Chapter 2
Leif
Irealized as I knelt next to the woman with Grandpa and Connie’s dog losing their shit that I wasn’t prepared for a situation like this. Did I run over there and beat those assholes up? My dad had taught me martial arts as a kid, but I don’t think I could take on six drunken bros at once.
Besides, she was hurt.
She saw me looking across the street.
“It wasn’t them,” she said. She seemed to find that hysterical and laughed even harder.
Relief sagged my shoulders, but only for a second. “Who was it?”
But she wasn’t listening. It didn’t matter right now who did this. She was hurt.
I pulled out my phone, concern pounding a hot pulse through my veins. What did delirium mean? “Is it your head?” I asked stupidly as I thumbed in the emergency numbers, panicking for a moment as my phone’s camera turned on.
“Sure!” she said, laughing harder. “My head!”
“Shit,” I said again, swiping at the screen. Finally, I got the keypad up.
The woman was curled on her side now, clutching herself and wheezing as she inhaled.
It was her lungs.
Then the woman laughed even harder.
No, definitely her head.
“Police, Fire, or Ambulance?” a hard female voice on the phone demanded.
Hearing someone new enter the chat, Floof exploded in a new round of barking, sending the woman into bigger peals of laughter.
I reached for Floof’s leash and missed, nearly dropping the phone.
“Hello? What is your emergency?”
“Uh…ambulance?” I said. “And maybe police? I don’t know what happened. I just found her on the ground.”
“Is she conscious?”
“Yes.”
“Any chest pain?”
I repeated the question to the woman on the ground.
“Chest pain?” The woman stopped laughing. Her eyes darted to my phone. “Hey, what are you—”
She sat up in a shot, wiping snow from her face.
“Sir!” the voice on the phone said. “Stay with me!”
“I’m trying, I—”
The woman’s eyes went wide and she grabbed the phone out of my hand.
“Hi! It’s me. The person he’s calling about—” She looked at me as if this was my fault. “I’m okay. Nobody hurt me, I just…fell down.”
Relief ran over me for the second time that night.
Then embarrassment. Had I really called 911 because a woman had slipped in the snow?
Floof barked. I gathered the dog in my arms, grateful for something to do. “Come here.” I stuffed Floof in my coat. I’d been carrying her like this on my way back to the car before she exploded out of my arms, disappearing into the haze of snow.
I stood up, brushing off my knees. Not that there was any point. There was snow clinging to every part of me. The weather had only gotten worse in the minutes since I’d stopped here.
The woman handed my phone back to me.
I reached down and helped her to her feet.
“Thanks,” she said, once she got to standing.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought—”
“It’s fine. I’m fine. Thank you for being so concerned about me. That was really nice of you.”
She said it in such a way that I wondered if someone in her life hadn’t been concerned for her in a long time.
“You’re welcome,” I said. You’re welcome?
We stood there awkwardly a moment—or at least I did, while she brushed the snow off herself and looked around. The guys across the street were gone, the music dulled behind the closed door of the bar.
“Are you—” I began at the same time as she said,
“Well, see you.”
Okay then.
She gave a curt nod, then turned abruptly and beginning to trudge away through the snow.
She was just going to walk away in this? What if she fell again?
Floof yipped from my coat as if agreeing with me. “Wait!” I called. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”
She paused, then turned around. “It’s the middle of the night. I don’t know you.” Then she looked toward the bar and laughed softly. Thankfully, it was a rueful kind of laugh, not loopy-sounding like before.
“My car is right over there.”
Floof yipped again.
She eyed the fur ball under my coat.
“She’s my grandparents’ dog,” I explained, as if that information was important for her to know.
She looked back up at me, her brows furrowed. “Why are you walking around with your grandmother’s dog at this time of night? In a snowstorm?”
“I needed to get out of the house. It wasn’t snowing this badly when I left.”
She glanced up at the falling snow, quiet for a moment. Then she said, “You really want to take me home in this?”
“Of course. I don’t feel good leaving you out here on your own after that…fall.”
She grimaced.
“I fell at least three times before I ran into you,” I said. That wasn’t true. I had very good balance. But I could have. And it made her smile, which made my stomach do a little weightless flip.
I registered right away that she was cute, but I’d been so panicked it wasn’t something I’d dwelled on.
Her hair was a deep brown, wavy as it came out of her wool hat.
Straight dark brows topped hazel eyes that were dark around the irises.
Her cheeks were pink against her pale skin, and brightly freckled.
And that smile—wide pink lips and a slightly crooked incisor—fuck cute.
She was gorgeous, in an imperfectly perfect kind of way.
“What’s your name?”
“Leif.”
“Like the Viking?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And thank you for that. Most people say ‘like the tree’.”
She smiled again. “What, you don’t like being called a tree?”
I swear my temperature heated up a full five degrees with that smile. “Wood you?”
She snorted. “Oh my God.” But I could see her biting back a laugh. Finally, she said, “Noelle. And yes, I’ll take a ride home. Thank you.”
I felt like I’d won a prize.
A few minutes later, we were driving down the street at not much more than walking speed. “It’s been awhile since I drove in the snow,” I said.
“Where do you live?”
“California.”
“What do you do out there?”
“I’m a student.”
She frowned. “How old are you?”
“26. I’m in grad school.”
“What are you studying?”
“You really know how to put a guy on the hot seat, huh?”
“Might as well make sure you’re not an ax murderer. Turn right.”
“Shouldn’t you do that before you get in the car with someone?”
“You’re going slow enough I could open the door and walk.”
“Hey, I told you I haven’t driven in the snow in a while!”
She grinned. She was teasing me. “I know. That’s why I believe you that you’re from California. So what do you study?”
I shook my head, laughing softly. I liked this woman. She was tenacious. I glanced over at her before turning back to the road. I should say science, so I didn’t sound like a pompous ass. But I found myself wanting to impress her. “Astrophysics. And, uh… philosophy.”
“What, together?”
“Yeah.” I immediately regretted mentioning the second part. At least I didn’t tell her it was a double doctorate.
“So you’re a huge nerd.”
I laughed at my utter failure to impress her. “Pretty much.”
“Next left. It’s okay. I’m a theater nerd.”
I took the turn. “You’re an actor?”
“Yes. Are you going to go to space?”
I smiled at her rapid-fire questions. “Not everyone who studies astrophysics wants to go to space.”
She didn’t look at me; just squinted through the windshield at the snow. “You do.”
My stomach did a little dance. “How do you know that?”
She shrugged. “Why wouldn’t you want to go to space?”
I smiled at her. I really liked her. “Exactly!” She didn’t give me a pat on the head like people had all my life when I told them my plans.
“Did you always know you wanted to be an astronaut?”
“Ever since I can remember seeing stars.”
I could feel her looking at me. “So why philosophy?”
“I don’t actually want to be a career astronaut. I just want to see it for myself.”
“Space.”
“Yes.”
“You have questions about the nature of the universe? Is that it?”
“Have you been reading my diary?”
She laughed softly. But when I looked over at her, I swear I saw stars there, too.
“It’s right up here,” she said, pointing at a compact brick house festooned with lights and holiday decorations. A surprising amount of them. It was the most decorated house on the block, by a mile.
I tried to shrug off the disappointment that ran through me as I pulled into the driveway.
Noelle laughed as I squinted in the bright lights.
I lowered the visor. “You’re really into Christmas, huh?”
“My mom is. This is my parents’ house. I live in New York.”
I realized I still knew hardly anything about her. I had a thousand questions. But I was never going to see her again. The thought made me sadder than it should have for someone I’d just met. I wrapped my fingers around the steering wheel.
“Well, thanks for the ride,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
Neither of us moved.
“How far do you have to drive?” she asked.
I ran a hand over the back of my neck. “The hills.”
“The hills? You need chains for that.”
I grimaced. “You think?” I already knew she was right. I grew up in Ohio. Despite not having been near snow in a while, I knew how it worked.
She hesitated. “You should stay here.”
My stomach flipped. For a moment I couldn’t speak.
When I left my Grandpa’s place, I’d been in a foul mood and just wanted to stay out of the house for a while.
Dad and I had been arguing because I only made it out for a weekend visit instead of staying for Christmas.
Now I was being invited into a beautiful woman’s house to spend the night.
“On the couch,” she added quickly.
She assumed I’d been deciding whether or not I wanted to be with her.
“Oh, God, yes. I knew what you meant. I mean, you’re beautiful, and very nice and—”
Her eyebrows lifted. What the fuck was I doing?
Blowing my chances of hanging out with this amazing woman for a little while longer, that’s what.
I had to back out now, before I made even more of an ass of myself.
“Um, I’ll manage. Plus, I don’t come alone.
” I glanced back at Floof, who’d promptly curled up on her blanket in the back seat the moment we’d gotten in the car.
“You can’t drive up the hill in this, Leif.”
She was right. I opened my mouth to tell her I had lots of relatives in town I could crash with. But the words didn’t come out. I didn’t want to leave her. I wanted an excuse to stay, just to spend another minute with her.
“Okay,” I said. “I mean, I could stay in the garage or something if that would be better?”
Noelle snort-laughed.
I was so surprised I laughed too. “What?”
“You don’t need to stay in the manger. I’ll set up the couch in the living room.” She moved to open the door, then hesitated. “You should know my dad is a retired cop.”
“Okay…”
“He’s going to kill me for taking in a stranger, but he’ll also kill anyone who touches me.”
“Touches you? I wasn’t—”
She inspected me a minute. “What’s your mom’s phone number?”
I wondered if she really did hit her head. “She’s out of town; she might not pick up.” Although if she did I was sure she’d be happy to know I was with a woman.
“I’m not going to call her. Yet. Just tell me. Actually, let me see your favorites.”
I showed her the list. It wasn’t big. My parents. My Grandfather. My academic advisor.
“No girlfriend? Not that it matters.”
“No girlfriend. I barely have time to eat back home.”
She opened mom’s contact. “Lucky. It matches.”
Scratch that, my mom would be delighted with Noelle and her safety measures. Meanwhile I don’t think I’d ever stop being surprised at the way women had to bend over backward to protect themselves. And I grew up with parents who’d spent their entire careers protecting women in danger.
Noelle went to hand my phone back to me, but jumped as she looked at the screen.
My stomach dropped. Did someone text me? Some old girlfriend from out of the blue?
But when she turned the phone around, a look of distaste on her face, I saw only my screensaver, which was a Golden Eagle I’d snapped on a hike a few weeks ago, one of the rare times I’d left the lab on the insistence of a friend. It was a pretty good picture, I thought.
“Something wrong?”
“I just don’t really love birds.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Who doesn’t like birds?”
“Me! They’re terrifying. They move weird and they can fly.”
I had to pinch my lips together to keep from laughing. “I quite like them. I hope this isn’t a dealbreaker.”
She grimaced. “No. Unfortunately I’m in the minority so I can’t exactly blame you for being wrong.”
I had to laugh again.
Her lips curled up. But then she looked out at her parents’ house.
Was she having second thoughts? I really didn’t have to stay here.
My closest relative lived only a few minutes from here.
As much as I didn’t want to leave, I also didn’t want Noelle feeling unsafe, even for a second.
“Hey, you don’t have to do this. I can—”
“It’s fine. I do like dogs, and I don’t need this cute little one getting hurt when you spin off the road tonight.”
“Wait, you’re worried about Floof?”
“Aren’t you? She’s adorable.” Then she broke out in a smile. “Come on.”
I was so stunned by how beautiful she was in that moment, I rationalized it was okay for me not to mention all those other places I could stay—probably more than most people in this town. All I could do was nod and say, “Okay.”