The call bell went off, and the red lights started blinking. Three beeps and then, “Traffic collision, motorcycle down on the intersection of Verdugo and San Fernando Boulevard.”
Fuck.
“You have to go.” She turned toward the door.
I lunged after her, grabbing her hand. “Wait…just wait.”
She looked up at me, her eyes sad. “There’s nothing else to talk about, Josh.”
“There is. Will you wait for me to get back? Please? Just wait here. Twenty minutes, so we can talk.”
She pressed her lips into a line.
“Please, Kristen.”
We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. She nodded. “Okay.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and before she could object, I pulled her into me and kissed her. “I love you,” I whispered. “Wait for me.” Then I turned and jogged down the hall as the rest of the crew streamed out of the bedrooms.
Leaving her felt wrong. Everything between us was fragile and I knew how easily she could shut down on me. The timing of this call couldn’t have been worse. I practically dove into the driver’s seat, determined to get this over with as quickly as humanly possible.
The guys got in and Shawn put on his headset. “Kristen’s here, huh?”
“Not now, Shawn.” I turned on the lights and pulled out into the street. The accident was only a block over, thank God.
Javier opened the laptop. “Might be a DUI,” he said, reading the notes from Dispatch.
Luke scoffed from the seat behind me. “Not even nine in the morning.”
“Hey, it’s five o’clock somewhere.” Shawn snickered. “So, what’s got her panties in a bunch now?”
I turned onto Verdugo and gave Shawn the finger over my shoulder.
I pulled up to the accident. The police were already on the scene, blocking traffic at the intersection, so I parked the engine behind a cop car with its lights on, and Shawn, Javier, and Luke hopped out to get the trauma kit.
A Hilton Garden Inn, newer-looking apartments, and an artists’ senior living complex flanked the four-lane, tree-lined road. The brown, tired Verdugo Mountains loomed in the distance.
I checked my watch as I climbed out of the engine. If she was gone when I got back, I’d lose my fucking mind.
She’d said she’d stay, and she usually did what she said she would. But this thing had her shaken, and I couldn’t wait forty-eight hours to run after her if she took off on me again. I’d go insane.
My mind was exhausted. I hadn’t slept last night. I didn’t fully absorb everything she’d said in the kitchen and some of it began to catch up to me now.
I didn’t come here to tell you so you could decide whether you want to date me. That’s not even on the table.
If Kristen thought I was going to let her go, she was fucking nuts. Not now that I knew she loved me. Not ever.
I finally understood the kind of love that made men give up everything. The kind that made someone change religions or go vegan or move to the other side of the world to be with the woman they loved. If someone had told me six months ago that I’d choose a woman who couldn’t have kids, I’d have called him crazy. But being with her wasn’t even something I had to think about. I did want kids. But I wanted her first. Everything else was just everything else.
Sure, a part of me grieved a life I knew I wouldn’t have now. Kids that I’d never meet, a future different from the one I’d spent the last few years wanting. But I processed it like I’d been the one who just got a diagnosis. Because in a way, I had. This thing didn’t feel like her problem. It felt like our problem, to figure out together. It was as much mine as it was hers.
I fell in next to the guys and we made our way onto the scene, our feet crunching over broken glass.
I stepped over a side-view mirror and nodded to a cop talking to a sobbing woman by the open door of her blue Kia. I assumed it was the other vehicle involved in the accident. The bumper had damage.
No skid marks. The lady blew right through a red light.
“Probably prescription pain pills,” Luke mumbled.
Shawn scoffed. “She looks like vodka to me.”
I shook my head. “I hope the accident didn’t ruin her buzz. She’ll need it where she’s going.”
We saw too much of this bullshit. And now I had to be here