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Levi Loveless, Silas’s best friend and my nearly lifelong crush, has come to rescue me.
I know I shouldn’t complain about being rescued, but I’d much rather run into him while, I don’t know, effortlessly doing an impressive yoga pose while reciting Ralph Waldo Emerson and being presented with a Pulitzer prize, my hair shiny and bouncy and my face not streaked with sunscreen and sweat.
Levi stops about six feet from my window. He stands there, assessing the situation. It’s still raining. He’s still getting wet. I’m still half goggling at the free wet t-shirt show I’m getting and half trying not to perv on this nice man who is, presumably, about to get me out of this car.
So I wave.
He waves back.
Cool, I think to myself. What a super cool situation I’m in right now.
Levi walks around the back of my car. I swivel my head as I watch him, because what else am I going to do?
“Can you hear me?” he calls from the other side of the car.
“Yes!” I call out, scrambling over the center console and into the passenger seat.
“Open the door.”
I glance down at the door handle, nervous again. It’s plastic, which should be fine, right?
I grit my teeth and pull it, pushing the door open as fast and hard as I can. Instantly I get a face full of rain, but I don’t die of electrocution.
“Hi,” I tell Levi, pointlessly wiping water out of my face.
“Hello,” he says, still standing about five feet away, looking incredibly unperturbed by all the weather happening around him.
Still in the wet t-shirt, which is still clinging to his shoulders and biceps and the dark line of chest hair and happy trail and okay, okay, that’s enough.
“How are you?” I ask, because he makes me nervous and I need to say something.
“I’m well,” he says, raising one eyebrow. “And yourself?”
I wipe water from my face again and look quickly around my car.
“I’ve been better,” I tell him honestly.
Levi just nods.
“The wires are live and touching the metal frame of your car,” he says, getting back to the point, nodding at the thick black lines draped across the hood of my car. “Which makes you getting out a little bit tricky.”
“I jump, right?” I ask, because I’m pretty sure I remember that from third grade, and I’m eager to be part of the solution, not just part of the problem.
I can accept that everyone needs to be rescued sometimes, but I’m not terribly excited to play the part of the hapless princess.
“I think it’s better if I lift you,” he says, taking a step closer. “More control.”
Oh, come on, I think, but I take a deep breath, suck up my pride, and nod.
“Okay,” I say.
“Kneel on the seat and face me,” he says. “I’ll pick you up in a fireman’s carry.”
My stomach knots, but I nod.
“Be sure to maintain control of your limbs,” he goes on, taking another step closer. “Don’t touch the frame.”
I get into position and Levi steps in, towering above me, his boots squeaking quietly even through the din of the rain, and I’m eye-level with his belly button and doing my absolute best not to notice that his shirt is clinging to the happy trail extending downwards.
He bends until we’re eye-to-eye, his serious, thoughtful face inches from mine, his deep, golden-brown eyes searching my face like there’s some sort of answer there.
Thank God for the rain so he can’t hear the way my pulse is drumming against my skin.
“All right,” he says, then crouches. He puts his shoulder to my midsection, pulls me from the car, and lifts while I maintain strict control of my limbs.
We clear the car. His boots squeak as he steps away, into the grass at the side of the road, and for several seconds I’m ass-up and slung over Levi’s shoulder like I’m a sack of dirt or concrete or grain or whatever it is that sexy lumberjack types like to lift.
Then he puts me down, one thickly-gloved hand on my shoulder, rain still pouring down, and he looks at me. He looks at me for a long moment, checks me over like he’s inspecting me for cracks.
“You okay?” he finally says.
I swallow, then nod. My heart’s still tapdancing but I clench my fingers and toes and look down at myself.
I’m soaking wet and I’m pretty embarrassed and I’m definitely wearing too-short running shorts and a bright purple sports bra that’s mostly visible through my now-soaked light blue tank top, and I could really, really use a shower, but I’m fine.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m okay.”
“Good,” he says quietly, and takes my elbow in his gloved hand. “Wait in the truck while I put out the flares. It’s at least dry in there.”Chapter TwoJuneHe refuses my offer to help put out the flares. He refuses it firmly but gently, guiding me into the cab of his truck while I go on about how I could help, spreading an old-but-clean towel on the seat and then offering me a hand as I climb into the cab.
