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Truckers are generally kind and helpful for the most part. But they’ve got a job to do, just like I did until tonight. So most times it’s render help then keep moving. It’s what they do.
He lets me process things in my own way, not even flinching when I make seal sounds and have bubbles of clear snot where my nose should be.
He casually cranes his arm after a time, reaching behind himself into the sleeper area in the back of his rig. Tossing me a towel that I instantly press to my face.
It smells like he does, which isn’t the typical trucker swamp ass mixed with chewing tobacco smell. For a Psycho Trucker? P.T. smells terrific.
Like spice and the spray from a waterfall… Like an ad for something I'd buy enough of to fill a whole bathtub full of it. Dunking everything I own into it so I could smell him forever.
“Thanks…” I murmur, trying to conceal the embarrassment as well as my attraction to him that replaces my crazy meltdown trauma of tears. But he only grunts, making me miss his little sideways glances already.
Making me feel like I’ve blown any chance I might have actually had with a real man. But like every trucker I’ve met, he has other things on his mind. Least of all snatching me from the hands of those men…
Jesus… I can't believe they almost had me.
The thought makes me wanna get sick. And sensing it, P.T. leans over. Popping open a storage compartment with paper barf bags in it, amongst other things.
Other things I notice include the butt of a heavy revolver about the size of a small car. But it doesn’t surprise me.
Man like him. Truckers, really… When they tell ya to keep safe. They mean it.
And by ‘safe’ they mean they’ll blow your head off if they don’t feel it. Shoot first and ask all the questions later, which is kinda what he’s been doing so far.
But my dry heave passes and I force a crooked smile that I feel fading back into tears when he asks me again. As if he’s been waiting the whole time I’ve bawled so he can.
“Those men.” He says firmly, shooting me an equally firm look, “…You ever see them before tonight?’ He asks, making my belly lurch with anxiety over nausea.
The scene of the girl from the other night replaying in my mind as if he’s just hit ‘play’ and held it to repeat.
I feel my head nodding. Making him click his tongue and growl low to himself. As if he’s somehow mad he wasn’t there the first time I did see them. And I know he’d be madder still that he wasn’t there to save the other girl.
As if he somehow knows about those men or maybe just men like them.
I sniff back my emotion and study him a moment. Looking up in the semi-darkness, the only real light is being broadcast out a hundred yards in front of us, maybe further. Two thick triangles of light from the headlights that make the road look like it’s a treadmill.
White line fever in the making. But P.T.’s eyes are fixed someplace else. Someplace darker than the highway at night.
“There- There was a girl… They took her the other night… They must’ve known I saw…” I manage to tell him in a hoarse whisper. Already feeling relief at having told someone. Having it out of me instead of churning in my brain and guts like it has been since that night.
“You know her?” He asks with the same intensity. Wanting an answer not to pass judgment, but because he needs to know.
My head shakes in the negative. Wet hair slapping my cheeks that feel suddenly hot. My bodily sensations gradually coming back into focus after what I know will probably give me trauma for life.
But it’s not the shock or even the cold wetness making my body boil to keep from freezing. The cab’s warm enough. It’s taking in the man sat next to me that’s done it.
He’s not a poster boy by any stretch. Some might even say he’s not even that good-looking, and maybe it’s the fact he just saved my life but I can’t help feeling like he’s the most perfect man alive.
If it wasn’t for him… Well. I’m not gonna go there.
P.T. is big. With a high forehead that shares the rent with a shock of dark hair that’s wetter than mine right now.
A strong, chiseled jaw and powerful eyes… Strong too, with muscles that I’ve felt with my whole body already.
Ah, who am I kidding? The man’s smoking hot in his own way and he’s not afraid to step in on two armed men with his bare hands either.
And I know he did it to save me. Me of all people!
Looking at his huge hands as they grip the steering wheel, I notice a jagged, livid scar. It makes the pit of my stomach jolt again, but I also feel compelled to touch it somehow. My own hand twitching as I fight the urge to reach out and touch him. Feeling like I need his touch again more than ever.
