Chapter 2
I’ve found him. Finally.
There’s such utter relief inside me that I feel like I’m going to explode.
Ever since Jared the paramedic did his vanishing act the night of the accident, part of me has wondered if he was actually real or if my imagination had just conjured up a perfect man to keep me company when I was down in the dark.
Especially after I tried to track him down to give back his jacket but couldn’t find any traces of a paramedic called Jared in Hamilton.
It turns out I was looking in the wrong city.
Because it’s definitely him. I would know that voice from anywhere. I’ve replayed it constantly.
In the dim light of his bedroom, I can see he’s not as excited as I am right now.
I’m guessing he wanted a completely anonymous hookup. Little does he know how our lives have already collided.
“Jared, right?” I say.
Now he looks completely freaked out—watching your parents discover your browser history or accidentally sending a nude to your work group chat-level of freaked out.
“Uh…have we met before?” he asks.
“Yes. We met about a year ago. I was trapped in a car, and you taught me what a tomo was. Remember me?”
I lift my face off the pillow.
He draws back with a look of shock and horror. Which I take to mean enough makeup has rubbed off that my scars are now visible.
Poor Jared. He goes to sleep with Yoda. He wakes up with Frankenstein. Quite the change in movie franchises.
“Oh my god.” He swallows, his eyes focusing on the part of my face that has a scary resemblance to a Scream painting before he finally manages to rip his gaze away.
“Felix, right?”
I guess I should give him points for his social etiquette skills, anyway.
And I can’t help the huge smile that comes over my face. “You remember my name.”
His eyes fly back to mine. “Of course I remember your name,” he says softly.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything is inadequate about your name-retrieving skills. I just figured all your patients would blend together after a while.”
Jared’s eyes are deep and dark. “Trust me, I don’t usually spend three hours in the dark talking to all my patients.”
“Was it three hours you were down there with me? I’m still hazy about some of the details.”
“Yeah, it was three hours.” He runs a hand through his hair, and it sticks up wildly all over the place.
“Fuck, sorry, I… I just never expected to run into you again,” he says finally.
“Especially in your bed, right?”
He shifts his weight, his shoulder bumping against the headboard. “Yeah, especially here.”
“Well, surprise!” I manage to restrain myself from doing jazz hands, but it’s difficult.
Jared swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “So, um…how have you been? Did you ever tell Carlos he was a fuckwit?”
“Oh god, I talked to you about that. Yes, I’m pretty sure I informed Carlos about his complete and utter fuckwittery when we were breaking up. And I’m sorry I rambled on to you about that. In my defense, I was kind of using you as a deathbed confessional.”
“It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.”
“But I was the most entertaining, right?”
“Most definitely,” he says.
We stare at each other for a few heartbeats before he runs another hand through his hair, blowing out a breath.
“So uh…are you hungry? Did you want some breakfast?”
My brain short-circuits for a second.
Because he’s not doing the awkward shuffle toward the bedroom door while avoiding eye contact.
He’s not suddenly remembering an urgent appointment with his dentist’s cousin’s goldfish that means I have to leave.
He’s offering me food. Annie would probably have something to say about how quickly my heart latches onto that.
“I never turn down a free breakfast,” I manage to reply.
And so Jared gets out of bed, giving me a fantastic view of his incredible ass that makes me momentarily forget about everything else, including my own name and the fact that gravity exists.
No wonder he saved my life. That ass probably has its own superhero registration.
He pulls on boxers and a T-shirt while I continue to gape.
The man clearly does squats. Like, all the squats. Every squat that’s ever existed.
“You want to have a shower while I cook?” he offers.
I snatch my brain away from admiring his ass.
“Yeah, okay. Good idea.”
Jared disappears off to the kitchen while I stumble into his bathroom.
I usually avoid looking at my face in the mirror. But I can’t really avoid catching a glimpse as I climb into the shower.
What stares back at me is a horror movie mashup.
The left side of my face still has streaks of green paint, like I’ve been attacked by a kindergartner with finger paints.
The right side, where most of the paint has rubbed off on Jared’s pillows, reveals my scars.
They stand out stark and undeniable, the biggest one cutting from my temple to my jaw, with smaller tributaries branching off like someone tried to draw lightning on my face and got carried away.
My platinum-blond hair is sticking up like a hedgehog.
Together, they complete the look of someone who got electrocuted at a St. Patrick’s Day parade.
Before my accident, I’d never have gone to bed without doing my face care routine, which included doing facial yoga that made me look like I was trying to eat my own nose.
But now, there doesn’t seem to be much point in spending time fussing over my skin. It feels like the equivalent of polishing a car that’s already been through a compactor.
I try to scrub the rest of the face paint off in the shower, turning one of Jared’s facecloths a Kermit-the-frog green.
But there’s no point trying to hide my scars from Jared now.
When I go back into his bedroom, I see Jared has left sweatpants and a T-shirt on his bed to save me from redressing in my Yoda robes.
And one part of me likes dressing in his clothes, even if they are far too big for me.
I pad into the kitchen to find Jared at the stove, spatula in hand, sliding eggs onto two plates.
The kitchen smells like heaven. Or at least the bacon section of heaven.
He glances up as I enter, and there’s this moment where his eyes track over his too-big clothes hanging off my frame before he quickly looks back at the pan.
“Breakfast is ready,” he says as he brings the plates over to the table. “You want some coffee?”
“Yes, please. Milk and one sugar, thanks.”
I hesitantly sit and pick up a fork.
Are these pity bacon and eggs? Do I actually care?
I mean, he hasn’t touched me since he saw my face, but equally, he’s not making up some excuse to get me to leave.
“So, what made you move to Auckland?” he asks as he brings me a cup of coffee and sits at the table.
“I’m training to be a veterinary nurse, and I’ve got a placement at an amazing clinic here,” I explain. “There are five clinics owned by the same person, and I’m really hoping that if I impress them, I’ll be able to get another placement here for the final part of my training next year.”
I don’t say how much I needed to escape Hamilton. Everywhere I went in Hamilton was a reminder of who I used to be, the life I had before my accident.
Jared’s eyebrows shoot up. “You’re training to be a vet nurse? Didn’t you work in fashion?”
I can’t believe he remembers that. He obviously has a great memory.
But his question causes a nasty feeling to swirl in my stomach.
“Yeah, well, my accident kind of changed that,” I say.
“Did you have any other injuries?” Jared asks quietly. “Besides…?”
“Oh yeah, I had the full works going on. Broken ribs plus nerve damage down my right side. I couldn’t use my hand properly for months. But it all healed, besides my face, which decided to be the permanent souvenir. And my boss decided my new look wasn’t compatible with a career in fashion.”
Jared looks down, his face doing something complicated. Then he looks up at me, not with pity but with something close to anger.
“That’s bullshit,” he says quietly. “Complete bullshit.”
“Yeah, it was,” I agree.
My eyes sting and I have to glance back down at my food to regain my composure.
The thing is, I was good at my job. I know I was.
I was good at charming the clients, knowing which designer would suit their body type, and convincing them to try something outside their comfort zone that ended up becoming their signature piece.
And yeah, I loved the attention that came with looking good in the clothes I sold.
I’d been vain enough to enjoy when clients asked for my skincare routine or which gym I went to.
“Do you miss it?” he asks quietly.
“Yeah, I do sometimes.” I run my finger around the top of my coffee mug. “I really liked the glamour of it, the thrill of unpacking new collections before anyone else saw them. But the thing I liked most about it was helping people.”
“Helping people?”
“Yeah, some of our clients were snobs, but others were actually really lovely people. There was this one woman, whose name was Deborah. She first came in because she needed an outfit for her niece’s wedding, and she’d just split from her husband, so you could tell her confidence was low.
But I found her this amazing dress in emerald green that made her eyes pop and showed off her collarbones, and she went from hunched and apologetic to walking like she owned the room. ”
“And after that, she used to come in regularly and buy all of her clothes from me.
“My boss Giselle used to say I was worth my weight in designer handbags because I had the highest client retention rate in the store.”
There’s pride in my voice, but Giselle’s name has a bitter edge in my mouth.
“It’s hard to believe your boss didn’t do everything she could to keep you,” Jared says.
“Yeah, well, it turns out that loyalty and success mean nothing when you suddenly don’t photograph well for the store’s Instagram.”
I thought about how keen I’d been to get back to work after my surgeries, but then I’d found myself consigned to the storeroom and back office, not on the shop floor.