What If You & Me (Say Everything #2) - Roni Loren Page 0,110

him by the belt. “No. Stay here. You’ll get hurt. He could have a weapon.”

The operator came on the line, asking what was her emergency. Andi quickly gave the lady her address and told her she’d been attacked.

As she was trying to describe what was happening, a figure appeared in the beam of the headlights. A lanky white guy in dark jeans, a black T-shirt, and a backward baseball cap. He was swiping at his eyes with one hand and still coughing. He started jogging in the opposite direction.

“Motherfucker,” Hill seethed.

“Please,” Andi begged, pulling the phone away from her ear. “Don’t. Get in the truck. The police are on the way.”

“Andi,” he said, looking back to her like she’d lost her mind. “He’ll get away.”

“That’s not your problem,” she said, pleading. “You’re worth more to me alive than your name in the paper for being the hero. Please, Hill. I love you and you love me, and though you don’t realize it right now, we’re eventually going to be together because we’re supposed to be. So if you let some punk-ass troll take you out, I’m going to be super pissed.”

He blinked, his expression stunned.

She had surprised herself with the love declaration, but she wasn’t going to take it back. Seeing Hill in front of her at the exact moment she needed him was all the sign she needed. The universe wanted them to be together. She would keep fighting for this.

“And news flash,” she went on. “Horror stories don’t end well for the dudes. Don’t go after him. I don’t want to be a final girl.” She released his waistband and whirled her finger in the air. “Get in the damn truck.”

Hill stared at her for another second and then gave a curt nod. “Yes, ma’am.”

She put the phone back to her ear. “I sprayed the guy with pepper spray. He’s running down the street, heading north, but he’s going slow because he can’t see.”

“We have officers on the way,” the operator said. “Just stay on the line.”

Hill got in the truck and put it in gear. He rolled forward slowly, keeping the guy in the beam of the headlights but not getting too close.

Andi reached out and grabbed Hill’s hand, squeezing it.

He sent her a gentle smile that warmed her from the inside out and squeezed back.

She knew they had things to work through if they were going to be together, but him getting into the truck had told her enough. Hill had chosen to be her hero instead of the hero. He’d kept himself safe even when it went against his instincts. That meant he had hope for the future. For himself. For them. A belief that there was something bigger waiting for them that was worth protecting. That was all she needed to know.

She could work with that.

“If he walks into the street, you have my permission to hit him nonfatally with the truck,” she said, her eyes narrowing on her attacker. “Fucker.”

“Gladly.” Hill’s jaw flexed as he kept the guy in sight.

Sirens whined in the distance.

The guy took a sharp left, right out in front of them. Andi smirked.

Hill gave her a brief look and then accelerated just enough to make it hurt.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Hill sat in the waiting area of the police station while Andi gave her statement down the hall. The guy Hill had accidentally-on-purpose tapped with his truck—Jake something or other—was in another part of the station getting interrogated. Hill wished he could have a few minutes alone in a room with that piece of shit. When Andi had stepped under the harsh fluorescent lights of the police station, Hill had seen for the first time that her elbows and knees were scraped up and a patch of her hair had been ripped out, her scalp matted with blood. The thought that someone had hurt Andi, had thrown her to the ground with plans to assault her or worst… Hill couldn’t even process that level of rage.

I could’ve lost her.

The realization was like being plunged into icy water. He didn’t want to imagine a world that didn’t include Andi. Though he’d only known her for a couple of months, she’d become part of the fabric of his days without him realizing it. He could clearly define the time before Andi and the time after. Even in his memories of the times before, everything seemed grayer, faded. Long days, an empty house, time stretching out before him with no idea what to do with