Page 146 of Rock Giant
Paul slapped a creased orange card down on the centre of Ash’s bare chest.“Get up, goth boy.I need a ride, and I’m cashing this in, so shift your arse.”
Groaning reached him from across the aisle.Xane stuck his head out from behind his curtains.“What’s going on?What are you stomping around for?”
“I need Ash and the Danger Car.The fuckers have left Jodi stranded by the roadside.”
“Say what?”Ash squinted at Paul, his handsome face irritably distorted, but his brain coming online.
“Her fuckwit fiancé’s kicked her off the bus and left her stranded.I need to go get her.You can drive, or you can give me permission to do so.”
“You’re not driving my car.Not even if it is a rescue mission.”Ash propelled himself into a sitting position and swung his legs over the bunk’s edge.“Let me grab some clothes and get some feet on.”
At least he hadn’t lobbed any moronic questions about why Paul needed to run to the rescue.The shit with Nash, the rejection, none of it mattered.Of course it hurt, but none of it changed what he’d promised—that he’d always be there.And he was going to be there, just as fast as he was able.
“Paul,” Ginny said, looking him over from her horizontal position beneath the duvet.Only the top half of her face was peeping out.“You might consider doing the same.Not that the view isn’t pretty, but it’s October in the wilds.Might be a bit nippy out there.”
True.Good point.He saw to that, even though it knacked to pull a jumper over his head.By the time he and Ash stumbled down the stairs a couple of minutes later, Cave Troll was signalling to pull into a layby where Sam and Tony were already backing the Danger Car out of the truck.
“Thanks, guys,” he remembered to say, before Ash pulled a U-turn across the carriageway and pointed them north.Only then did he wish he’d had the foresight to pick up a spare fleece or something.
CHAPTER 44
Jodi Castle
At first, Jodi convinced herself that Nash would punish her for a few minutes and then turn the bus back to collect her.He could be a callous and vindictive knob, but he wasn’t heartless.At least that’s what her jittering, held-together-with-elastic-bands faith in his core values told her.It took ten minutes of shivering alone in the dark, to realise maybe Nash was in fact twice as big of a knob as she’d ever imagined, and how much evidence of that did she really need to get with the picture.The bus wasn’t coming back.At least not before daylight arrived and the rest of the band awoke.That was likely hours off, and consequently, the bus would be hundreds of miles further south if not on a ferry by the time it happened.
Conclusion, she was screwed.Properly screwed.
Help didn’t seem readily available.Traffic along the road was sparse, and there hadn’t been much of a hard shoulder, which meant standing out there trying to flag someone over ran the risk of her not being seen until it was too late, thence,splat, pancake time.
Hell no!Being stranded was bad enough without the prospect of becoming roadkill.
There was also the matter of Flugwhump.The mighty devil refused to be restrained and kept disappearing into the undergrowth.She could only hope he wouldn’t stray too far, and that if someone did come along, he’d come when called, and they wouldn’t drive off convinced she was mad when they realised she was in her pyjamas and prattling about her black cat she couldn’t catch.
The longer Jodi sat, the deeper the wind bit into her flesh, turning the exposed parts blue.The pair of them needed to find some shelter or build a fire or something.Alas, she was no Paul Reed.Conjuring flames from two rocks and a bit of moss wasn’t in her skill set.
Why had she told him to keep his distance?She ought to have said, I’m yours.I’ve always been yours right from the very first moment we met.I’ll always be yours.Can I please be yours?Instead, she’d blinded herself to reality and stoppered up her ears to anything that didn’t affirm the illusion she’d been blithely inhabiting.
Well, it was too late for that now.There were no knights in shining armour coming to her rescue.
With the wind still nipping at her, Jodi headed over to the deserted building.Maybe she’d get lucky and find the door unlocked or a window that she could shimmy through.She tried the door, but it was fastened tight.The windows were all boarded, leaving only the shallow indent of the doorway to shelter inside.
It wasn’t the first night she’d spent alone outdoors, and likely wouldn’t be the last, unless she froze to death.Comforting thought.Norway, even in October, was significantly colder than the UK, especially after the sun dropped.Here, the land was on the cusp of winter.Right on cue, a flurry of snow arrived.
God, she was such a fool.Why had she ever imagined Nash would be reasonable about her calling quits on them?When had he ever been reasonable about anything?Also, why had she stuck it out this long when she knew they were doomed?
She was such a moron.
Unfortunately, the answer was as simple as it was cynical.
Because it’d been better than this.Living with Nash, putting up with Nash and his whims and tempers had been better than this.Being his girlfriend beat the hell out of the misery of surviving winter on the streets.
The dumb part was that she’d been blind to the obvious and significantly better alternatives to both of those options.Foremost: Paul Reed.Secondly, that her friendships weren’t dependent on Nash.Hell, maybe they were even despite him.
So, while she’d forfeited Paul, the guys would come back for her.They would.They’d talk to Nash.They’d talk to Ray.Figure something out.Nash might be willing to dump her in the wilderness, but not the rest of them.
They’d do something, even if they couldn’t turn the bus around and collect her.
If she just endured.Sat tight, waited for however long it took, one or all of them would appear.Or they’d arrange a pick-up, a taxi, something...
