Page 9 of The Spark Between Us

“Not our area. You can take that up with the NTSB,” Braden intoned, face devoid of expression. He stopped unloading boxes from my trunk and stood before me, arms crossed and staring like a very stoic Michelin Man. I think he actually had several stacked tires for biceps.

I sized up my new roommate a bit more, in denial that my heart raced at the sight of his face. Earlier, distracted by the hard line of his jaw and the sharpness of his cheekbones, I hadn’t noticed the rest of him.

I’m not gonna lie—the rest of him was nice.

My eyes toured his features like he was a breakfast buffet—the muscled arms, tapered waist, dark head of hair which was slicked back yet nicely tousled. His gray T-shirt made sweet love to his broad shoulders, hard chest, and rippled six-pack.

All that muscle and capability made my heart ratatat with nerves. The people who looked like him belonged in Scotch ads or Avengers movies or, I supposed, at the fire station.

Not near me.

So even though I enjoyed the private tour, I tamped down on the adolescent butterflies and reminded myself I didn’t get all flushed and breathless over guys like him.

I didn’t. Most of the time.

And they didn’t get breathless over me.

Any of the time.

I knew where I fell on the social hierarchy. Some things never changed. Even if there was no homecoming queen and king in adult life, people paired off the same way.

Like attracted like.

My brainpower drew me to intellectual people in drab garments because understanding the energy capacity of subatomic particles as they degraded was more important than knowing Jimmy Choo shoes were just as pretty as Louboutins but sometimes went on sale.

I’d admit to knowing a little about shoes.

My fashion-savvy sister Cherry made it her mission to keep me out of what she called the Fashion Dungeon, so I’d tucked away a few sexy dresses and some awesome designer shoes, but I rarely wore anything to work that wasn’t practical. What was the point? My colleagues didn’t judge me for wearing Chuck Taylor high tops. And my students thought they were cool.

I tipped my chin in Braden’s direction, already feeling like I was imposing by living in his spare room. Now he was dragging my boxes around? “You don’t need to deal with my stuff. I’ll get it later.”

“How?” His eyes glinted with challenge.

I pantomimed carrying boxes. “Like this.”

He shook his head. “No. You’re not carrying five hundred pounds of books after a car accident. I’m already here. Just let me help. I’m going back to the house to get my truck. Okay?”

There was no dissuading the hero fireman from doing his rescue thing. Besides, I really had no plan for getting my stuff to his house. So I relented.

“Sure. Thank you. That’s great.” I hated how his gaze rested on me with a combination of pity and concern. I was a self-sufficient problem solver, and it bugged me that his first impression was of a helpless basket case. Even more, I hated that for the moment, I was one.

Amid the beeping of the machines the medics used to run more tests, I heard a motorcycle rev and saw Braden tear off into the distance. Of course hottie fireman dude rode a motorcycle. And looked like a badass hero doing it.

I turned back to the medic, who had taken a pulse ox clip off my finger and was checking the reading. “Look okay?”

“Blood pressure’s elevated, but that’s normal in the circumstances. All other vitals look strong. No evidence of a concussion. We’re done here, but if you start feeling worse, you should get checked out at the hospital.”

“I’d just like to go home, er, to my new home, since I’m moving here today.” I didn’t want to go to the hospital, mainly because my head hurt, and my neck was stiffening up. I really hoped Braden’s spare bedroom came with a bathtub. A little bit of soaking and a decent night’s sleep, and I’d be as good as new.

The medic smiled and nodded. “Oh, that’s what it was about with Michaels? I heard him say roommate, but it didn’t make any sense since he’s lived alone—”

“Hey, enough out of you,” said a firefighter, whose nametag identified him as Mitch. My head began pounding in earnest, and I didn’t bother to wonder what they were talking about. I’d have plenty of time with my new roomie to shoot the breeze and let him tell me all about his loner tendencies.

The medic dabbed some kind of ointment on the chemical burns caused by the airbag and wrapped my forearms in a swath of white bandages. I gritted my teeth against the sting of the ointment. “Sorry,” he said. “You’re lucky you shielded your face, or the airbag could have broken your nose.”

I didn’t remember doing that.

Fireman Mitch looked at me and nodded. “Anyway, if you’re Braden’s roommate, you’ve got nothing to worry about. He’s a trained medic. He’ll take decent care of you.”

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