by Claire Adams
I frowned. I distinctly remembered taking inventory of myself after the accident, and I hadn't felt seriously injured, just bruised and battered. But maybe since I'd passed out, they'd decided to keep me overnight in the hospital, just for observation. That had to be it.
Kylie stirred, blinking her weary eyes open. When she saw that I was awake, she burst into tears. “Josh,” she whispered, reaching for my hand.
I squeezed her fingers when she slid them into my palm. Then, as she continued to cry, I stroked my thumb over her knuckles. “Hey,” I told her, trying to soothe her despite the raspiness of my voice. “I'm all right. Don't worry, I'm fine. It was just a minor accident. I'm okay, though.”
“Josh, you've been in here for two weeks!” Kylie sobbed.
I blinked, totally confused. “What do you mean I've been in here for two weeks?” I asked. “I thought I was fine. I didn't feel that hurt when the accident happened.”
“You were probably in shock,” Kylie pointed out. She shook her head. “Linda called me and told me you were in here and that they were running tests on you. You had a lot of swelling around your brain, and they were concerned about brain damage. You've been in a coma for two weeks.”
I was shocked to hear that. But I knew I needed to say something to try to calm her down. “The Lamborghini has top-of-the-line safety features,” I said. “My head hurts a little, but I can still wiggle all my toes and my fingers. And my nose.”
Kylie stared at me for a moment, surprised into silence, and then she laughed weakly. But she shook her head. “This isn't funny, Josh,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said. “But really, I'm okay. Or I'm going to be.” I paused, suddenly nervous as I wondered if there was something else that she wasn't telling me. “I am going to be all right, aren't I?”
“I think so,” Kylie said. “They said that they wouldn't really know until you woke up, but I guess the fact that you're awake and don't have amnesia is a good sign. But Josh, it's been so scary, sitting here day after day with no change to your condition. I thought I was going to lose you.”
“I'm stronger than that,” I chided. “Plus, I could probably use a good knock on the head to get my IQ back down to normal levels. Give the rest of you a chance to catch up.” I winked at her, and Kylie giggled quietly.
“What happened anyway?” she asked. “I know how you drive. You're generally pretty safe, but were you speeding?”
I frowned, thinking back. “I must have been, when the accident happened,” I admitted. “This guy was coming up really hot on my tail, and I was trying to change lanes to get out of his way. He clipped the back of the Lamborghini, and I spun out and hit the barrier.”
Kylie shuddered, looking horrified. “Did you see who it was?” she asked. “The police don't have any leads. Whoever hit you didn't stop.”
“There was a blue truck,” I remembered. “What is it with dudes driving blue trucks these days, anyway?”
Kylie frowned, her fingers squeezing mine this time. “I'm glad you're okay,” she said softly. She paused. “Is it true that you've loved me for years?”
I gave her a startled look. “Where did you hear that?” I asked. Then, I grimaced. “Don't tell me, I was talking about it in my sleep? Or my coma, I guess.”
Kylie laughed again. “No,” she said, frowning. “Although actually, I would have been less worried about you if you'd been talking in your sleep for two weeks. Instead, it was like you were...” She trailed off, but the unspoken word hung in the air between us: It was like you were dead.
I felt horrible for putting her through that, even though there was no way I could have helped it.
“Mandy and Jasmine told me that you did,” Kylie finally whispered. “They said it was really obvious.”
I made a face, surprised to see her face fall in response. Did she have feelings for me? I wished we were having this conversation when I was a bit more clearheaded. Instead, it felt like I was slogging through every thought at half my normal processing speed.
“They're right,” I admitted. “I've loved you practically since we met. But it never seemed like it could work out between us.” I looked away from her. “I should have told you that before we started sleeping together. I'm sorry if I misled you into thinking that I really wanted to be just friends with benefits with you.”
I paused, taking a deep breath and looking into Kylie’s eyes. “Actually, I was hoping that we could move from being friends with benefits to being something more. That wasn't fair to you, I know. And I'm sorry.”
“Why didn't you ever say anything?” Kylie asked.
I shrugged as best I could with all the tubes going into my arm and snaking across my bed. “I valued our friendship too much,” I told her. “I was afraid that if I asked for something more, I'd lose you entirely. I didn't want to risk that.”
Kylie was quiet for a long moment, and I fidgeted. I had basically just bared my heart to her, and she had nothing to say in response. That wasn't the way I wanted this conversation to go.
Of course, anytime I'd ever allowed myself to imagine actually having this conversation with her, I hadn't expected it to go down with me in a hospital bed and tubes sticking out of me. I wondered if this was more or less romantic than some of the scenarios I'd pictured over the years.
“Andrew proposed to me,” Kylie suddenly blurted.
Oh. I felt my chest constrict, and I had to look away from her again. “That's great,” I said, hoping my voice didn't sound bitter.
While I had been lying in a hospital bed, she had gone out and gotten engaged to someone else.
“No, no, no,” Kylie said quickly, shaking her head. “This was before. When we broke up.”
I frowned at her. “We never broke up,” I said, not understanding what she was saying. If only I weren't quite so groggy.
“Not you and me,” Kylie said. “Andrew and I. That's why we broke up. He proposed to me, and I realized I couldn't picture a future with him. I didn't want to be with him for the rest of my life.”
“Oh,” I said, still frowning. I wondered why I was just hearing about this now. “I guess that explains why you were so upset about the breakup.”
“There's more,” Kylie said, sounding almost breathless. “When I said that I didn't love Andrew and that I didn't want to be with him, he said it was because he knew I had feelings for you.”
I searched her gaze, wondering what she was waiting to hear me say. I didn't know how to respond. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty for breaking up a potential marriage?” I finally asked.
“No, of course not!” Kylie said, sounding shocked that I even suggested it. “Andrew and I were never right for one another anyway. I knew that for a long time. It just took me a while to admit it. That's not the only thing that it took me a while to admit, though.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I didn't realize I had feelings for you until Andrew accused me of having feelings for you. And when I started to think about it, I realized I had had feelings for you for years.”
She said the last part in a rush, staring down at her hands. I couldn't help laughing, and her head snapped back up.
“Why do you look so worried about admitting that?” I asked, feeling practically giddy. “We've already talked about the fact that I've had feelings for you for years. It's not like I'm going to say, it's great that you have feelings for me and that I have feelings for you, but actually I'm not interested.”
“But you're worried about screwing up our friendship,” Kylie pointed out. “Maybe you think, I don't know, that we should play it safe and sweep our feelings under the rug.”
“Is that what you want to do?” I asked, worried again.
“No!” Kylie said loudly. She blushed and looked back at her hands, reaching out hesitantly to hold mine again. “No,” she repeated, more quietly this time. “I thought I was going to lose you, and I was kicking myself for all that wasted time when we could have been together.”
I was embarrass
ed by the way the heartbeat monitor picked up the sudden spike in my pulse rate. I was excited about this. Nervous, but excited. I smiled over at Kylie, hoping that she was just as excited.
Just then, a cluster of nurses and doctors burst into the room. “He's awake!” one of them cried.
“He's awake,” I confirmed, grinning over at them.
“Ma'am, I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you to leave,” someone else said to Kylie. “We have some more tests that we'd like to run, now that he's awake. Just to make sure there's no permanent damage.”
Kylie looked like she might cry, hearing that, and her fingers clenched tightly around mine. I could imagine what she must be thinking. She had just gotten me back, practically from the dead, from the way she'd described it, and now they were asking her to leave.
“It's okay,” I told her quietly, looking deep into her eyes.
I could see the tears gathering there, and again, I hated that I had caused her so much pain. The minute I was out of there, I was going to start making it up to her as best as I could. I started compiling a mental list of all the things I knew she loved, even though I knew I would need to be thinking more clearly to put together any sort of plan.
I remembered what Alice had said about showing Kylie how much I cared about her, and I thought I was starting to understand it now.
“It's okay,” I repeated, squeezing Kylie's hand and then releasing it. “You look exhausted, and I bet you don't remember the last time you ate. I want you to go home and make yourself some food. Eat and then sleep, and by the time you wake up, I'll probably be out of here.”
“I wouldn't go that far,” Kylie said, but she was grinning. “And the doctors have been good about making sure that I keep eating. Mandy, too.”
“You should call Mandy,” I reminded her. “Let her know that I'm all right.” I frowned, my mind suddenly jumping to work. I had missed plenty of meetings and calls if I had really been in there for two whole weeks.
But suddenly, work didn't seem so important.
I caught Kylie's hand again, bringing it up to my lips so that I could kiss it gently, even though the movement was awkward and uncomfortable with all the tubes in the junction of my elbow and sticking out of my nose. Kylie appreciated it, though, if her smile was anything to go by.
“Okay,” she said bravely. “Okay.” She stood up and nodded to herself. Then, she pointed a stern finger at me. “You'd better be looking better the next time I see you, Josh Green.”
I grinned at her. “I'm so sexy, it's not possible for me to look any better,” I said teasingly.
Her laughter trailed after me as the nurses began to move my bed out of the room and down the hall to the lab.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Kylie
I had to give myself a few minutes in the parking lot before I felt safe driving myself home. My thoughts were a whirlwind. I was so happy that Josh had finally woken up, and I was so glad that we had finally had the conversation that I'd been dying to have with him for two weeks now. Not that the conversation had been anywhere near completed, unfortunately. I knew that the doctors and nurses needed to check him out and make sure that everything was okay with him for the long-term, but I cursed their timing.
Just when it seemed like we were getting somewhere.
I sighed and looked in my rearview mirror at the vehicle coming up behind me. I frowned. Another ugly blue truck. Its paint was chipping, and there was rust showing through in places. The front corner of the passenger's side was crumpled, as though the vehicle had collided with something.
Didn't Josh mention something about a blue truck that had hit him? And there had also been that blue truck that had tailgated us while we were on our road trip.
“There really is something about blue trucks these days,” I muttered as my heart fluttered in my chest. There was no way to deny the panic I felt building inside of me, and yet I worried that I was overreacting. I checked my mirror again, noting the that the damn thing was at least a safe distance behind me.
Even still, I was nervous as hell as I gripped the steering wheel. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and eyed the truck again. Was it the same one I kept seeing before? No. It couldn’t be, right? That would just be too much of a coincidence.
Or would it be? I sucked in a painful breath as my pulse spiked. I was going to have a freaking anxiety attack if I wasn’t careful.
I suddenly remembered seeing that blue truck even before our road trip. It had cruised around my neighborhood a few times, just before we'd left on the trip. Maybe it wasn't such a coincidence after all. Maybe someone was actively out to get me.
My palms started to sweat against the steering wheel, and I wished I were back in Josh's Lamborghini, with him behind the wheel. There was no way my car would be able to outrun that truck. I remembered seeing the truck easily keep pace with us when we were on the highway, flying down the asphalt at 100 miles per hour. There was no way my car could do anything like that. He had to have suped up the engine. There was no way a damn truck could do that either. Something was off.
I swallowed hard and drummed my fingers nervously against the wheel, wondering what the hell to do next. Some part of my subconscious was whispering that I was being a spaz, but I couldn’t let the feeling that something was terribly wrong go.
At the next intersection, instead of following my normal route for home, I turned left, beginning a circuitous journey through town that would ultimately lead me to the police station. My eyes kept flicking toward the rearview mirror. No matter how many turns I took, and despite the fact that I was practically driving in circles by now, the truck still appeared there behind me.
“Definitely following me,” I whispered roughly as my breathing got off. My hand itched to call the police ahead of time, but I didn't know how much of my car my follower could see, and I didn't want to alert him to what I was doing.
Under the guise of rummaging in the center console, I pressed the emergency call button on my phone.
“This is 911, what seems to be your emergency?”
“Hi, my name is Kylie Summers, and I'm being followed by a blue truck,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and level even though I sounded like someone who had run a marathon.
I was almost to the police station now, maybe five more minutes. I didn't think the truck was going to try to run me off the road here. Doing that in the middle of the highway was one thing, but running someone off the road in broad daylight in the middle of Los Angeles would be another thing entirely.
“And is there something wrong with the truck or its driver?” the bored-sounding woman on the other end of the line asked.
“My boyfriend was driven off the road by a blue truck a couple weeks ago, and based on the dented front end of this one, I think it's the same truck,”
Suddenly, my brain caught up to what I had just said. Josh and I may have talked about the feelings that we both had for one another, but we had never agreed that he was my boyfriend.
That was beside the point now, though, I realized, as the truck behind me inched closer.
“Do you know the person driving the truck? How far behind you is he following?”
“I don't know if I know him,” I said. “I can't see him very clearly. He's leaving about five feet of space between us. Sometimes less.”
“Where are you? I'll dispatch a car to come sort you out right away.”
“I'm almost at the downtown police station,” I told her. “Two minutes away, maybe.”
“All right, ma'am. If I can have you stay on the line and let me know if this guy gets any closer to you, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed, my voice shaky.
I was trying to think through who it could possibly be in the truck, but my mind kept coming up with only one name. Only one person I knew could be crazy enough to chase us across the country and then come back and try to run both Josh and me off the road in LA. But I didn’t think Andrew was that crazy. Even with as unh
inged as he’d been since we’d broken up, chasing me halfway across the country and trying to hurt Josh was too insane, even for him. It had to be someone else.
The police station came into my view, and I held my breath as I pulled up outside, relieved to find parking in a matter of seconds. My hands were shaking as I turned off the car, but I had enough presence of mind to snap a photo of the truck as it disappeared up the road. The photo was blurry, and I'd missed part of the car, but you could make out a license plate in it, and I supposed that was all that really mattered.
I swallowed hard and tried to convince myself to get out of my car. I was afraid that as soon as I did, the blue truck would return, either to hit me once I was out of the safety of my car, or else to snatch me and try to drag me off somewhere.
Finally, I managed to calm myself down enough that I felt as though I could get out of the car, and I hurried inside to give them information about the strange incident as well as tip them off to the fact that this truck and its driver could very well have been the reason behind Josh's crash two weeks before.
Inside the police station, it was busy, with people going in all different directions. I supposed that was to be expected, given that this was Los Angeles. It took a while before they were able to sit me down with a police officer, but when they finally did get me with someone, I was relieved at how easy it was to explain the situation.
“I know it must sound crazy,” I finished up, after describing the different incidents. “I mean, what kind of a weirdo follows someone across the country, just to come back home and try to run them off the road here?”
The policeman, Officer Sanders, frowned. “You said that your trip got cut short,” he remarked slowly. “Or at least, the road trip aspect of your trip got cut short. Perhaps whoever this is was planning something more extreme before, but their plans were interrupted?”
I swallowed hard. “You're right,” I said softly. “That could be true.”
