had to get some studying done. The amount of flashcard time I put in had rapidly decreased since Clint and I had gotten together, but I didn’t regret it at all.
“Would you like eggs for breakfast?” I asked Nana after we’d done our morning routine. “Or we have leftover chicken from last night.”
“I’m surprised we have leftovers,” Nana said, sipping her coffee. “Your chicken parmesan was just lovely.”
The phone rang and we frowned at each other. It was 8:30 a.m. and very early for a phone call. But it was the dialysis center. They wanted us to come in early because of the forecast. We changed Nana’s appointment to just past ten.
“Don’t get caught in the storm!” the appointment scheduler said as we hung up.
“I didn’t realize they had forecasted a lot of rain for tonight,” I told Nana as I heated up what was left of dinner.
“It’s probably nothing.” She waved her hand as she read the local section of the newspaper. “We live so far from the coast here, they don’t know what a storm is.”
After dialysis and lunch, it was barely sprinkling. I opened up my books and studied for the afternoon. Midterms were nearly here and I was a little behind in everything.
Clint’s keys rattled in the lock when he came home, and I immediately looked at Nana. She was still asleep in front of the television. I helped Clint open the door and we both tiptoed off to his room.
“How was your day?” I asked as I unbuttoned his work shirt. It was my favorite time of day. Just us. I grabbed the hem of his shirt and drew it off. Mmmm. His naked chest. How could it get better?
“Good, nothing really new.” I sat on the bed, watching, enjoying the muscles on his back and the Demon Horde tattoo as he dug for a new T-shirt. “Crash knocked into one of our diagnostic machines. Nothing was damaged, at least.”
“Poor guy.” My heart went out to Crash. He knocked a lot of stuff over.
“I might have to recommend him to work somewhere else,” Clint sighed. “He means well, but he’s gonna break something expensive one of these days. Anyway, it’s getting late. You need to get on the road.”
I looked at the clock. He was right. Class was starting in forty-five minutes and I didn’t want to be late.
“Yeah.” I got up off the bed. “I need to go.”
Clint’s arm snaked around my waist and he pulled me into a hug. “One day, babe, it’ll be just us. No clocks or alarms or appointments or classes.”
I drew back and looked into his eyes. “Just the two of us. How could a girl resist something so romantic?”
He gave me a quick kiss and a confused look. “You mean just the three of us, right? You, me, and your damn fine ass.”
I laughed and swatted his arm. “So much for romantic.”
He caught me in a real kiss. “I’ll show you romantic on our date tomorrow. I thought maybe we could go to the Humane Society.”
I pulled back and looked at him. “We’re going to the Humane Society for a date?”
“We could get a pet. You said you never had one as a kid. How about a dog or a cat?” He stepped away and shoved his hands in his pockets. “But we could do dinner or something else. Whatever you want.”
I plopped down on the bed. A pet would mean permanence and a commitment—everything I’d never had. I could have those things with Clint. That was the meaning of his gift. It was sort of like a ring, but in animal form.
“I want a cat,” I blurted out. I started imagining playing with the animal, taking care of it. I could do this. I looked at him. He was smiling. We could do this together. “A date to the Humane Society.” Laughing, I drew his arms around me. “It’s perfect.”
* * *
I made it through class without obsessing too much over the date that Clint had planned. By the time I was walking out to the parking lot, I had something else to think about—the rain.
I’d lived in the Seattle area for over ten years and had never seen a deluge like it. We got a lot of rain but it was sporadic and storms passed quickly—but not this one. Water just poured from the sky in sheets. Rain drenched my clothing as I ran to my car.
I waited in the parking lot for a while for things to die down. Picking up my phone, I dialed Clint to tell him I would be late. No answer.
Odd, he always answered my calls, sometimes with dirty little nicknames that made me laugh. But tonight it rang through and then went to voicemail. That made me grin. Maybe he was planning something for our date tomorrow.
When the rain didn’t look like it was going to let up, I put my car into gear and headed out. I cursed Old Man Wystrom as I rode my brakes all the way down the steep incline that led out of the school parking lot. Harold Wystrom had donated land to Pacific Community College on top of a damn hill. The land had been clear-cut to sell the timber, so he might as well donate it. That was a hundred years ago. He didn’t think about nursing students coming home from night school during a freak spring rainstorm.
As I turned a corner, a pair of headlights flashed in my eyes. Damn. The rain was no longer draining off the pavement and massive puddles covered the lane lines. I hit the brakes and moved farther to the right to give him more room, but instead of stopping, I started to hydroplane.
The world became very fuzzy and I realized I wasn’t just sliding, but spinning. All I could see was sheets of water sliding off my windshield. I had no idea where the other car was or where the steep embankment was.
They say that when you’re about to die, your life flashes in front of your eyes, but it wasn’t that way for me. It was my future, everything I missed out on.
I saw Clint and Nana. I saw myself hugging my twin sister. Then an image I’d never seen before popped into my head—a toddler, with my curls and Clint’s nose.
I pumped the brakes, hoping to get my car to stop. With a thud, my car stopped spinning. My blood was still rushing and I could hear it pounding in my ears.
My headlights illuminated nothing but sheets of falling water. I couldn’t really see beyond that. I cranked my mirror around so I could see behind me. My red taillights shone on the side of the hill, which meant my car was pointing toward the embankment side. Damn. I was going to have to be careful getting out of my car.
Just then, my seat tipped and I leaned forward. The car was going to slide down the hill.
I tried not to hyperventilate, and to think rationally. I had airbags and it wasn’t a steep enough slope to kill me, but I also didn’t want to ride a two-ton steel sled down a muddy hill.
I quickly unbuckled my seat belt and made a dash for the back. It wasn’t graceful, but I managed to squeeze between my two front seats and land on my shoulder on the bench seat in back. The car was rocking back and forth like a damn teeter-totter. I righted myself until I was sitting, and the car swayed so the trunk was close to the ground and the hood high up in the air. I opened the door and jumped out.
I hit the grass and rocks and rolled. Then it happened. Whatever my car was balancing on gave way and the car started to go. I watched the taillights of my Honda as it slid a good fifty yards down the hill, slick with grass and mud.
Collapsing on my back, I let the rain fall on my face. I was cold but safe.
When I was breathing normally again, I tried to stand up. My knee buckled under. Now I realized pain had started radiating up my leg. Damn. I’d hurt my knee. I couldn’t really tell if it was dislocated or sprained or what.
I was exhausted and freezing, and now hurting. I also was completely without my money or a cell phone. My phone had been in the front pocket of my hoodie. It was gone now, lost somewhere between my car and where I had rolled out. I could either search the muddy blackness for my phone, or start walking and hope I could flag someone down. Sitting on my butt, I used my good leg to propel myself back up toward the road.
It was slow going and the hill was steep. I slid back down a few times, so I wasn’t making much progress. I was probably going to die here on the side of the road with grass and dirt stains all over my ass.
Finally, I started laughing. Tears are hot and they sting when your cheeks are cold from rain. Things were finally going well. I had a boyfriend, a job, and soon I would graduate and get a cat. Life could never be perfect.
My good leg was burning, so I stopped for a moment to rest. As I rested, I thought of stupid things, all the little things that I’d wanted to do pinging back and forth in my brain. I’d never been to Disneyland. One day I’d like to see the Great Wall of China. I wanted to give my sister one last hug. I had an aunt in Cleveland, one of Daddy’s sisters. I still had her address—I should visit her. I should learn to play tennis.
A soft tinkling floated up on the wind. Twenty yards below me the underside of a bush glowed with a blue light. It was my cell phone. I was saved! Ignoring the pain in my leg, I dove headfirst down the hill. Dragging my body the last few feet, I grabbed it and stared at the caller ID. Clint was returning my call.
“Hello?” I answered. Shit. My teeth were chattering so badly, I wasn’t sure he could understand me. “Don’t hang up. I need help.”
“Jo? Are you okay?” he asked.
“Car crash. I need help,” I repeated, hoping he could understand me. “Wystrom Road, south side of the hill. Hurry, please, I’m hurt.”