Batteries Not Included: A Romantic Comedy

by Christa Lynn

“You’re a bad girl,” he says as he lifts my skirt over my ass and smacks my right cheek, the sting turning into a slow burn.

  “I am a bad girl, now punish me the way you see fit,” I grunt back as his cock slams into me, and his hand smacks the other cheek. “Fuck yes,” I groan against the pleasurable pain. We’ve both become two different people, and I’m so turned on it’s not funny.

  “You thought it was cute to play with my ass, huh?” He groans as his own finger circled my asshole. “Has anyone ever taken you here?” he asks as he pushes his finger inside.

  “No,” I reply on a whimper.

  “Some day, baby,” he says as he pulls his finger out and pushes his cock back inside me. His fingers are digging into my skin, and my nipples are brushing against the cold leather of my sofa, the mixture of sensations taking over.

  “I’m gonna ….” I croak out as his fingers pinch my clit, my back arching, and I swear I see stars I come so hard. As the spasms slow, he stills and leans over my back as he comes on a shout. He slowly pulls out and kisses my ass where he smacked.

  “Love that shade of pink on you. And I love this skirt,” he says as he pulls it down and covers my ass before heading toward the bathroom. I follow suit, pulling my clothes off as I enter the bathroom. We both take a hot shower before flopping onto my bed, and he pulls me into his arms.

  “You’re mine now, you know?”

  “How’s that?”

  “No one has ever stuck a finger in my ass, now you’re stuck with me.”

  I chuckle. “I’m okay with that.”

  “Mmm, I’m actually good with that too,” he says as he rolls over and is now looming above me. “You’re incredible, you know that?”

  “I don’t know about amazing, but …”

  “Stop, you are unbelievable to me, and that’s all that matters,” he says as he kisses me softly. “And I like the sound of you being mine,” he whispers as his tongue delved into my mouth. I pull his head down and kiss him harder because I really like the sound of that too.

  One last peck on the tip of my nose and he rolls back to his side, and I rest my head on his chest, my fingers running through the smattering of chest hair. His eyes are closed, and before I know it, he’s sound asleep.

  I close my eyes and softly fall asleep still using his chest as a pillow, which is actually kind of hard. But I rest entirely, for probably the first time in weeks.

  I wake later on a big clap of thunder and open my eyes, the lightning flashing through the room, casting a bright glow on Nash’s skin. He’s twitching, and he rolls over quickly onto his side, and his feet are moving, like he’s running in his dream. I silently giggle as I watch him, wondering what he’s dreaming about.

  Suddenly, a thunderous clap of thunder rolls and I hear his voice, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. He’s mumbling, but with every clap of thunder, his voice gets louder. I realize then this isn’t a good dream, he’s traumatized, and I suddenly don’t know what to do. Do I wake him and calm him? Or are you supposed to let them sleep it out when they have a nightmare? I don’t know, but then I hear it.

  Jade.

  “No, Jade! Don’t go back inside!” he screams as he thrashes around in the bed. I get up, watching him between the flashes of lightning. “No, my love! No!” he screams as his phone chimes in between the loud thunder. His eyes are glazed, and he looks at me emotionless before picking up his phone. “I have to go, I’m sorry,” he says as he gets up, tugs on his jeans and shirt, and in a flash, he’s gone.

  The door slams behind him, and all I can do is stare at the door.

  “What in the hell was that? And who’s Jade?” I wonder. I start to think that maybe now I’ve got competition, or he’s got someone else on the side. He’s not wearing a wedding ring, so I don’t think he’s married, but who is Jade? And why did he call her “my love”?

  Damn it, what have I done? Have I fallen for a married man? Have I gotten myself in too deep? I don’t have time to think about it long before the power goes out, leaving me in the dark, in more ways than one. I look out the window and see the trees blowing sideways, the sky dark except for the bolts of lightning that brighten the sky.

  I get dressed and grab my phone as I see the Emergency Alert flash across the screen. Severe thunderstorm warning. “Well, duh,” I say out loud. I text Sarah, and she too is out of power.

  “Did I miss a hurricane evacuation?” I text.

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Where did this storm come from?”

  “What am I, a meteorologist?”

  I go out into the living room and turn the TV on and beat the remote when it doesn’t come up. I guess the remote needs batteries I say as I walk into the kitchen and turn the light on. “Fuck, Shel. The power is out,” I groan, feeling dumb at the moment and glad no one was here to hear me talk to myself.

  I curl up on the sofa and watch the storm from there, wondering how long the lights are gonna be out. I hate sitting here in the dark. Then I remember I have candles, so I find them and the matches in the wall unit drawer, lighting a few and placing them around the room.

  “That’s better.”

  I lie back and pull the throw over me and close my eyes and fall back asleep, only to be awoken by the smoke detector going off. I jerk up and look around the room, which is filled with smoke. All the candles are out, and there’s a low glow of orange through the vent on the ceiling. I grab my phone and dial nine-one-one:

  “Nine One One, what’s your emergency?”

  “Um, I think my condo is on fire.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Yeah, there’s smoke everywhere, and I see an orange glow through the air vents in the ceiling.”

  “Ma’am, are you still in the house?”

  “Yes, I have a fire extinguisher, and I’m going to try and put it out,” I tell her, stupid I know.

  “What’s your address?”

  I rattle that out and just as I get the fire extinguisher out, I hear a loud crash.

  “Ma’am, you need to get out now,” I listen to the operator as I cough my way toward the door, but the flames have enveloped the wall, and I can’t get to the door.

  “I can’t! Oh, God, the ceiling just fell in and the flames … Oh, God, help me!” I cry out as I run to the bedroom and open the window, but it’s too far down to jump. “Fucking hell,” I cry. I hear sparks from the living room, and it’s hot … so scorching. I hold my head out the window as I listen to the sirens off in the distance. “Oh, thank God,” I say out loud as I try and straddle the windowsill to get as much of my body out of the condo. But I’m too weak, and I fall to the floor, gasping for air.

  I can’t breathe as the smoke has filled the house, and I’m choking, gagging. “Ma’am?’ I hear on the phone, but I can’t speak. My throat is burning, and I can’t get air, I feel like I’m suffocating. “Ma’am, can you get out of the house?”

  I answer with a cough and a dry, “No,” but I can’t be sure she heard me because everything suddenly goes dark just as the sirens get louder. I see a faint glow of red flashing lights outside, but I can’t move. My body is paralyzed, and my lungs are full of soot, and I can’t cough enough to get it out.

  “Ma’am, the fire department is there. Can you call out and let them know where you are?” is the last thing I hear before a man crawls through the window and throws me over his shoulder, carrying me out into the fresher air. I cough and sputter, and he lays me down on a stretcher, and I’m taken in an ambulance.

  “Shelby?” I hear a male voice scream. “Shelby!” I hear again, but I’m coughing so hard I can’t answer. The fireman places an oxygen mask over my face as I lie there and watch my condo go up in flames. In the distance, I see another firefighter, arguing with another guy before he drops his gear and runs into the condo screaming my name.

  “Nash!” I cry out behind the oxygen mask, but he doesn’t hear me. Then, as if in slow motion, a flash blows and the roof collapses, with Nash inside. “Oh, God, n
o!” I cry out behind the mask and struggle to get off the stretcher.

  “Ma’am, you need to rest.”

  “No, Nash just went inside!”

  “Miss Mansfield?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I answer, but I don’t look at him. I get up off the stretcher and rip the mask off and run, I run faster than I’ve ever run before, toward my condo, watching the walls collapse into themselves as someone grabs me from behind.

  “Ma’am, we’ll get him. Please, stay back,” he says as he runs into my condo pulling a hose with him. I sit down on the curb, and another EMT brings me the oxygen mask. “Ma’am, you need to put this back on,” he says as he tries to strap in on my face.

  “No, I’m fine,” I respond on a cough.

  “Ma’am, please. Nash would kill me if he knew I didn’t take care of you.”

  “You know Nash?” I cry out.

  “Of course I do, he’s my best friend and a damn good fireman. He’s gonna be fine, watch and see.” But even he doesn’t look confident.

  “Shouldn’t he be out by now?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer. The concern in his eyes is enough to break me. First, he flies out of my house after yelling another woman’s name, and now he’s trapped in my condo which is disintegrating before my eyes. I drop my face and into my hands, the tears falling from my face. I hadn’t even realized that I’m soaked to the core from the rain until the same EMT brings me a blanket.

  “You’re shivering, let’s get you in the back of the ambulance where it’s dry.”

  “No, I’m staying right here until Nash comes out. I have to … Oh, God.” I see the other fireman climbing over rubble with Nash over his shoulder.

  “Ma’am, wait in the back of the ambulance, please,” he says as he helps me stand up. I watch them put Nash into the back of another ambulance, and the doors slam shut, the van pulling away quickly with both lights and sirens going.

  “Take me to wherever he’s going,” I say as another EMT pushes the stretcher back over and without warning, scoops me up and gently sets me on the bed before strapping me in.

  “I should have done this before, then you wouldn’t have seen that,” he murmurs. “He’s going to be fine, right now you need to take care of you.”

  “Bullshit,” I spit out. “He’s … I need him, please make sure he’s all right.”

  “The doctors will do what they can,” he says as I’m shoved into the back, and the doors close, and we pull away just as quickly as the one Nash is in. He places the oxygen mask back on my face, and I lie back, trying to relax. Why is this happening to me? What have I done to deserve this? I just found him, I can’t lose him now.

  A prick on my skin startles me, and I look up. “Just something to help you relax,” he says as he pushes the syringe into my arm.

  “No, I don’t want to go to sleep,” I say, but it’s fruitless. I close my eyes and wait and pray this is all one big nightmare.

  Chapter 15

  I wake up to the beeping sounds of a hospital room and open my eyes, the stark white walls blinding my vision. It’s the same hospital cubicle I was in after the wreck and now that I think about it, the same nurse. I sit up and wipe my eyes and try and regroup, “Hello Miss Mansfield,” the perky nurse asks.

  “We gotta quit meeting like this,” I groan. Then I remember Nash, his lifeless body being carried out by another fireman. “There was a firefighter brought in, how is he?”

  “Are you related?”

  “I’m his,” I have to think. “His girlfriend.”

  “I’ll check, give me a few moments.” She says with a sad smile and walks away. Please let him be okay, I sigh to myself as I lay back down. My chest feels tight, and it’s hard to take a deep breath, but I feel okay. I wanted out of this bed and taken to Nash as soon as possible. I see the nurse walk by and she smiles sadly at me, but she doesn’t come back in. I don’t have a good feeling about this. No one is telling me anything, and I don’t like it.

  A few minutes later, an EMT comes in and sits down next to me; it’s the same one that rode with me in the ambulance.

  “How’s Nash?” I ask.

  “He’s alive,” he says on a whoosh, and I burst into tears.

  “Thank God,” I cry.

  “But he’s got a while to recover, a few broken ribs and smoke inhalation, but he’s going to be okay. But …”

  “But what?” I ask, trying to sit up but my lungs explode in a coughing rage.

  “He’s … How do I say this? He’s …” he pauses. “He’s distraught. He thinks you died in that fire.”

  “What? No, I’m right here,” I say as I pinch myself. “Yep, I’m alive.”

  “I know that, and we’ve told him that, but he doesn’t believe us,” he says as he leans back in his chair and brushes his hand through his unruly hair. I can tell he hasn’t been home since the fire, black soot in lines across his face. “I’m Ray, by the way,” he introduces himself.

  “Nice to meet you, Ray, and thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For saving my life.”

  “Oh, that was Max, he’s the one that pulled you through the window. He’s having a hard time now too because he couldn’t stop Nash from running back in to get you. He’ll be in to see you soon.”

  “Can I see Nash?”

  “Not right now,” the nurse says as she pulls the curtain back. “Soon, though, he’s resting.”

  “I can’t imagine he’s resting comfortably,” Ray says. “This is the girl he keeps talking about. I think if we let her visit, to let him know that she is alive, he’ll rest better.”

  She nods. “Let me see what I can do. Miss Mansfield, you’ll be moved to a private room soon, we want to keep you overnight for observation. You took quite a lungful of smoke.”

  “I don’t want to stay overnight,” I crack as I start coughing again. She looks at me like “I told you so” and walks away. “Fuck.” I groan as my head hits the pillow.

  Ray chuckles at my language as he rubs his face. “I’m gonna go check on Nash, hopefully, they’ll let me take you down to him soon.”

  “I hope so too, please keep me posted.”

  “I will,” he says as he drops my hand, and I didn’t even realize he was holding it. He walks away and the room gets quiet, except for the surrounding sounds of a bustling emergency room. I close my eyes and try to breathe normally, though the urge to cough grabs at me. The more I fight it, the harder it is to contain it, so I bark out a coughing spell to beat the band. The nurse peeks in to make sure I’m okay, and I nod at her.

  “Keep coughing, it’ll expel the soot.”

  “Thanks,” I whisper as I close my eyes. The adrenaline is starting to leave my body, and I can feel my muscles tensing up. I wonder what happened? One minute I was lying on the sofa in the dark and then the fire alarm went off. “Shit, I hope one of my candles didn’t start the fire,” I groan.

  “It didn’t,” Ray says as he ducks his head around the curtain. “Lightning strike hit the gable on the roof and spread down.”

  “Oh, good, thank God. I would have been my luck to have been the cause of this.”

  “Nash told me about your bout of bad luck, but I think it’s safe to say you’re through it all.”

  “Well, that remains to be seen. At least I didn’t burn my house down. How bad is the damage?”

  “I believe it’s a total loss. You have insurance?”

  “Yeah,” I sigh as the enormity of it all rushes in. I feel tears pricking my eyes, and I know I’m about to break down and lose it. “Did any of the other condos get damaged?”

  “Just some smoke and water, but the firewalls between the units did their jobs.”

  I nod, unable to hold back the tears anymore. He takes my hand and grips it tight, his thumb rubbing on my knuckle. “It’s okay to break down, Shelby. You’ve been through an ordeal, and holding it in can only make things worse.”

  But I have no desire to break down in front of Ray. “Can you give me a few mi
nutes?”

  “Sure.” He stands. “I’ll be back in a few moments to go with you to see Nash. He’s still agitated, and the doctors agree he needs to see you.”

  “Okay, I don’t want him seeing me like this.”

  “Agree, take all the time you need and let it out. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  I nod, and he leaves, after taking one sympathetic look back at me. The look in his eyes has me bursting into tears and sucking in oxygen which makes me cough. “Damn, can’t I even cry without hacking up a lung?” I sob as I gasp for air. The last week or so spins in my head like a merry-go-round—round and round she goes, where it’ll stop, nobody knows.

  I’m ready for this carnival ride to end and get back to my quiet, sane life. Too much has happened in too quick of time, and it all centers around Nash. He’s apparently come into my life for a reason, but why? I was happy in my bubble, but now Nash has popped that bubble and my life spins into a frenzy. I know I’m just at the top of the first hill of a rollercoaster and some hills and turns await me, even though I feel like I’ve already finished it. I know I haven’t, I need to get to that finish line so I can move forward.

  “Damn, it’s been a long week.” I take a deep breath and try to focus on the future and not dwell on the past week. Nash is going to need me … Well, he’ll need someone. Right now, I need to go to him and reassure him that I’m alive and well. Well, I’m alive anyway, I’m not sure how well I am. Frankly, I feel fucked in the head. Too many emotions flooding me at the moment, and I hope that once this dies out, I’ll have some time to drain the waters and get my shit together. That was the point of going to my mom’s, but then Nash showed up, and now here I am. Lying in a hospital bed for the second time in a week. If anything, Nash has brought excitement to my once boring life.

  Before I can complete my pity party, Ray comes back with an orderly, and they get me out of bed and into a wheelchair. “You feel up to seeing Nash before we take you to your room?”

  I nod, suddenly afraid of what I’m going to see. Will he look the same? Will his beautiful face be bruised and dirty? I suddenly wonder if I can muster the energy, but then I drop the selfishness and go to him, knowing he thinks I’m dead.