K. Bromberg - Driven

“Do you need a minute?” he asks sweetly before pressing a kiss to my bare shoulder.

I shake my head. “No, I’d rather just finish.”

“Okay. Take your time,” he murmurs as we start to walk again.

“I panicked. I had to get help. It was only when I went to release my seatbelt that I felt the pain. My right arm wouldn’t work. It was visibly broken in several places. I let go of Max’s hand with my left hand and tried to undo the belt, but it was jammed—some freak thing the manufacturer studied after the fact that was a result of metal jamming in the mechanism from the crash. I remember looking down and feeling like it was a dream when I realized I was covered in blood. My head and arm and midsection and pelvis were screaming with pain so intense I think I would rather die than ever feel that again. It hurt to breathe. To move my head. I can recall Max mumbling my name, and I reached over groping for his hand. I told him that I was going to get us help and that he needed to hold on. That I loved him. I grabbed a shard of glass. Tried to use it to cut through my seatbelt but only ended up slicing my hand some and stabbing myself in the abdomen. It was brutal. I kept blacking out from the pain. Each time I would come to, the blinding panic would hit me again.”

We reach the steps up to his house, and I watch Baxter bound up with endless energy. Colton sits on the bottom step and pulls me down to sit beside him. I use my toes to make mindless imprints in the sand. “The night was freezing and dark and terrifying. By the time the sun started to lighten the sky, Max’s breaths were shallow and thready. He didn’t have much time. All I could do was hold his hand, pray for him, talk to him and tell him it was okay to go. Tell him that I loved him. He died several hours later.” I run the back of my hand over my cheek to wipe away the tears that have fallen and try to erase the memory in my mind of the last time I saw Max. “I was beside myself. I was losing my strength from all my blood loss, and I knew I was getting weaker and worse off by the hour. That was when the panic set in. I was trapped, and the longer I stayed in the car, the more I felt like it was closing in on me.

“When night fell near the end of the second day, the claustrophobia was smothering me, and I completely lost it. I couldn’t deal anymore with the pain and the feeling of defeat so I thrashed around in fear, in anger, and in defiance that I didn’t want to die yet. All of my movement somehow dislodged my cell phone that had gotten stuck up under the dash amidst the tumbling down the hill. It fell to the floor beneath me.” I take a deep breath remembering how it took every ounce of determination and strength that I’d had left to get that phone. My lifeline. “It took what felt like hours to reach it and when I turned it on there wasn’t any service. I was devastated. I started yelling at everything and nothing until something clicked in the back of my mind about a story I had heard on the news. About how they’d found some missing hiker by following the pings on their cell phone despite a lack of service.

“I knew that when I didn’t show up for work in the morning, someone would call Haddie and that would start the wheels in motion. She’s a worrier and knew I was preparing for a big meeting I had that morning that I would’ve never missed. I figured that maybe they’d be able to track my cell phone to our location. It was a long shot in my mind but it was the only hope I had.” I touch the ring on my finger with my thumb. “I clung to it and willed every thought I had that it would work.”

“I don’t even know what to say,” Colton says before clearing his throat. I’m sure that he had never expected this to be my story. Nonetheless, I am impressed at his compassion for me despite being a self-professed anti-drama person. For this is definitely drama.

“There’s nothing you can say,” I shrug, reaching over to place a hand gently on his cheek. A silent thank you for letting me talk and for listening without interjecting. Without telling me what I should have done as most people do. “It almost took another day and a half for them to find me. I was hallucinating by then. Freezing cold and trying to escape the confines of the car in my own head. I thought the rescuer was an angel. He looked in the window and the sun was behind him, lighting him up like he had a halo. Later he told me I screamed at him,” I laugh softly at the memory. “Called him an SOB and that he couldn’t have me yet. That I wasn’t ready to die.”

Colton pulls me onto his lap so that my body is cradled between his knees and softly kisses the tracks left by my tears. “Why does it not surprise me that you’d tell off an angel?” he laughs, his lips pressed to my temple. “You’re very good at telling people off,” he teases as we both mutually recall the numerous times I have told him off.

I lean into him, accepting and being grateful for his comfort. I close my eyes and let the heat of the suns rays and the warmth of Colton against me melt away the chill deep in my soul. “I told you, Ace. Baggage.”

“No,” he says, his chin resting on the top of my head, “that’s just a fucked up situation in circumstances way out of your control.”

I wish everybody saw it that way . I shrug the errant thought away. “Too many sad thoughts for such a beautiful evening,” I sigh, leaning back and looking at Colton.

He smiles wistfully at me. “Thank you for telling me. I’m sure it’s not the easiest thing to talk about.”

“What do you want to do now?”

Colton grins wickedly at me and grabs my waist, lifting me off of him as he stands up. He doesn’t release me and continues to lift me up, ignoring my growing shrieks as I realize his intentions, and places me over his shoulder.

“I’m too heavy! Put me down!” I squeal as he starts to trot up the stairs. I smack him on the butt, but he just continues up.

“Quit wiggling,” he laughs as he reciprocates the spank. By the time we reach the top, my sides hurt from laughing so hard and Baxter is barking loudly at us. Colton continues to carry me despite reaching the patio, and I swat at him again.

“Put me down!”

“It’s taking everything I have to not toss you in the pool right now,” he warns me.

“No!” I screech, kicking wildly as he swings me so that I can see how close we are to the edge.

He hovers there momentarily as I cry out but then steps away as I sag in relief. He stops and pulls my legs down, and my body slowly slides down the length of him. When our faces are even, he tightens his arms around me so that I am standing on air, acutely aware of my chest pressed against his. “Now, there’s that smile I like,” he murmurs, his breath feathering over my face.

“Very funny, Ace!” I chastise. “You—” My next words are smothered as he captures his mouth with mine. Soft, tender, and seeking, I yield to him. Needing the virile man against me to make me forget my story earlier and to remind me why it’s okay to move on. We sink into the kiss as he lets me slowly slide the rest of the way down his body, my hands holding his face. The calluses of his hands rasp across the bare skin of my back as he slides them down to hold my hips.

I mewl in protest as he pulls back from me. Unnamed emotions flicker through his eyes that are impossible to read. “You hungry?” he asks.

Yes, for you. I bite my bottom lip between my teeth and nod my head to keep the words from slipping out. “Sure,” I say stepping back from him to turn and find a table set up to the left of us, complete with food. “What? How?”

Colton smiles. “I have my ways,” he laughs as he leads me over and pulls a chair out for me. “Thank you, Grace,” he says toward the open doors into the house, and I hear a faint reply from inside.