2. You think I have ambulance money? #3
Colby found his phone first, on the floor by his left leg. His guitar had fallen to the floor too, off its clip against the van wall. He grabbed it and crawled to the van's side door. It was stuck. He yanked and yanked, but it wouldn’t open. Colby let out a loud yell. “Help!”
“Is someone in there?” a voice asked from outside.
“Yes! The door is stuck!” he called out louder.
“Can you get to the front?” the voice asked. And then he heard someone trying to open the passenger door. It was locked, of course.
With his guitar in one hand and his cell in the other, Colby crawled toward the front.
As he lifted the mesh, he heard the guy try the handle again.
It was a guy, Colby could tell from the voice.
He crawled into the passenger seat and slipped the lock just as the guy yanked again and the door flew open. “Fuck!”
Colby watched the guy swing backward with the door, but he righted himself swiftly and reached a hand out for Colby. “Come on!”
Colby allowed the stranger to wrap a hand around his forearm and pull him out of the van.
He felt slightly lightheaded, probably from the adrenaline, and swayed as he turned to grab his guitar.
The man, who was broad-shouldered and Colby’s height, which was roughly six feet, put his hands on Colby’s shoulder to steady him.
The touch was gentle and warm. The street was abnormally dark, and Colby could only make out the silhouette of whoever rescued him.
He was disoriented and confused, and his heart was galloping in his chest like a wild pony.
A chunk of his hair was stuck to his forehead and felt wet.
Why did his hair feel wet? He dragged out his guitar and went to put his phone in his pocket, but he was only wearing boxer briefs, so there was no pocket.
Instead, he clenched it in one fist and his guitar in the other.
“Dude, you’re bleeding,” the guy said, then he pushed Colby toward the grass at the curb on the other side of the street.
Colby let him because he didn’t know what else to do.
There, the guy turned Colby around and gently pushed him down, so he was sitting on the curb.
Colby put his guitar on the grass beside him and his phone on top of it before reaching up and touching his hair.
His fingers came away wet, sticky, and… red.
“Fuck,” the guy said, and Colby finally looked, really looked, at the helpful stranger.
It was hot earthquake guy. How the fuck was that possible? Colby blinked what felt like a hundred times in a few seconds.
“Trader Joe’s guy?”
“Colby.”
“Right. Fuck. Shit. What are you doing here?” The guy—Hunter—Colby remembered because he was actually good with names—was staring at him with wide brown eyes and an open mouth. “What are the fucking chances?”
“I was sleeping. I was parked and…” He finally remembered to look at his van—his home—and immediately wished he hadn’t.
The top of the van was dented in, as if Thor himself had whacked the middle of the roof with his hammer.
Only it was a very thick, very large hunk of tree that was the culprit.
It still lay across the severely dented roof.
“My living room window is just up there.” Hunter pointed behind Colby to the apartment building, but Colby didn’t bother to look.
“I heard the tree fall. I don’t know if it was an aftershock, the wind, or what, but it made this huge boom!
When I looked out the window, I saw it had landed on the roof of your van.
I came outside to get a better look and heard you. ”
“My home,” Colby croaked and touched his forehead again. “Fuck! It hurts.”
“We should call an ambulance.”
“No.”
“But you’re bleeding.”
“And I’m a musician who works part-time at a grocery store and lives in a van,” Colby shot back. “You think I have ambulance money?”
Hunter’s chiseled jaw sagged in understanding, and his dark eyes went to Colby’s forehead and narrowed. “It doesn’t look good.”
“Yeah, it looks totaled.”
“Not the van. Your head,” Hunter said, and he stared at Colby with a concern that really wasn’t necessary for a guy he didn’t even know. “I took first aid. I could check it out. If you want to come to my place.”
“I can’t leave the van.”
Hunter raised an eyebrow. “Worried someone will jack your sweet ride?”
Colby glanced at the van and back at Hunter. “Well, that was bitchy.”
Hunter smiled. He looked very… pretty, was what Colby thought.
He may be concussed. Hunter walked back to the van, and Colby watched helplessly as he crawled inside and came out a few minutes later with an armful of Colby’s belongings and his keys.
It took a couple good yanks, but Hunter got the van door closed again.
He returned to Colby and motioned for Colby to pick up his phone and guitar. “Come on. Let’s get a look at that head in my bathroom. I have a first aid kit.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Colby quipped, and Hunter stared at him and shook his head.
“You may be concussed.”
“Funny. I thought that too.”