JFK to Dublin (Shower & Shelter Artist Collective Book 1) Page 5

  The fall happened in what seemed like slow motion.

  I thought I could catch myself at first, and I let out a yell as I tried in vain to maintain my balance. This was of no use, because the sharp, shooting pain that happened in my ankle made it too difficult for me to bear my own weight. I fell to the side, taking about ten of my dresses along with me and hitting the side of my head on a nearby dresser. I had never in my life done something so clumsy.

  What just happened to me? Had I been in that big of a hurry when I was on my way to the mirror?

  I made a series of awkward moaning noises as I fell, and before I knew it, I was lying on my closet floor wondering how in the world I ever ended up like that. I had so much adrenaline going that I stood up without really feeling much pain, but it only took a few seconds with weight on my right ankle to realize I was injured.

  "Oh my gosh, you have got to be kidding me," I whispered to myself as I hobbled out of my shoes, testing to see if it was any easier to stand without them on.

  Pain shot through my right ankle and partially up my leg. I tried to put weight on it, but it felt wobbly, causing me to balance on the other foot. Out of sheer frustration, I groaned and began hanging the dresses I had pulled to the floor with me when I fell. By the time I managed to get them mostly back in their place, the pain in my ankle had really set in.

  I was so anxious about my date that you'd think the adrenaline would be enough to get me through, but it wasn't. I flat out could not put weight on my ankle without wincing in pain. The sharp shooting sensation that occurred when I bared down on it could only be lessened by me walking with a limp—and even then, it was difficult.

  I was sitting on my couch, staring at my ankle, which I was pretty sure was now swollen when Collin arrived. He rang when he was downstairs, and I hobbled to the door so that I could be there to open it when he arrived.

  I was so embarrassed about telling him what happened that just before he knocked on the door, I had myself convinced I could go ahead and fake it and still go on the date. I leaned forward to open the door. Nope. I was wrong. That same sharp pain on the outside of my foot happened whenever I put any significant weight on it.

  I did my best to smile and act natural when I opened the door and came face to face with the gorgeous man standing there. Collin. He looked absolutely dashing with fitted jeans and a button-down shirt layered with a wool overcoat.

  I hadn't meant for it to be this way, but my expression must have been regretful because the first words out of his mouth were, "You okay?"

  I tried to manage a smile even though it was incredibly difficult to ignore the pain and embarrassment I was feeling.

  "I don't think I can go anywhere," I said, letting my shoulders slump a little in a defeated way.

  "Okayyy," he said, seeing that I was both dressed to go and also melancholy. I could tell he was waiting for me to explain.

  "I just did the stupidest thing."

  "What?" He stepped inside, and I closed the door behind him. "This is nice," he added, taking in my apartment.

  "It's my ankle." I said. There was a devastatingly handsome, wonderful man standing in front of me, and literally, all I could think about was my ankle.

  Instantly, a concerned expression hit his face, and he bent to stared down at my legs. I hobbled to the side to let him get a better look. He was kneeling, and he glanced up to look at me when he realized I was having trouble putting weight on it.

  "When'd you do this?" he asked.

  "Like five minutes ago. Maybe ten. I'm not sure. Just a minute ago."

  Collin reached down and, using a hand around the back of my heel, he carefully pulled my foot off the ground so that he could get a better look. I used the wall to steady myself.

  "It's swollen," he said, looking up at me with a serious expression.

  There was no question in his voice when he made the diagnosis, and the worst went through my mind. "Is it broken?" I asked. I felt a wave of dread wash over me—the kind of wave that had me thinking and feeling the worst. My ears started closing up, and I felt woozy. Before I knew it, I was having trouble focusing on his face, and the next thing I knew, I was seeing spots. I blinked and took a deep breath, trying my best to keep myself together while knowing I was failing at it.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had an awareness of crashing onto Collin's chest. Or maybe it was the ground. It was something hard. I felt myself getting jostled, and the next thing I knew, I was blinking up at Collin, who was staring down at me with a worried look on his face. I think I giggled with deliriousness as I came into consciousness again. I experienced a distinct fizzy, bubbly, tingly feeling as I woke up that made me feel ticklish.

  "What happened?" I asked, blinking through the delirious haze, and grinning even though I tried not to.

  "You passed out," he said.

  "I did?" I asked, sitting straight up on the couch, and wondering how I had gotten there. Collin had been leaning over me, but he straightened and took a step back when I bolted upright. I flexed my leg in the process, and when I did, I remembered the cause of my sudden loss of consciousness. My ankle.

  "Does swelling mean it's broken?" I asked. I knew it was swollen before Collin even mentioned it, but hearing him say it out loud was what scared me.

  He sat beside me on the couch, leaning over to stare at it. "Not necessarily. You can have swelling with a sprain. Did you fall from something?"

  I shook my head. "I just rolled it to the side in some shoes. It just happened a minute ago, in the apartment. I feel like the biggest nerd ever. I can't believe I'm having trouble walking on it."

  Collin took a seat at my right, and again, he picked up my foot, using a tender approach on the back of my ankle. "I'm sure it's just sprained. My dad's a doctor if you want me to call him, though."

  His parents lived in New Hampshire, but within minutes, we were on Facetime with his dad (who was in his robe). He was the sweetest, most down-to-earth man, and after a few questions where he made me stand up and perform certain maneuvers on my foot, he diagnosed me with a sprained ankle. He said it would most likely bruise, and that I should ice it and rest it as much as possible. He mentioned an elastic brace and indorsed a natural product called Arnica. He asked me if I had either of those, and when I said I didn't, he told Collin to run out to the drugstore and buy them. I watched as Collin said goodbye to his dad and then looked at me with a smile.

  I was all dressed up to go out, but I was clearly stuck on the couch—Doctor's orders. I let out a long sigh, which made Collin smile. "I'm gonna go get takeout," he said. "I'll pick up Arnica when I'm out. Do you have some icepacks?"

  "I have some ice," I said. "But you're not doing all that. I'm fine. I'm just sorry you came all this way and now I can't go anywhere."

  "Don't be silly," he said. "I wanted to get takeout anyway. If you want to know the truth, I'm still exhausted from yesterday. This'll be fun."

  I stared at him, knowing I should say something to let him off the hook again, but I wanted too badly for him to stay.

  "Let me at least call for delivery so you don't have to get out," I said.

  He smiled. "I'll go. I can get everything we need within a few blocks. Do you have icepacks?" he asked again.

  I shook my head. "Not the official pack-packs. I have ice, though."

  He gave me another amused grin—one that had me feeling breathless. "I'll go by the drugstore," he said. "What do you want to eat?"

  "Anything."

  He promised he'd be right back, and I apologized again for our evening not going as planned.

  Lu came by while Collin was gone. She knew I was going out, so she was surprised to see me there. She had plans for the evening, and was just coming by to freshen up, so she was gone before Collin ever made it back. I was glad she came home. She helped me hobble to my bedroom so that I could change out of my date clothes and into something more appropriate for being stuck on the couch with a big clubfoot.

  Collin rang for m
e to let him in, and I met him at the door wearing my favorite pair of leggings and an oversized sweatshirt that had a big Indian with feathers on the front. It was my brother's. I think the Indian was some sort of sports logo, but I wore it because I liked the looks of it and it was comfortable and oh so broken-in. I figured if takeout and icepacks were involved, I aught to just go ahead and get comfortable.

  Collin was carrying two bags, one paper and one plastic, and he grinned at me as he took in my altered appearance.

  "I changed," I said.

  His smile widened. "I see that."

  "I just didn't want to be stuck on the couch wearing—"

  "You look adorable," he said. He stepped past me, kicking his shoes off by the door before heading into the kitchen to set down the bags. "I went for burgers," he said.

  "Burgers are perfect."

  I limped behind him, heading for the kitchen, but Collin told me to stay behind and park myself on the couch. He made himself at home in my kitchen, cutting our burgers in half and serving them up with French fries and what looked, from where I was sitting, like a salad.

  "I got a couple of those gel icepacks, but they're not cold yet, so I also picked up a few bags of peas."

  "Peas?"

  "It might be mixed vegetables," he said.

  "What'd you get that for?"

  "For your ankle. I bought the peas since the gel-packs would take a while to freeze."

  "I'm totally lost," I said, causing him to stop what he was doing and smile at me.

  He held up the bag of frozen vegetables that were sitting on the counter. "I'm gonna put this on your ankle," he explained. "The gel packs are great, but these will get you by until they have a chance to freeze."

  "I'm putting peas on my ankle?" I asked.

  He grinned. "We're not cooking them first," he said, teasing me. "We're not mashing them up and spreading them on there. You just put the bag on your ankle. The little frozen bits will help it feel better."

  I smiled. "Peas, huh?"

  "And corn, it looks like."

  He crossed the living room and presented me with a perfect plate, which included a side of some specialty dipping sauce. As if that weren't enough, he didn't sit down with his own meal until he had carefully administered Arnica gel and the bag of frozen vegetables to my ankle.

  We sat there and ate, talking about sprained ankles and other random injuries we had both endured over the years. He had fallen from a tree when he was a boy and had suffered a broken arm, which left him in a full-arm cast for most of the fifth grade. We laughed as he told the story of how difficult it was to take a bath or go swimming with that huge, cumbersome cast on his arm.

  "Tell me something else," I said, after we ate.

  Collin had just taken our plates to the kitchen and was on his way back to the living room with a white box in his hands.

  "Tell you what?" he asked.

  "I don't know," I said.

  "Something about yourself."

  "I just told you a bunch about myself."

  "I know, but something else," I said.

  He shrugged. "I hit a deer with my very first car. It happened like the second night I had my driver's license, and I was too embarrassed to tell my parents what happened, so I told them it was a hit and run while my car was parked. Anyway, they found the blood, and called me out on it, so that was pretty embarrassing. My mom had herself all worked up, thinking I had hit a person and left them for dead. Dad said she was already making plans to take me and flee the country."

  I giggled, thinking about the sixteen-year-old version of Collin causing so much confusion over hitting a deer, and he laughed along with me.

  "Now your turn," he said. I sighed, thinking about what I could or should share with him.

  "I was an extra on one of my dad's shows when I was little, and I was so freaked out about doing it that I faked throwing up in the bathroom so that I didn't have to go through with it." I paused and put a hand to my forehead, flinching at the memory. "Oh my gosh, I scooped a handful of toilet water up with my hands so that I could let it fall back into the toilet when I made the gagging noise." I couldn’t help but smile at myself for admitting such a thing. "I begged my dad to let me do it, and when it came time, I froze up. I think maybe I was scared I'd fail and disappoint him." I let out a humorless laugh. "I was just an extra. I think I was just supposed to sit at a table and pretend to listen while someone talked to me. Looking back, I was worried for nothing."

  "Most worries are for nothing," he said.

  "Most are," I agreed. "And sometimes, you're not worried about a single thing, and disaster just swoops right in and blindsides you."

  "Sometimes it does," he admitted. "Like when tree branches break when you're sitting on them."

  I smiled. "Or when you devastate your ankle by taking two steps in your own closet."

  Chapter 8

  Collin sat in my living room for the next few hours, but it might as well have been ten seconds with the way it passed so quickly.

  We talked about so many things.

  He explained his philosophy at work—that he, in a sense, had the mental capacity to provide a quality dining experience for people. It wasn't that he was a great chef or had ever even had the desire to be. He knew how to cook, but mostly he knew how to open and run successful restaurants.

  I was able to understand where he was coming from because my dad was the same way with television. He knew the formula, and he was a master at carrying it out. I saw my dad in Collin in some ways, which I both respected and feared.

  I wasn't a fool. Collin, much like my dad, was attractive, not only because of his appearance, but also in the confident, capable demeanor in which he carried himself. You can almost tell when a person's smart by just the right sort of eye contact they give you and the way they carry on a conversation, and Collin was smart. His humor was quick and dry, and he had the ability to impersonate people in hilarious ways.

  We were laughing at a story he told about having to eat something outrageously gross and pretend to like it so that he wouldn't offend his host when he said, "I better go. I have to be at the airport at five in the morning."

  "Oh, I didn't realize your flight was that early," I said, shifting to the edge of the couch so that I could stand up. Between my new brace and the ibuprofen, I was feeling like I could easily limp to the door to tell him goodbye.

  "You don't have to get up," he said, seeing me move. "In fact, I could help you to your bed if you want me to."

  My perv-o-meter was so sensitive, that I gave him a skeptical glance when he said, "bed" even though he didn't mean anything by it. I had been pretty candid with Collin during the last few hours. I had shared my experiences with men, and I could tell he noticed me take his offer the wrong way. He shifted on the couch so that our knees were almost touching and we were mostly facing each other. We hadn't had any physical contact other than him touching my ankle, but at this point, he reached out and put his hand on my knee. I stared at it for a second before making eye contact with him, my heart feeling like it might go beating right out of my chest. His hand was warm. I could easily feel the temperature of it through the thin fabric of my leggings. I had to remind myself to breathe.

  And yet, somehow in the midst of all that, I knew something had shut down inside of me. In spite of my crazy physical reaction to Collin, I still knew I wasn't capable of fully trusting anyone.

  "What?" he asked, taking his hand from my knee, only to run his fingertips along the side of my face.

  "Nothing," I said, smiling at him and feeling, for some reason, like I wanted to cry.

  He dropped his hand, resting it again on my knee. "Listen, Sarah, I'm not gonna say you're wrong about men being despicable creatures, because we are. I won't say I'm perfect, because I'm not. I have been in relationships and felt myself being attracted to women who were not the person I was dating. I had to make a choice not to follow-through on my thoughts. Everybody feels temptation at sometime or another�
��not just men. I'm not saying you're wrong for having trust issues, but at the same time, you should know that there are people out there who can refrain from following every little urge they have."

  I smirked at him. "You wouldn’t happen to know one of those people, would you?"

  "You're one," he said, even though he knew I was fishing for him to say he was one.

  I nodded. "You're right," I said. "I think exclusivity is hot. It's powerful. I watched my dad lose respect when he did what he did, and I'm not willing to do that. My ex's, too. That's exactly why I'm so glad I've chosen to wait."

  Collin took a deep breath and rubbed his eyebrows as if gathering his thoughts. He kept his eyes closed when he said, "Seriously, Sarah."

  "Seriously, what?"

  He stared at me, shaking his head imperceptibly. "You've said the word 'wait' a couple of times when we were talking, and now you said it again. Are you referring to waiting till you get married? Is that what you're talking about?"

  I felt blood rush to my face at his words. Not knowing whether this was a turn-off or a turn-on, I settled for making a where are your manners face at him like I didn't want to answer.

  This made him smile. "Is it? Are you?" he asked sweetly.

  I nodded shyly. "That's the whole point of them cheating on me."

  He reached out to take my hand. "Sarah," he said. I was staring down, but I glanced at him when he said my name. He just sat there and stared at me for a few seconds in silence. He took a deep breath, wearing an expression that said he was carefully trying to consider his words. "I, uh, don't even know where to begin to tell you how that makes me feel. I don't think I even know how it makes me feel." He glanced down again, searching for the right words. "I feel like I should hoist you over my shoulder and drag you off to the wilderness and marry you, or something."

  I giggled since I had not, by any stretch of the imagination, expected him to say that. "The wilderness?" I asked, laughing.

  He scooted toward me, till our knees were pressed against each other. This put us in such close proximity that I could smell him—feel his energy. My eyes roamed over his face, noticing the way the shadow from a nearby lamp fell on the hollow of his cheek.