“Stop calling me that,” I said yet again as he lifted me easily into the passenger seat.
Saying nothing, he grabbed the lapels of the coat and tugged them closer around me, then tucked the extra over my legs like a blanket. When that was done, he grabbed the seatbelt and leaned in, clicking it in place. He was so close that, whenhe pulled back, my nose grazed his cheek. The muscle in his jaw jumped as he pulled away, and I expected some scathing comment about how cold my skin was.
He said nothing, just slammed the door and jogged around the front to slide into the driver’s seat.
“What’s your name?” he asked, voice clipped.
I blinked, brain scrambling. “W-what?”
He turned, piercing me with a fiery blue look. “If you don’t want me to call you hazard, then what is your name?”
“Didn’t you fill out my discharge papers?”
“I handed them a credit card and signed the bill.”
“Oh,” I said, gazing out the windshield.He really paid it.
A wave of emotion rolled over me, momentarily robbing me of the ability to think or breathe. It was the first time someone had done something for me in so long.
“Well?” he demanded.
“Thank you.”
He drew back, one hand levering on the steering wheel as though he needed to balance himself. “What?”
I glanced at him from the corner of my eye and then realized the least I could do was fully look at him. Clutching the inside of the coat, I turned to meet his eyes.
“Thank you for paying the bill. And for not abandoning me at the curb.”
He blinked. “You thought I was going to leave you there?”
I shrugged. “You didn’t have to do any of this, and I appreciate it. I-I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”Which will probably be years.
“I don’t want your money,” he snapped and pulled away from the curb.
My stomach swerved with the car, and I pressed a hand to it. “If you don’t want me to puke all over your fancy car, then be a better driver.”
The second the words left my lips, I had to swallow back the urge to apologize just as I’d had to swallow back my vomit. He deserved it! He didn’t even acknowledge my thank-you.
His eyebrows nearly met his hairline as he spared me a look. “Did you just call me a bad driver?”
“If the shoe fits,” I said with less enthusiasm than before.
He turned back to the road in stony silence.
“Oh,” I said, realization dawning. “I get it.”
He let out a long-suffering sigh. “Get what?”
“You don’t want my money or my thanks. You want something else.”
“Right about now, I’d like you to shut up.”
“There’s a motel on the next block over,” I told him.
“A motel,” he repeated. “The Hollow Pointe?” he enunciated while making a foul face. “That place is so derelict not even roaches will stay there.”
Well, he had a point. The last thing I needed was an infection.
