The Fortunate Ones
Page 23

Beyond a few smoldering glances and the compliment paid to me before the party, James hasn’t made it clear that he even sees me as an attractive woman. By now, most other guys would have made their feelings toward me a bit more obvious, but it seems James does more of his thinking above the belt.
I wonder if the age difference is too much for him. I tried to find information about his last girlfriend, the one Ellie said had a drug problem, but it didn’t look like they were anything serious. She was only pictured alongside him at one or two events before she reportedly checked herself into Passages Malibu, the luxury rehab center where all the celebrities pretend to get their life in order. I don’t get the feeling he’s lovesick over her.
He presses the brake and I glance over. His eyes meets mine, and there’s something there—questions in his gaze that mimic my own. I think he’s going to ask me something, but instead, he turns his attention back to the road.
So, I take matters into my own hands.
“Are you dating anyone right now?”
He accelerates.
“Of course not. I wouldn’t have taken you to that party if I was.”
“But what about your last relationship? Was it a tough breakup?”
“Not at all. I haven’t dated anyone serious in a few years.”
Even better.
“Why?” he asks.
“Asking for a friend.”
“Oh, okay.” He’s willing to play along. “Is your friend cute?”
I glance out the window so he can’t see my smile. By now, the sun has set and the bright lights of the businesses along Lamar whip past us.
“Blindingly.”
“Does she work at the club?”
I chuckle. “Yes, unfortunately.”
“Is she interested in me?”
His question catches me off guard.
“Who knows? You’d have to ask her,” I reply tentatively.
That surprises him. He does one of those curious huh noises like I’ve just told him something incredibly interesting.
I turn back toward him. “She doesn’t know you very well. If she were interested in you at this point, it would be for superficial reasons, like your wealth. Hell, she might just want a membership to Twin Oaks,” I tease. “You have to be careful these days.”
His gaze slices over me. “Maybe she finds me attractive and it has nothing to do with my country club membership.”
I chew on my bottom lip. “Maybe.” But because I feel like I revealed too much, I add, “But she really wants that membership.”
He laughs as he pulls up to a red light. We’re about to turn right and head into the heart of north campus; there’s only another minute or two until he drops me off. Suddenly, I want to stall, but beyond asking him to take me back to his place, I can’t think of a good reason. I could suggest that we continue our night somewhere else, a bar maybe? But he’s still dressed in his golf clothes and my jeans are pretty casual. I just threw them on to get me back home from the club.
I tap my finger on my knee, trying to come up with something. We could take a walk somewhere or do something outside. Peter Pan Mini-Golf would be perfect for our ensembles, but it’s all the way in the opposite direction. I should have suggested it when we left the diner.
“James? Do you want to—”
Words are spilling out of my mouth before I even have a solid plan. I’m kind of hoping the second half of the sentence will come to me through divine intervention, but it never has the chance.
Bright headlights expand behind us so quickly that we both twist to look back at the precise moment a car slams into James’ Tesla. I whip forward from the intensity of the impact, arms flailing to catch myself against the dashboard as we’re pushed into the intersection, right in the way of oncoming traffic.
“JAMES!”
I scream just before another car comes into the intersection and slams into the side of us. We spin out, fishtailing in the center of the chaos. The airbags deploy with a loud POP, so quickly that I feel nothing, see nothing. One second I’m aware of my screams, and the next my ears are ringing so loudly I can’t hear myself breathe. White powder fills the air like snow and the sharp smell of chemicals stings my nostrils. I collect parts of the scene, quickly wondering if more will come or if the crash is over.
One of my hands grips the door. The other is on James’ arm, clinging for dear life.
My chest rises and falls so quickly I don’t feel as if I get any air at all.
I squeeze my eyes closed again, scared it’s not over.
James is saying something, but I can’t listen. I blink and blink until I can focus beyond the white powder in the air. There’s wreckage sprinkled across the road in front of us, another car, badly damaged, a man stumbling out of it. His head is bleeding.
James covers my hand with his and squeezes. It’s the first feeling that comes back to me.
“Are you okay? BROOKE, ARE YOU OKAY?”
He’s shouting at me now, so worried I’m hurt.
Am I?
I look down and assess that I still have two legs and two arms. I stare at the deflated airbag hanging limp in front of me, now useless.
“What happened?”
The sound of my voice surprises me. I’m crying—no, sobbing—and though I try to plug the waterworks, it’s no use.
“Brooke. Brooke. Brooke.”
He says my name so many times that it doesn’t sound like a word anymore. I turn and he cups my face between his hands. His dark, worried gaze darts back and forth between my eyes, desperately trying to focus.
“I think I’m okay,” I repeat, holding my hand up to grip his. My other hand is still on his arm, stuck there. I’ve probably branded his skin, but I don’t think I could move it if I tried.
Police sirens wail somewhere in the distance. The lights from an ambulance flicker through the front windshield, and now that the powder is starting to settle, it’s easier to see just how bad the wreck was.
A fist raps on James’ window. It’s a paramedic asking if we’re okay, telling us not to move until they assess our injuries.
“Check her,” James insists. “Check her. I’m fine.”
The next hour is spent being checked out by EMS (Yes, I can feel and move all my limbs. No, I don’t have a headache.) and relaying our version of events to the police officers. There were four cars involved in the crash, and multiple witnesses who can attest to what happened. The man who slammed into us was taken to the emergency room before I got to see him. I suspect he was driving drunk, but overheard whispers from a few of the medics clarify that wasn’t the case, something about prescription drugs that shouldn’t have been mixed.
After we speak with the police and James shares his insurance and contact information with the other drivers, we’re free to leave—except James’ car is totaled, along with my bike. I don’t bring it up at the moment because it’s the least of anyone’s concerns, but when the driver slammed into the back of us, he basically squashed my bike like a pancake. For the time being, if I need to get somewhere, it’s going to have to be on foot or by bus.
While James deals with the tow truck driver, I stand off to the side, out of the way of the police officers and firefighters cleaning up the wreckage on the road. After his damaged Tesla is loaded onto the back of a truck, he comes over to get me.
“C’mon, the driver is going to drop us off.”
James takes my hand in his and together, we walk toward the tow truck. The cab has one long bench seat, so I scoot to the middle and look for a seatbelt, panicking that there might not be one.
“Here.”
James holds it out for me and I loop it across my body, hissing as it rubs the raw skin across my chest. My only injuries were abrasions from the seatbelt in James’ car as I lurched forward during the crash. The medics checked the bruising and redness along the path of the seatbelt, but there wasn’t much else they could do for it besides offering me some over-the-counter pain reliever, which I refused. Now that the adrenaline and shock are wearing off, I regret my decision.
“Does it hurt?” James asks as he buckles up beside me.
The driver hops in on the other side and I shake my head. “It’s not too bad.”