Chapter 24
Oakley
“Lawson,” I shout, jumping to my feet as there’s an ungodly crunching sound followed by the call disconnecting. “Holy fuck.”
“What is it?” my mom asks, her and my dad looking at me wide-eyed from across the living room.
“Phone,” I say quickly, holding out my hand as I redial Lawson with my cell, my feet bringing me quickly my parents’ way. “Phone, please.”
My mom hastily grabs her cell phone, passing it over. Lawson doesn’t answer, but I try again, putting my own phone on speaker as I dial 911 with my mom’s.
“I gotta go,” I tell them. “It sounded like Lawson was in a crash.”
“Oakley—”
“I know,” I tell her, already shoving my feet into my boots.
“We’ll follow you,” my dad says.
I don’t argue, simply push open the door and sprint toward my vehicle as the emergency services dispatcher answers my call.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“I think my friend was in a car crash,” I tell her quickly, starting up my truck, my phone ringing again and again on the passenger seat beside me. “I didn’t see it happen, but we were talking, and…”
I trail off, my breath stuttering.
“Do you know your friend’s location?”
“Um…” I will my brain to cooperate as I pull down my parents’ drive, my mom’s phone tucked between my shoulder and ear. “He was somewhere between my house and my parents’.”
I give the dispatcher our addresses, praying I come across Lawson quickly yet dreading what I’ll find. I don’t allow myself to think about it. I can’t.
I can’t.
My voice shakes as I go on. “He’s not picking up now.”
“I have police and ambulance on the way,” the dispatcher tells me. “Sir, it sounds like you’re in your vehicle, so I’m going to remind you to please remain calm and follow all rules of the road. It won’t do anyone any good if you crash yourself.”
“I know,” I say, even as I speed down the paved backroads toward my house.
“Sir, can I have your name and your friend’s?”
I inhale a ragged breath. “Oakley Beaumont. That’s me. His name is Lawson. Lawson Darling.”
“Okay, Oakley. I’m going to ask you to keep our call connected. If you arrive before emergency personnel, I’ll have you tell me what you see.”
“Okay,” I say hoarsely, setting the phone on speaker before dropping it beside my own. I use my thumb to unlock my phone screen and redial Lawson, but it doesn’t connect.
Goddamn it, Lawson. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.
Be all right. You have to be all right.
I try to be cautious as I drive, cognizant of my dad keeping up behind me and, yes, my own safety. But it’s hard not to skip every stop sign when I need to know if Lawson is okay. What if he’s not? What if—
I cut that line of thinking off at the head, refusing to go there. It’s another minute before I see a car askew in the road up ahead.
My pulse sprints, my gaze swinging about wildly until, finally, I spot a truck half in a ditch at the side of the road.
Lawson’s truck.
Upside down.
“Fuck, fuck,” I utter frantically, fairly certain my heart has stopped beating. Time, too, has slowed to a crawl, every nerve ending in my body on high alert, my hair standing on end as if waiting for lightning to strike.
When I see a head of dark brown hair, my breath whooshes from my lungs.
“Ah, God.”
“Oakley?” the dispatcher says, her voice small from beside me. “What are you seeing?”
“He’s okay,” I rush out, my breath catching repeatedly as I slow my truck, my eyes locked on Lawson, who appears to be digging around in the dirt beside his vehicle. “He… He seems to be okay. There’s another person here, standing beside her car. They both seem okay.”
“That’s good. The ambulance is less than two minutes out.”
I think I mutter something in response, but there’s a loud ringing overtaking my ears, my entire focus on Lawson as I pull my truck to a swift stop at the side of the road. I jump out, jogging toward Lawson, my newfound hope mixed with a heavy fear I haven’t yet sloughed off.
“Lawson,” I shout, the sight of his truck on its top making my pulse skip anew. I glance quickly at the woman nearby. She has her hand in front of her mouth, her other tight around her stomach. “Are you all right?”
The woman, realizing I’m talking to her, nods. “Fine, fine. He won’t stop. I thought, God. He got out of the truck, but he won’t stop.”
I don’t have time to decode her words before I’m reaching the area where Lawson crashed. The man himself looks unharmed, but he’s down on his knees, hastily searching through the leaves and debris beside his vehicle, glass shattered on the ground all around him.
“Jesus,” I curse, practically skidding down the short incline into the ditch. “Lawson.”
He doesn’t look up, shaking his head, his hands raking over the ground.
“Lawson, fuck.”
A siren sounds off in the distance, my mom’s voice behind me calm as she talks to the other woman involved in the crash.
I put it out of my mind, the sight of Lawson whole in front of me hitting me with enough force to nearly have my knees giving out.
As is, I stagger the last few steps to him.
My boots crunch over glass and leaves before I drop to a crouch in front of the man who doesn’t even seem to clock my presence.
“Lawson,” I try again, my voice breaking as I reach for his face.
He startles when I redirect his gaze my way, his eyes wet and unfocused. I nearly sob out my relief, my eyes running over him quickly, looking for any injury that might be there.
“Are you all right?” I rasp. “Jesus, Law, are you hurt?”
He doesn’t answer me right away, his hands shaking as he goes back to brushing leaves and small pieces of glass out of the way. “I can’t find it, Oak.”
His voice is so small I nearly miss it.
“What?” I ask.
He shakes his head again, his movements frantic as he crawls toward the passenger door of the wrecked truck. He drops low, sweeping his hand inside, so much broken glass everywhere I wince, sure he must be cutting himself.
“Lawson, c’mon, let’s get you to the road. You might be hurt.”
“Oak… I can’t find it.”
“Can’t find what?”
My dad’s voice drifts over. “He all right?”
“Think so,” I call back, trying to guide Lawson away from the wreck, but the man is immovable. “Law, you needa get checked. The ambulance is nearly here.”
If anything, he searches faster, his breaths starting to come in short pants. “It’s not here. I can’t find it.”
“What are you looking for?” I ask again.
The sirens cut off as the ambulance arrives, Lawson refusing to budge, his reticence scaring me.
“Hey,” I say as soothingly as I can, my hand on Lawson’s arm squeezing. “It’s okay. Would you look at me, princess? Please? Look at me?”
That seems to get through to him because he finally does, stalling long enough for me to see the shine of tears in his eyes. His voice comes out choked. “Oak.”
“Yeah, I’m right here. You’re okay. Everything’s okay.”
His stubble is rough on my palms as I take his face in my hands, letting loose a slow, measured breath in the hopes Lawson will follow. He does, inhaling shakily before easing out his own breath. I can hear the medics approaching from behind us, but their voices don’t register.
“I think I lost it,” Lawson says, sounding gutted.
“Lost what?”
“My acorn. The acorn you gave me.”
My brain stutters and restarts, my pulse joining the fray. “It’s okay. It’s just an acorn.”
“It’s not,” he says vehemently, his hands coming up to hold my wrists. They feel damp, and I’m fairly sure it’s not sweat. “It was your promise, Oak. And I lost it. I can’t find it.”
Ah, God.
“Law…”
The paramedic’s voice is closer now. “Are we okay down here?”
Lawson’s eyes hold mine, the whiskey-brown imploring me. I pull him into my arms, my lips pressed to the side of his head, Lawson shaking as he hugs me back tight. The man smells like earth and iron, the latter having me squeeze him tighter, as if I could somehow call back his wounds.
“It’s okay,” I promise him. “I’ll find you another, Law. It’s okay.”
My heart breaks right down the middle when I hear Lawson start to cry.
I’m pretty sure the man is in shock, but he doesn’t let go of me as the paramedic starts to look him over.
It takes a long minute before I can persuade Lawson to unlatch his arms, not wanting him to go but knowing he needs medical attention.
I pray his only injuries are the small cuts on his hands, but there’s every chance he got banged up when the truck tumbled over.
The airbags clearly deployed, and although there’s no blood on his head or body that I can see, bruising or whiplash or, hell, even a concussion could be a concern.
I stick right by Lawson, my hand in his vise grip as the paramedic finishes examining him.
My parents are waiting up on the road, the police here now, talking to the other woman who has her own paramedic nearby.
Everything passes so quickly, and, before I know it, Lawson is being loaded into the ambulance.
“You can ride with him,” the paramedic tells me, nodding down to my hand still wrapped firmly in his.
“Thanks,” I say, belatedly recognizing the man as someone Lawson and I graduated high school with. “Appreciate it, Duke.”
Duke gives me a nod and a smile before stepping back to grab his supplies, his partner getting into the front of the vehicle to drive.
The police remain with the woman, although it’s clear there wasn’t a collision.
Her car isn’t damaged in any way, and I catch her telling the cops that Lawson managed not to hit her when she swerved to avoid a deer.
He drove off the road instead, risking himself in the process, the damn fool.
I make a mental note to chew him out later, even though, realistically, I know it’s no one’s fault. Only an accident born from split-second reactions on both the woman’s and Lawson’s part. No one’s to blame, not really.
But fuck if he didn’t terrify me all the same.
I brush Lawson’s hair back as we wait, the dark brown messy atop his head, threaded through with a few silver strands these days.
He’s staring up at me from his position on the gurney, tiredness starting to show on his face and in his eyes.
A good bit of pain, too, although the paramedic found nothing but cuts on his palms and a few on his knees from the glass that tore through his jeans. The neck brace is only a precaution.
The man escaped so many worse fates.
“You scared the shit out of me,” I tell him, my voice wobbling.
Lawson’s hand tightens in mine. “Didn’t mean to.”
That has a rough laugh jumping out of my throat. “Jesus, you think? I need to call your family.”
He looks as if he tries to nod, but the neck brace doesn’t let him.
Duke hops up next to us, grabbing hold of the door to shut us in. “Ready?”
I catch my dad’s eye. He waves me on, pointing to my mom and then our vehicles. Understanding they have it in hand, I give Duke a nod. “Ready.”
He shuts the door, and the ambulance sets off.
There are so many things to take care of.
Getting my phone from my dad once they join us at the hospital.
Letting Lawson’s family know what happened if they haven’t already heard.
Making sure Lawson himself is given a pristine bill of health after rolling his damn truck while trying to find me.
Apologizing for leaving the way I did in the first place, when all I could see was Lawson telling me he wasn’t interested in a romantic attachment with me, even though that wasn’t the case at all.
He has feelings. He told me so himself.
He asked me to kiss him.
My eyes trace the man’s lips now, so full, even set in a straight line as they are. I brush his hair back again, the ride minimally bumpy as the ambulance brings us toward the hospital.
“You’re not allowed to leave me, either,” I tell the man, my voice scraping on the way out. “You don’t get to leave me like that.”
Lawson’s eyes stay locked on mine. “I’m not going.”
“For a long fucking time,” I demand. “Promise me.”
His lips tip up the tiniest bit. “I promise, Oak.”
I know it’s not a promise he can truly control or keep. But I nod all the same.
Because Lawson Darling is finally mine.
And like hell am I willing to give him up.
Not ever again.