Page 33 of Tattoo My Heart
All of a sudden, Cal lets go of me. I am about to move forward and fall against his chest when I realize that he is trying to push me out of the way.
“What… Cal!” The indignation in my voice is obvious. I can’t believe he’d be so callous after making me feel that good. One more reason to add to my list for me not to dream of anything more than what this actually is with him. He would treat me like garbage, I’m sure of it, and…
“Evie, move!” he yells at me as he lifts me up and literally drops me in my seat. I go sideways and my head smashes into the window.
“Cal Prentice, I swear to God, I never hated you as much as I…”
Just then, I realize that we are moving, and not on purpose.
“What is happening?”
I look around us, watching as the trees are going by at a fairly fast rate.
“Something’s wrong with the clutch,” Cal tells me, all the while furiously pressing on the pedals. I don’t know how to drive stick, so I’m not sure what to say. What is even a clutch? And why we do we need it there?
I turn my eyes to look forward and realize that we are heading straight for the pond that’s on this property. The fact that we are at a slight incline is not helping any.
“Uh, Cal…” My voice comes out shaky. “You might wanna stop the Jeep.”
He lets out a sarcastic laugh.
“That’s the plan, Evie. Something’s not right though, and I can’t.”
We are now closer to the water. Whatever is happening, I decide that I don’t want to die, especially not after I just experienced the first orgasm of my life that was induced by another human being. By the man I’ve ever had a crush on. By the man I think I might quite possibly be in love with.
With that last thought in mind, I act on my instinct of preservation. Because, yeah, I don’t wanna die. So, I grab the latch for the door and pull. The door pops open way too easily, I think to myself. Now that I see the ground moving underneath, I’m not so sure this is a good idea. But what other choice do I have?
I take a deep breath, close my eyes, say the shortest prayer in history, and jump.
“Evie!” Cal yells after me just as I hit the ground.
“Ow,” I yelp in distress when I roll and my shoulder comes into contact with something sharp that’s in the grass.
I land on my back with a soft whooshing sound. I keep my eyes closed, scared of what I might see if I look for Cal.
A few moments into it, and I realize that I don’t hear water splashing. Instead, I hear someone running. I lift my head just in time to see Cal dropping to his knees next to me.
“We’re alive?” I ask, terrified of what he is about to tell me. Maybe I am hallucinating, you know?
“Evie, what were you thinking?” He looks me over, carefully touching my sides and making sure nothing is broken. That’s about when it hits me that I am naked from the waist up.
“I thought we were going to die,” I confess when I finally realize that we are indeed okay.
“Die?” Cal’s voice sounds like he is about to bust out laughing. “You jumped out of a moving vehicle, half naked, because you thought we were going to die?”
“I…” When he puts it that way, it doesn’t sound smart at all. “The Jeep was rolling toward the lake, and…” I sit up and bring my arms up and over my exposed chest.
“Evie…” And now he is laughing in earnest. “That is not a lake. That’s a small pond. It’s barely five feet deep.”
“But the Jeep was about to roll into it,” I protest.
“So you were gonna save yourself by trying to break your neck?” he deadpans. “Although, we were going with two miles per hour, max.”
“What?” I am completely offended by this entire incident. “We were going faster than that!”
“Not really.” His shoulders are shaking from laughter. He drops next to me on the grass, hands on his stomach, holding it as he is dying laughing.
I try to stay serious, but now that I think of it, my reaction was completely over the top and unnecessary. I cover my face with my hands and start laughing, too.
