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Wandering, I enter another large room with the door wide open. It must have been a family room as some point, but all that remains now is a beat-up recliner sitting in the middle, a small side table next to it, and a brand new 60-inch flat screen TV mounted on the wall with a hockey puck stuck in the middle of it. It’s for moments like these that the phrase stranger than fiction was coined.
A sound alerts me that I am no longer alone. A snort of sorts. I walk around to the front of the recliner and discover gay Santa sleeping soundly. I clear my throat, hoping that’s enough to wake him, and get nothing in return. Not a twitch, not a lifting of an eyelid. No wakey.
So I move closer, with only an arm’s length separating us. It’s the first time I get a good look at…my savior? Meh, too melodramatic. Good Samaritan? Yeah, that sounds a little more dignified.
Barely fitting in the chair, he’s as big as I remember from the night before. His forearms bulge against the faded red thermal he’s wearing. The sleeves pushed up to the elbows reveal a black tattoo branching up his arm. It’s then I notice his shirt is covered in paint. So are his hands, loosely hanging off the arm rest. I can even see a streak of green on his forehead. As for the rest of him––well-defined trapezius muscles bridge the distance between his neck and shoulders. His biceps are thick but not bulky, and his forearms corded. Covered in grey sweatpants, his long legs hang past the foot rest.
His face makes a much better second impression. He’s younger than I first thought. Maybe early thirties. His hair is a deep rich brown and in need of a trim, his jaw is covered in a very short beard. His nose has seen better days; it looks like it’s been broken a time or two judging by the bump on the bridge. But it’s his eyes that get all the credit. His brows are dark slashes that end in an exaggerated natural arch, and his lashes are thick and spiky.
His face is too harsh to be pretty, but he has a certain appeal. I’m sure he drives the boys crazy in his own way. I mean, if you like that sort of thing––the alpha, he-man, gym rat type.
Which I don’t.
I like men that can debate the merits and detriments of the European Union, sophisticated men who like to travel and share books, who know more about the world than I do. Ben, in other words, that motherfu––
Gay Santa snorts and repositions his head. This guy sleeps like the dead.
Time to wake the sleeping beast. I tap a very hard forearm with my index finger, then wait. “Umm, hey guy…hi…hello?”
No reaction, so I tap again. This time his face puckers, brow contorts, lips nearly disappear. If I met this face in a dark alley I would definitely run. Unless, or course, it was in the middle of the mother-of-all-snowstorms. In which case I would need him to save me before he turned into beef jerky.
Aside from the face scrunching business, good Samaritan doesn’t budge. On the carpet next to the chair, my attention falls on a shiny object. An empty bottle of whiskey. Jesus, is he hung over? Leaning in, I sniff, sniff again. Definitely sauced. Which makes sense now. He said some strange things last night. I just happened to be too cold to care at the time.
“Hello. Hey there. Hiii.”
The forced cheerfulness finally does the trick. His eyes crack open, focus on me with all the intensity of a sniper rifle, and wait.
Automatically, I reach up and touch my buns. I may be half dead, but I’m still a girl. No surprise, they’re destroyed, hanging off my head. More limp biscuits than cinnamon buns. In addition, my eye makeup is undoubtedly down my face with all the crying, and my arms are sticking out to the side with all the clothes I have on. I must look a fright, but that works in my favor right now.
“Hi. Sorry to wake you but…hi, I’m Carrie Anderson, the woman you saved last night from, well, basically freezing to death. I can’t thank you enough. Really, thank you. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t found me…umm, I mean, except die. Anyway, do you have a landline? I don’t have any bars on my phone.” I hold up the phone as evidence, but he doesn’t seem to be interested. His gaze hasn’t left my face once since he cracked them open. Not to mention, his silence is starting to unnerve me.
It’s then it dawns on me…he doesn’t speak English. That’s why he sounded strange last night. He was speaking in Spanish.
