He wants to be friends. She’s convinced I’m going to romanticize that relationship.
She’s worried with good reason, of course. We both know it. It’s my thing. It’s what I do.
But being Callum’s friend doesn’t equal automatic heartbreak—I’m convinced of that.
I look down University Avenue and start across the street, still pondering all the ways I’ll deny my romanticizing to Rosalie, when the bottom of my ten-dollar book bag gives out on me. It’s lasted almost two years. I should be grateful… only my psychology and English books, along with my computer, are now littering the dirty asphalt ground. In the middle of the road.
“Crap.” I crouch, lifting my computer from the blacktop and brushing the pebbles from its surface. It took me months to pay off this computer! I lift the lid, and it lights up. It lives. My psych book pillowed its landing.Hallelujah.I shut the lid and hug the thing close to my chest, my eyes crammed shut, praising the gods of the girls who must scrimp and save to afford every single thing for college from the minute to the grand.
My prayer isn’t quite finished when—I’m hit from the side.
Twelve
My knees hurt.My knees and, oh geez, my butt… I’m dizzy. I keep my eyes closed. The world just flew by. And it might have taken my clothes with it.
“Are you okay, miss?” says a deep voice, one that I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard before.
I tell my eyelids they must open. We are being greeted… It doesn’t matter that my legs and behind are injured, that my pants have possibly been torn to shreds or maybe even ripped from my body.
“Does your head hurt?” that voice says again.
I blink open to a blue sky, white puffy clouds, and a blond beard. I squint in the sun. “Hi,” I say, my laptop still snug against my chest.
“Almost getting hit by a car is one way to get attention,” he says through a wide smile. He hovers over top of me, the hard ground beneath me.
I wrinkle my nose as more bodies congregate. There’s a crowd forming. I am very much gathering attention. My bearded rescuer does not seem to notice, though.And?—
“My laptop. It’s paid off, so it can’t be broken,” I tell him.
His eyes drop to the computer in my arms. “Hmm, it looks okay.” He peers around us for one second, smiling as he looks outward toward the circle of people around us. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“My bag broke. My books and computer fell. I—” I bend my legs and attempt to sit up, but pain shoots through my limbs and backside.
The stranger, stretching his gaze over my entire body, hisses. I’m not sure what he’s seeing, but it can’t be pretty. Let’s hope it involves a fully dressed Fran and not one whose clothes have been torn from her body. “You scraped your left knee pretty good when I snatched you out of the way of that truck. How’s your head?”
Truck? I do not remember a truck.
An ache runs over my body—but not in my head. No, my head is fine. “Not my head,” I grunt as I attempt to move again. “Knee. Butt,” I hiss. “Ouch.”
“I sort of dragged you, left side. Then rolled and planted you on your backside. It all happened so quickly.” He smirks. “But as long as your head is okay. Can I help you up?”
“Sir,” I say, realizing even as I speak the awful words that I am possibly having yet another romcom moment this week. I mean,Hello, Dr. Steve EddiefromThe Wedding Planner. “Do I still have my pants on?”
“Yes,” he says with a chuckle. “But the hole in your left knee might be new.”
“Did you see him save her?” a voice says—it’s one of many from the crowd formed around us.
I should really be focused on the beard in front of me, but geez, my butt hurts. My tailbone has officially been beaten.
“Come on,” he says, taking my laptop and books then holding out a hand to me. Again, shouldn’t I be encompassed with the feel of this man? So weird that the most pressing thing on my mind is my sore buttocks.
Rosalie would say it isn’t weird. I did just get shoved out of the way of a truck.
I set my hand in his and he pulls me upright, still kindly holding my things, though my ripped bag is nowhere to be seen.
“I’m Paul,” he says. He smiles once more, but he’s looking at the people around us, not at me.
A few people have their phones out and directed toward us. I wait for Paul to tell them, “There’s nothing to see here,” or “Move along,” but he doesn’t do either. Instead, he just keeps smiling for the camera. “Paul Fender,” he tells them with a nod.
