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“That obvious, huh?” I say.
William just grins. “Good for you, man. Zoey’s great.” One more tap of his hand on the hood and then his expression turns serious. “You ready for this? We need to get it on one take.”
“I was born ready,” I say, looking at the open road in front of me. Even though I can’t see them, I know there are explosives lining the asphalt, and they’re going to be set off once I drive past them. A bit dangerous, but it should be okay. The one thing that has my heart pumping faster than usual is the final sequence, where I have to drive the car over a concealed ramp and tip it over. The car’s inner structure has been reinforced, but it’s still a dangerous sequence to pull off.
“All right, Dean,” William says, and then waves at Becca, a young actress whose character plays a minor role in this scene. Her job is to dramatically jump out of the way as the first explosives go off, and the anxious expression on her face tells me she’s not entirely comfortable with it. She doesn’t need to worry, though—she’ll be far from the explosions, and I’ll give her a wide berth as I drive toward her. The usual camera tricks will do the rest and make it look as if she isn’t standing that far away.
“You ready, Becca?” William calls out.
“Ready,” she calls back from a distance.
“Good,” says William. “Let’s roll, then.”
I glance at Zoey before I rev up the engine, my fingers tightening around the steering wheel, and then I wait for the director’s go-ahead to put the pedal to the metal. The wheels bite into the concrete as I accelerate, and I speed toward Becca like a freight train. She jumps out of the way as William signals her, and that’s when I really push the car to the absolute limit.
Gritting my teeth, I hear the sound of fake gunfire all around me, and tall flames burst out from the side of the road. I’ve done scenes like this a dozen times before—a standard car chase with high-grade explosions—but something feels off this time around.
I barrel toward the concealed ramp, the one that’s meant to tip the car over, and take a deep breath. That’s when I hear the pop of a tire bursting open, the rubber peeling itself off the wheel. Suddenly, I lose control of the car, and it swerves abruptly to the left. Instead of tipping over in a straight line, it rolls over into the bright flames burning on the side of the road.
“Fuck,” I grunt, tensing as the air around me heats up. The flames lap at the car, as if they’re trying to get past the windows, and that’s when I realize just how wrong this stunt went. I try to take my seatbelt off, but I can’t even do that.
Suddenly, all the grim accidents I’ve heard about over the years flash before my eyes.
Goddamn it. This is not how I thought my life would end.
It feels as if a future with Zoey is being stolen right from under my nose. I’ll never get to see her walk down the aisle. I’ll never get to hold any of our children in my arms. I won’t grow old beside her. I won’t—
Suddenly, a wave of white crashes against the car, the flames dying down as the life is sucked out of them instead of me. Narrowing my eyes, I try to see past the smoke, relief washing over me as I watch the safety crew surrounding the car, all of them carrying fire extinguishers.
Disoriented, I finally manage to remove the seatbelt and kick the car door open. I stumble out of the car, immediately falling to my knees.
A familiar pair of arms wrap themselves around me.
I look up to find Zoey staring at me, tears brimming in her eyes.
“Oh my God. Are you okay?” she says. “I thought that…I thought that…”
She can’t even bring herself to say it. The crash looked pretty bad from behind the steering wheel, and it must have looked even worse for those watching from the sidelines.
I blink and focus on Zoey. It feels like I’ve been given a second chance at life, and I’m not going to let it go to waste.
“Marry me, Zoey,” I say, cupping her cheeks as I look into her eyes.
“What?” She wipes away tears as she laughs.
“Marry me. Be my wife.”
“You’re out of your mind.” She runs a hand over my head. “You probably have a concussion, Dean. You don’t know what you’re—”
“I mean it,” I say. “I’ve never seen things as clearly as I’m seeing them now. We’re meant to be together, Zoey. Not just for a little while, but for the rest of our lives.”
“I…” She stares at me, stunned, finally realizing how serious I am.
“Will you marry me, Zoey?”
Slowly, her shock wears off. She throws herself into my arms, and we both fall onto the road. There’s still commotion all around us from the accident, but none of it compares to how wildly my heart is thundering away right now.
“Yes,” she says. “I will. Iwill.”
