Love Story(38)
Author: Jennifer Echols

I had to find out. I stepped into the street.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the taxi coming. I knew what I’d done wrong but it was too late to jump back. A jolt in my hip, and then I was skidding across the asphalt on my back.

Everything stopped. I was staring up between the tops of buildings at the orange glow of the overcast night sky, and the street around me seemed strangely quiet, but in my head I heard the echo of the tires screeching. I should get out of the street. The next car would kill me.

I put my hands behind me to push up to standing. My back stung like fire. The pain in my hip took my breath away. The taxi idled in front of me, a small dent in the hood. The door opened, releasing Middle Eastern rock music. The driver stood up behind the door, pointed at me, and cursed me in Arabic.

On the far corner, in front of the hospital, four people in green scrubs stood beside a stretcher, waiting for the light to turn before crossing the street. I rolled off the unbearable pain in my hip. Facedown I examined the asphalt, tiny white rocks showing through where the blue petroleum base had worn away. The people in scrubs eventually reached me with their stretcher. When they asked me who they should call for me, I gave them the only phone number I could remember.

11

Hunter filled the opening in the privacy curtains. He wore green scrubs like the doctors and nurses who had scraped me off the pavement. For a split second I mistook him for an adorable doctor who looked a lot like Hunter. I knew it was Hunter when he gaped at me with a mixture of outrage and horror, his face pale, and demanded, “What did you do?”

“Crossed the street,” I said. “Badly.” Wincing, I eased up from the gurney, putting my weight on my hand and my good hip. Only a few minutes had passed since they had brought me in, ascertained I wasn’t dying, and dumped me here. I still felt very shaky from the shock of being hit. But I didn’t want to face Hunter lying down.

In two steps he bent over me and wrapped his arms around me. He was careful not to press on my hospital gown low against my back where the road rash was, but his touch on my shoulders radiated pain to the raw parts. I winced again.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry.” He let me go but hovered over me, placing his big hands on my shoulder blades. He was so close that the air felt hot between us. “What did you hurt?”

“This is just where I skidded across the road.” I gestured behind my back and then flinched at the sting in my skin as I moved my arm.

“How far down does it go?” My back felt cold as he lifted one flap of my paper gown and looked.

I kept my head down, my red cheeks hidden. He was peering at my back where my skin was missing. What could be sexier? Even if the circumstances had been happier, I was wearing no makeup and I was sure my hair was matted from my scarf. There was no reason for my blood to heat as if we were on a date instead of a gurney.

But my body did not listen to logic when it came to Hunter. He was not examining my wound. He was captivated by the sight of my lovely and unblemished bottom. I was a novelist. I could dream, couldn’t I?

Lightly I asked, “Are you asking whether I have gravel embedded in my ass? By the grace of God, no.”

Hunter let my gown go and stood up. “The doc said the car hit your hip,” he insisted. “Is it broken?”

I rolled on my side to face him. “It really hurts,” I said. “If it were broken, I think it would hurt worse.”

He nodded. “When I broke my ribs, I couldn’t breathe.”

“That’s because your ribs punctured your lung.”

He pointed at me. “True.” Then he cocked his head to one side, blond hair falling into his eyes. “I’m surprised you remember that.”

I winced again, not from physical pain this time. It had hurt so badly to care about Hunter but to hear about his accident third-hand. And that had been my fault. I should have nurtured our nascent friendship before everything had gone awkward. I had my excuses, but I was the one who had retreated into the closet and shut the door.

And now we were so far apart that neither of us had any idea why the other was at this hospital. “You work here as a clerk?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I volunteer here as an orderly.”

“Why are they letting you see patients, then?”

“I was going to see you whether they wanted me to or not, because it’s you.” His eyes seemed to darken as I watched. “But the doc on rotation lets me sit in on examinations, sometimes. She knows I want to go to med school.”

Now something different passed behind his eyes. He was realizing what he’d accidentally told me.

“You want to go to med school?” I asked in disbelief.

He opened his lips. His broad chest expanded with a deep breath underneath the green scrubs. “Yes,” he said on a sigh.

“Which is why you’re taking anatomy, and calculus instead of business math. You’re a pre-med major.”

He smiled tightly. “Yes.”

I had always viewed Hunter as a suave opportunist. Looking back, I wasn’t sure why I’d assumed he was doing right by my grandmother. “You have no intention of majoring in business and running my grandmother’s farm after graduation.”

“No.”

Not without admiration I said, “You’re just milking her for everything she’s worth.”

Now that he knew he was caught, he charmed me with a big grin. “Basically.”

I was glad we’d faced off and I’d finally pried the truth out of him while I was propped up. But my hip ached like nothing I’d ever experienced, and I simply couldn’t balance on my tender bones any longer. “Any swindler of my grandmother is a friend of mine” came out a groan as I eased forward to lie down on my stomach on the table, one hand on my ass to make sure the paper gown didn’t ride up to reveal even more of my broken body to Hunter.

His arm shot across my chest to support me as I lay down. I wondered whether he knew exactly what he was touching underneath my paper gown—but surely that was the farthest thing from his mind. Most people did not think dirty thoughts at a time like this. Only me.

He sat on a stool and rolled it up to me. “That explains what I’m doing here.” He put his chin down on the edge of the gurney, watching me like a big friendly dog. “What are you doing here?”

He was so dreamily handsome, looking at me with concern in his eyes, and his tone was so gentle, that I almost answered him.

“You followed me,” he said.

I shifted on the gurney, trying in vain to find a more comfortable position. My hip sure did hurt.

“You wanted to know where I was going so late at night,” he said. “I’ve seen you watching me through your window.”

Note to self: when boys look back at you watching them in the darkness outside your well-lit window, but their expressions do not change, you relax, assuming they can’t really see you watching them, when they can totally see you.