ONE
ANNA
“Ihaven’t had sex in months, Mel! Months!” I squint my eyes, as if doing so will help me see through the steadily falling snow. I purse my lips, too.That oughtta help.And to top it off, I turn the radio down.Despite the ‘Breaking News!’ alert about a third jewelry store heist in as many weeks, with a suspected trio of bandits now millions of dollars richer than they were this time last month.
I have important things to say, and not a lot of time to say them in, as my phone teeters at a pathetic three percent battery life. “I’m a healthy, needy, twenty-nine-year-old woman, Melanie. I enjoy the chemical benefits one experiences with an orgasm.”
“Anna, I?—”
“Dopamine!” I flip my wipers on, shoving the incessant white powder from my windshield. “Oxytocin. Serotonin.”
“You’re just saying words.” My best friend in the entire world, my ride or die, the soon-to-be-bride for whom I’m maid-of-honor for in barely a week’s time, rolls her eyes at me. “You’renotthat hard up, Anna. Geez.”
“Endorphins are good for my brain! Sex is considered a full-spectrum workout, did you know that?”
“Of course she knew that.” Nicolas Ramos, that charming, handsome, almost-married fucker, laughs on their end of the line. “Mel knowsallabout the endorphins, Anna Banana. In fact, she rates her daily full-spectrum workout ten outta ten.”
“Nick!” Mel grunts.She probably hit him.“You can’t say things like?—”
“Bragging is not cute, Mr. Ramos.” I glance over at my beeping phone and gulp at the pathetic one percent battery warning. Holding the steering wheel in one hand, I lean across the gearshift and feel around the dark floor for my charger cord.
Instead, I find candy bar wrappers. Empty soda bottles. Deposition files. All the things a normal twenty-nine-year-old woman would keep in her car.
“Boasting typically leads to a nasty case of karma, Nicolas. You’re getting married soon… and you know what they say about married women.”
“What?” He laughs.
I swear, I catch the sound of his lips doing things to Mel’s face.
“What do they say?”
“To stop fighting with my best friend?” Mel growls. Then to me, “To stop bickering with my husband?”
“They say arrogance leads to unmet expectations, and married chicks typically close shop once the marriage license has been filed at the local courthouse. I’m a lawyer; I know all about divorce rates. There it is!” Triumphantly, I wrap my fingers around the charger cord and straighten in my seat,thrusting my hand into the air. Swinging my eyes across to my phone with a wide, goofy grin plastered on my face, I open my mouth to add something zing’y and witty to my Nick Ramos smackdown, only to find the screen black and the whole device shut down.
Dead.
“Dammit.” I ignore the radio presenters’ muffled voices as they finish their news piece and transition us across to a dumb Christmas song instead, and steering with my knees—like all intelligent, multi-faceted, millennial women can—I grab my phone and jam the charger cord into the bottom. Tossing the device down and bringing my focus back to the road, I trade my knees for my hands and lock eyes with a man in the middle of the street.
Then we collide.
With a throat-aching scream piercing the air, I slam my feet to the brake pedal, grip the steering wheel with both hands, and watch, horrified, as the guy flips onto my hood with a world-shifting thump, and over the roof—roll, thud, roll.Like a sack of fucking potatoes, he bounces off my rear window, clips the trunk, and as my car comes to a skidding stop, the poor sucker crashes to the ground with a stomach-turning thud.
Glowing red all over—Please be red because of my taillights, please be red because of my taillights!—he lies flat on his back, his arms and legs splayed wide, and white fog floating around his body.Please don’t be the holy spirit come to take him away!
Oh. My. God.
Panting frantically, I hear the thunder of my pulse in my ears. Mariah’s song. My engine’s perfect purr. Even my vibrating phone, now that it has power again.
And the man’s groan.
A pained yelp bursts from the depths of my chest, then my brain catches up and propels me into action. I shove my door open and lunge to the left, only for my still-secure seatbelt to lock me down. I cry out, desperate and anxious as my hands shake and my heart speeds out of control. Frenzied, I unsnap my seatbelt and throw it to the side, gasping as the metal buckle smacks the outside frame of my car.
Nausea builds in my throat, bubbling and nasty. Burning and mean.
I don’t know how I manage it, how my knees hold me up, but I stumble onto the otherwise empty road and into falling snow that insists on soaking into my hair. “Oh my gosh, mister… I’m…” I race toward the man dressed all in black. Not like Tommy Lee Jones suited from head to toe. But black pants, a black puffer jacket, a black beanie pulled to his eyebrows, and what may be a black eye, already blossoming on his face.
Shaking, I kneel by the man’s too-still form and place my fingers against his neck. “Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.”Whydidn’t I pay attention during that first aid course in high school?I blink-blink-blink blinding tears from my eyes. “I can’t find a pulse.”
